re: I come to you all with a need for help

Got to start lifting and building muscle. Sounds like you have a diet plan which is huge piece

Muscle & Strength has a ton of free workout plans that are good for beginners, pick one and stick to it or do one of the programs others have mentioned in thread. Here's a link to their workout library:

LINK

Not sure where you live but F3 is another free option and is group based workouts which might help with the accountability piece. Here is their website which has a workout locator: LINK /

cheers

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I am 44 years old.

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Build so much muscle in the next six years that when you’re 75 you’ll still look somewhat jacked.

Seriously, build muscle and dont worry about anything else.

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Starting Strength gym

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There is one in my general area, but not possible to get over to it for workouts. I think i'll try some of the advice that you all have provided (Thank you to everyone, BTW) and start small. Work myself up and see where it goes from there. Hopefully in a few weeks i'll come back and provide an update, i'm fortunate that my neighborhood has a gym as part of our HOA and I am directly across the street from it.

I really like the StrengthLog app (not a shill, it's just been really helpful to me lol). Its available for Android and Apple. There's a free tier and a paid tier, some pre-planned workouts from beginner all the way up to 6x/week intense bodybuilding stuff, and it keeps track of your weights and reps so you don't have to try to remember them and go looking for them. You just enter them as you complete the sets and it'll start a rest timer for you before you do your next set. Leaves very little room for "wtf do i
I do next" which I found very helpful as a beginner.

The exercises they pick for you have short gifs demonstrating them as well as text explanations, plus options for subbing them out with similar exercises if you prefer.

I picked the beginner barbell program, which alternates 2 different workouts, and suggests you go three times per week (so like an ABA week them a BAB week). I switched the barbell bench press for dumbell bench press because I was new, I work out alone and didn't want to risk that particular mishap. Started with an empty bar and did that for like 6 months, steadily adding weight. It's been the best decision I ever made.

Quick fix is to build the upper part of your chest and as it fills the man boobs will not be so obvious. Sweating and losing some body fat will obviously be the long term plan though.

OP I started GreySkull earlier this year and love it. I have always walked and occasionally jogged, sit-ups, pushups, but not much weights. I do 3 days a week, bench, squat, deadlift, overhead shoulder press. I rotate shoulder press, squat and 2 other workouts one day with deadlift, bench, and 2 other workouts the next. After each workout I walk a mile. Days off I walk 2 miles, Sundays the one day I do nothing unless wife and I do a casual walk.

My other workouts are leg press and dips and other day lat pull and sit ups

My diet hasn’t changed but I gained 10 pounds over about 3 months of mostly muscle and have lost 15 of it in the last couple months but kept the muscle. I don’t drink alcohol very often. If I ate better would be a much bigger plus, I’m 51

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Did you start off with light weights or go heavy?

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I started pretty low. Did what I was comfortable doing 5 times for 2 sets and as many times as I can my 3rd set. Put in app and it goes up 2.5 lbs next day you come back to workout. If I get stuck, personally I drop it down 10% and work my way back up. Or change it up, say I’m stuck on bench press, I’ll do incline bench for a month or so. Figuring out my weights to start with is hardest. Just start low and get to where you are comfortable and then if you want app you can plug numbers in. Get 1.75 lb weights also.

Answering question best I can, first day I started low like a warmup,(warmups aren’t this much in reality) say 125lbs, then added 10, then 10 more, I think my workout first day on bench may have been 175 lbs where I felt comfortable doing 3 sets.


There is a GreySkull app that at first I wasn’t sure of. I love it now, is paid but can’t remember if you get a free trial or not.

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Eye opening. I've thought my form was great for years on squat, but I've discovered my form there was a lot of room for improvement.

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One thing I learned the hard way and I’d be interested to get others opinions.

If you’ve spent years being sedentary as I did, your posterior chain … glutes and hamstrings….may be dormant for lack of a better word. You can compensate for this in squats and deadlifts until your LP gets you into weight where you run the risk of tweaking your back.

When this happened to me I substituted Bulgarian split squats with dumbbells and the leg press (focusing on the stretch and holding back in place) for barbell squats; and Romanian deadlifts for traditional deadlifts. Been doing this for a few months and it made a world of difference. I started back doing squats again and feel like I have a better base than I did before.