Lifting Advice - Tumblr Posts

hii i just found your blog i love seeing other trans men getting as big and buff as possible. immediate follow. i’m a bottom personally, fucking love the idea of being this bulky hairy masculine dude who you’d never guess is a giant sub bottom.

anyway,, i was wondering if you had any tips on growing shoulders at home? my arms, specifically biceps have grown a bit over an inch so far but my shoulders and back seem a bit disproportionate. i don’t have access to a gym, i workout with dumbbells and a pull up bar at home. any advice is appreciated 🙏

Lateral raises with a very controlled, slow eccentric movement. Elbows should be slightly bent and slightly pulled in towards chest (not straight out like a scarecrow) and you should imagine “pulling” from your elbows. Do this one side at a time and place the hand you aren’t using on your shoulder to feel if the muscle is properly contracting. Do seated overhead dumbbell press with arms slightly bent in. And for rear delt do bent over reverse fly (really focus on the shoulder while you’re doing it, like envision activating the muscle). Do each of these for 3 sets of 8-12 reps and use a VERY LIGHT weight to start. Form is way more important than weight, especially with shoulders. Most people have extremely weak shoulders, so it’s better to start slow and avoid injury.

Basically, you need an exercise for each area of the delts, but front raise aren’t really necessary imo unless you are doing NO chest exercises which like.., idk why you wouldn’t do chest but jic.

I'm stuck without my gym buddy atm and haven't done any bench stuff (only rly machines/barbell squats), do you have any advice for what i can do instead of bench, im a bit too nervous to try by myself?

benching alone is terrifying if there arent safety bars, and not worth breaking a rib or your neck. i used to do dumbbell bench cus it’s easier to just drop them, but this uses more stabilizer muscles so u may need to lower the weight, and id do incline and flat at the very least if u go with this option. cable flys are another good exercise and provides more extra time under tension. If you want just body weight there are tons of push up variations like diamond, close grip, wide grip, standard, spider push up. diamond is underrated imo for an upper chest pump. also dips are great and you can lean slightly forward to hit chest more, but u really need to visualize the muscle u want to activate to help u with form

got any advice for starting to go to the gym alone? i know i just gotta be the biggest guy there but ngl im kinda afraid to start out with how small i am, still in the judgement scary phase

Tbh if you don’t go to a crazy upscale gym that’s super expensive or something most people will be really fucking chill with you. Sometimes roided out guys are dicks, but when I was a tinnnnnyyyy twinky baby big dudes would come up to me unprompted and give me pep talks. I was so stupid and scared I didn’t know how to adjust the cable height for tricep extensions and a guy helped me do it and demonstrated proper form with no judgement whatsoever. The amount of times a man said “everyone starts somewhere” or “you’re dedication is an inspiration to me”, “I can see you’re always pushing yourself to failure and getting stronger” or noticing and pointing out my growth. I can think of maybe 3 times anyone was rude to me and that’s with lifting 3-5x a week every week with absolute consistency, like no matter WHAT I didn’t miss. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again I was in double digit weights before I started, if I can do it ANYONE can!

If you need routine advice that’s another story and I’ve talked about it on other posts too on #lifting routine, and also bulking on #bulking and eating related.

I’m 3 years on T and really haven’t bulked up much. I was always skinny, now I’m lean. It’s nice I guess but I want to be BIG. Is there still hope for me? I feel like I wasted that initial rush of growth that T gives and now I’m flatlining. I admittedly don’t eat much and I don’t work out more than 2 times a week but it’s hard to get motivated to do more when I feel like nothing I do will make a difference.

Ofc there’s hope, there’s not really anything super special about the initial growth other than your body being like WOAH we aren’t used to this! I gained while staying very very lean for the first 2 years and only in the last year (3.5 yrs on T) did I start to bulk seriously.

Start lifting one extra day a week and add an extra snack every day, set alarms to eat, and most importantly condition yourself to have a positive association with the gym. Maybe you can’t jerk off if you skip a day, and then not until you finish your workout that day. You could do something you enjoy after each workout, like watching a certain show or doing a hobby. If none of that works here is a pic of what I used to look like before I started bulking. I never thought I’d make so much progress.

And today

(Bad lighting and also these underwear don’t fit but what can I say. Again, my true before is smaller than the initial pic even but I’m uncomfortable with posting it because it would look pro-ed/bragging about being uwu so thin)

Hey man could you tell me what are some of your go-to chest exercises using only dumbbells are ? I’m feeling super shitty and dysphoric about the way my chest looks rn :/

Chest fly, incline chest fly if you have an adjustable bench. I can’t remember what the exercise is called, but you hold two dumbbells and press them together, and then do a chest press that way (or hold a plate between your hands and press up and out). Obviously flat bench chest press. Tbh pushups variations are invaluable for building at home,especially diamond push up and close grip push up.

I didn’t do anything other than what’s listed above for at-home, but I wasn’t able to build any chest muscle until I was lifting heavy (barbell). I’m not trying to be cynical, you can find trans guys online with great at-home results, but my genetics make that area one of the most difficult to grow.

Hey, can you share the routine you started out with? How much you lifted, what exercises, all that stuff? Thanks

When I was starting out I used a basic push/pull/legs 3 days a week. I was extremely weak because I was recovering from anorexia that had been going on for a decade at that point (I started really young). I literally couldn’t even squat when I started because my legs were so frail, and had to start with bodyweight and leg press with a friend assisting.

After like 3 months of bare bones exercise I did the following. Pretty low weights for everything except deadlift which I was weirdly fantastic at and was even praised by a personal trainer I knew. I did no cardio, and did at home ab circuits like 3x a week as well. I didn’t do barbell bench for quite a while because my chest was so weak and emaciated it was sick. It’s best to start very light, especially with shoulders/chest, to avoid injury and learn good form. That said I did have a pretty intense routine for a beginner because I’m incredibly impatient/stubborn/driven however you want to think about it. I lost pretty much every ounce of body fat which sounds great except I was essentially emaciated again, and had to start eating 3,000+ calories a day to stay just above underweight. Disclaimer: this likely will not be any one else’s experience.

Basic workout I started with 3ish years ago as best I can remember was:

Legs:

squats 5x5

Calf raise 3x10-12

Leg press 3x8-12

Leg extension 2x failure

Hip thrust 3x10-12

Any ab circuit, did quite a variety

Push:

Couldn’t bench the bar because too weak

Dumbbell flat bench 3x10

Incline dumbbell bench 3x8-12

Seated dumbbell overhead press 3x10-12

Ez bar overhead press “triangle set” for like 6 sets (I know, it’s a lot)

Lateral raises 3x10-12

Bent over reverse fly 2x10-12

Tricep push down 3x10-12

Tricep dip 2x failure

Pull:

Deadlift 5x5

T-bar row 3x10-12

Single arm bent over dumbbell row 2x10-12

Lat pull down wide grip 3x10

Lat pull down v bar 3x10

cable row 2x failure (around 15 reps) making sure I pull the bar low to hit the bottom of my ribs

Incline curl 3x10

Cross body curl 3x8-12

Cable hammer curl drip set starting at a weight I could do 10 reps of and going to failure for at least 5-6 weight-drops