49 gym and workout tips

Back in 2016, my weight went up to ~89kgs. It was the heaviest I’ve been. Through workouts & dieting, I reduced it to ~75kgs within 2 months. And I’ve been oscillating between 77-85kgs over the last several years.

As of Oct ‘22 though, my weight is ~76kgs. I can do ~12 clean pull ups. 1 Rep Max for bench would be around 85kgs.

Ive seen much better strength many years ago, but these days I’m going for tone more than strength.

1. If you want to lose weight quickly, never eat to a point where you feel “full” or you begin to start getting full. Stop way before you get to that point. Adding to that - at several points throughout the day, you need to feel “hungry”. If both of these aren’t happening, you’re not at cutting down weight effectively.
2. If you find yourself craving carbs or sugar or just feeling hungry but you know you’ve already eaten enough over the day, quickly drink a lot of water. It temporarily fills up your stomach, and tricks your mind into thinking you’re full.
3. If goal is weight loss, but you don’t see your weight dropping every other day, keep eating lesser every subsequent day until you begin to see it drop.
4. If you want to lose weight, be on a calorific deficit. If you want to put on muscle, be on a protein-heavy calorific surplus.
5. If you have social commitments and you don’t want to drink (because of diet discipline) but your friends force you to - have some shot glasses filled with water that you take in front of them #deception
6. Doing core exercises makes you stronger in a lot of other exercises. Cause your core gets used everywhere.
7. If you get even a very mild sharp pain (this happens in joint areas like elbow, shoulder, hip, lower back or knee), stop what you're doing immediately. Something is wrong. Maybe its your form, maybe you're pushing too much weight. Maybe your joints are weak. You're rotator cuffs are weak. But never push through a sharp pain, no matter how mild it is.
8. Use https://musclewiki.com/ to understand your different muscle groups and how to target them using workouts
9. Get a smartwatch that tracks heart rate and sleep. It’s really useful to track the intensity of your workout. I find myself constantly looking at my watch while working out to make sure my average heart rate stays high.
10. Get 8 hours of sleep. My bad workout days are usually days where I didn't get enough sleep.
11. You only need 2 main supplements. A pre-workout to get you into beast mode. A whey protein shake for right after the workout. If you're not okay with a pre-workout, take coffee instead.
12. Creatine works. It increases my strength by approx. 10%.
13. Creatine and pre workout make you irritable for upto several hours after you take it. For that reason I don’t use them anymore, even though they are useful.
14. Do your cardio AFTER your workout if you want to build your muscle. Cause you’d want to save your energy for the actual weightlifting.
15. Do dynamic stretches and light weight reps before you’re actual sets. It’s the best warmup.
16. Save static stretches for the end of your workout. Not at the start.
17. Cut all carbs ~4hrs before you sleep.
18. Carbs make you sleepy. So if you don't need energy for working out but instead want to have a productive work day, then eat less carbs during the day.
19. Working on your forearm grip strength lets you do more pull ups. You're forearm is one of the limiting factors when it comes to heavy back exercises
20. Get a trainer at least for a few months when you are starting out. They help you get your form right. Once you're form in most of the exercises is sorted, you can consider dropping them
21. After your form is sorted, the main benefit of having a trainer is accountability plus having someone to push you into coming to the gym on your lazy days
22. Incentivise your trainer to push you hard. For e.g., tell him that you’ll give him a cash bonus if in 3 months you are able to go from 0 pull ups to 5 clean pull ups.
23. If your trainer is constantly on his phone / talking to other trainers / isn’t pushing you to cut your rest periods short / isn’t pushing you to get that last 2-3 reps in - change your trainer.
24. Dont pay your personal trainer a flat fee per month that’s independent of how many sessions you actually take. Cause the trainer will have no reason to push you to come to the gym more often, because he gets paid the same amount even if you barely workout during the month. So your payment should be done on number of sessions rather than a monthly flat fee
25. Work on your rotator cuffs. Or you will get a shoulder injury. I ignored my rotator cuffs for years but continued to push heavy on shoulder exercises. Then the pain started in my left shoulder joint and continued for months. It only went away when I did a ton of rotator cuff exercises
26. If you used barbells or bars, put them back on the rack where you found it. Don’t be that person in the gym thats obnoxious.
27. Don’t make loud sounds or drop weights hard without making any attempt to bring it down gently. People will laugh at you behind your back.
28. If you don’t have a trainer, find a workout buddy who has similar goals as you.
29. If your goal is weight loss do not waste your time doing bicep curls, or any other minor muscles like traps or calf raises.
30. Best way to lose weight is a lot of compound exercises - especially squats and deadlifts. They’re intense and get your heart rate really high.
31. If you are a guy and you want to look good in a button down shirt, work on your traps and shoulders. Do a lot of shrugs and shoulder presses
32. Triceps make up 70% of the arm’s total mass. Work on those if you want to fill up your shirt sleeve.
33. Do drop sets to push yourself to your limit. Think about it, if you do 8 reps of an 60kg bench press and you cant do you 9th rep anymore. Does that mean you’ve pushed yourself to the max? Nope. Remove 10kgs and do another 5 reps.
34. 3-7 reps to develop power. 7-15 reps to develop mass. 15+ when you want to build endurance.
35. Switch it up. Go for a group MMA class for a month. Or swimming, badminton, Zumba.
36. Be rhythmic with your breathing while doing reps. For e.g. while pushing the bar up during a bench press, you want to breathe out. And deep breathe in while the bar is coming back down.
37. HIIT workouts are hands-down the most effective way to lose weight.
38. For almost all your exercises, keep your back arched. If you're not sure what having an arched back means, google some images first. Your stomach and chest should protrude outwards in a slightly exaggerated manner.
39. Aim for 1.5g-2g of protein for every kg your body weighs.
40. For protein, add a lot of eggs, fish, chicken into your diet. I like eating a lot of Seer (Surmai) fish. Basa I’ve heard is unhealthier (and cheaper) than Seer.
41. Reduce alcohol consumption significantly. Don’t put anything harmful in your body or lungs.
42. Swap white rice for brown or red rice.
43. Swap out seed or vegetable oils and instead use ghee or olive oil or any of the healthier types of oils. Even better, steam or pressure cook it and avoid oil altogether.
44. Use less salt in all your food
45. CRED has a lot of healthy snacks you can get. I always keep a stock of random healthy snacks around the house
46. Cut out soft drinks from your life. Even those Tropicana “100% Real Apple Juice” are not good for you. Avoid.
47. If someone else in your house buys junk food, throw it away when they’re not looking.
48. I don’t follow this myself, but many people vouch that cold showers after a workout are great for muscle recovery.
49. On certain days when you reach the gym but you realise it’s not a good day (because of low energy or lack of sleep) for the standard heavy workout you’d originally planned, do simpler exercises like rotator cuffs or low weight kettle bells. Do stretches. Mild cycling.