Intro to framemaxxing:
Why it’s unavoidable:
| Just like face, height, status, social skills,… frame is a core component to maxing out your success in the dating market. It is way too overlooked by some people. Having a good frame is absolutely key to asserting dominance in social spaces and for people to perceive you as a key player and not a side character. Figure 1: @fletchzilla tiktok
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What makes a good frame:
There are several important aspects to what makes a good frame, we will discuss the most influential ones in this paragraph and for the rest of this thread we will only discuss the modifiable ones past puberty.
The pre-determined factors: A brutal pill to swallow (like many others) is that frame is largely genetic. One of the core aspects to a good frame is bones. First, your height will influence your frame. Having a larger frame overall will make muscle mass look more aesthetic rather than ‘bulky’ (considering same BF%). The heightpill alone is already brutal enough so lets move on to the bones that determine your physique itself. The main feature that makes a physique attractive is the clavicle. It significantly contributes to a wider frame and the famous ‘V-taper’. The smaller your torso and abdomen the better the V-taper will look and the better the shoulder-to-waist ratio will be. This is determined by many factors, some of these being your ribcage size, hip width, shoulder insertions, chest insertions and several abdominal muscle insertions It is theoretically possible to grow your bones using certain interventions or compounds, but we will not discuss that here for these purposes. The changeable factors: Deal the cards you’re dealt, just because you’ve been dealt bad genetics doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything to make the best of it. You will always look better trained versus non-trained. So here is what you can do.
Getting lean is the number one factor to looksmaxxing in general so if you’re not lean; what are you even doing. The optimal bodyfat range balancing performance and looks is around 10% bodyfat. Anything above 15% will probably make you look kind of bulky/bloated unless you have good fat distribution. Anything under 8% will almost guarantee you perform less optimal in any aspect of life, cognitively and physically. Training your muscles is obviously the next thing. All muscles are important if you want to look dominant and want to mog. The most essential of all are your deltoids (shoulders) of course. This is the part we will discuss in most detail in this document; how to build muscle as fast and optimally as possible so YOU can framemog. Another very overlooked aspect of frame, height and how you carry yourself is posture. I am not going to go in detail on this now because there’s other threads that explain this way better than I ever could. Look out for forward shoulders, anterior pelvic tilt and a forward head posture. |
Muscle building foundations:
| If you want to build muscle as fast as possible you must absolutely change your habits and lifestyle to follow the following points: Training:
Muscle hypertrophy, stimulated by motor unit recruitment (a neuron with the muscle fibers it innervates), often done in a gym, is the mechanism through which muscles grow. So in short, our sole goal is maximal motor unit recruitment. As a natural lifter you should probably lift somewhere from 3-5 days/week depending on your split. As a natural lifter your muscles don’t recover nearly as fast compared to an enhanced lifter so don’t blindly follow what they do. Your training split is less important when it comes to building muscle with the most important factor being enjoyment, consistency and frequency. The latter being how often you train a muscle group per week, this should be maximized and I will explain why. ‘The more volume you do, the more stimulus, the more growth’, that was the main dogma during early lifting science, and it is still true. However, this does not mean you should do as many sets as you can in each workout. Frequency and recovery matter. Recent studies find a rate of diminishing returns in volume/workout. In other words, the first sets give more stimulus than the later sets. This is why frequency matters. You get more stimulus doing 6 sets spread over 3 workouts compared to 6 sets in 1 workout. Some higher frequency splits that you can experiment with are: U/L, FB(EOD) and PPL x Arnold. When you have chosen your split, train each desired muscle group with a volume that you can recover from in time by the next time you train that muscle. For high-frequency splits that will mean 1-3 sets per workout per muscle group. Train with good form, don’t ego lift and with 0-1 RIR (reps-in-reserve). Choose exercises that you personally like and which train the targeted muscle group as efficiently as possible, stability and potential for progressive overload are essential. Most people who strength train are not tracking their workouts and are seriously missing out. Tracking your workouts makes sure you progressive overload, which contrary to popular belief is a result of muscle hypertrophy, not a prerequisite. Try adding weight, reps, intensity or better form each workout to make sure you keep chasing that 0-1 RIR as your muscles get stronger, thus again stimulating muscle hypertrophy, thus being able to progressive overload again. Don’t slack and get too comfortable doing a certain weight, but know it takes time and don’t sacrifice good form. Diet: Tracking your calories and macronutrients is essential for managing your body’s energy balance. Eat more than your BMR (calorie surplus) and you will gain weight. Eat less (calorie deficit) and you will lose weight. Muscle hypertrophy is not a caloric-dependent process. The optimal caloric range to gain muscle is a slight surplus of around 50-150 calories (maingaining). Anything more than that will just result in unnecessary fat gain in the long term. Diet wise the most important thing is obviously bio-available protein since it is necessary for building new tissue (vegans GTFOH). Anything from 1,8g/kgbw to 2,5g/kgbw is optimal for building muscle. If you want to maximize motor unit recruitment in the gym, then carbohydrates are essential. When you use your muscles to a mediocre extent your body uses aerobic dissimilation (a.k.a. cell respiration) to break down glucose into ATP, which is the main energy source. When you use your muscles to a heavy extent your body uses both aerobic- and anaerobic dissimilation to break down glucose for ATP. When we eat carbohydrates they eventually get broken down or synthesize into glucose, which either gets used by our body directly as energy or stored as glycogen (glycogenesis). So in short: carbs --> glucose --> (glycogen --> glucose -->) ATP (= energy) And to carnivores, no gluconeogenesis is not an efficient process and does not build glycogen storages efficiently. Other aspects: Sleep is essential for any growth process. If you’re not sleeping for at least 7-8 hours, what are you even doing. 8-10 hours are optimal. Sleep quality is just as important as the total time; make sure you get good deep REM sleep. Hydration is also important to function as a human being in general. If you’re thirsty you’re already dehydrated. |
Enhancement:
| Finally, we will discuss the extra supplements or compounds you can take to take your muscle building to the next level and possibly your looksmaxxing journey as a whole. I am not going into dosing, find that out for yourself. Natty compounds: Protein powder is a helpful supplement if you’re having trouble reaching your daily protein goal. Choose protein powder derived from animal sources. Creatine monohydrate helps you get more energy while training and thus also indirectly stimulates muscle hypertrophy. When ATP is used for energy a phosphate group gets released turning it into ADP. Creatine gets stored as phosphocreatine. It helps turn ADP back into ATP (phosphorylation) and thus gives you more energy while training. Creatine also makes you hold slightly more water, which is good for muscles but might bloat your face slightly. Understanding the GH & HPT/HPG axis: A good understanding of the growth-hormone axis and hypothalamus-pituitary-testicular/gonadal is crucial for understanding the physiological effects of the compounds following this. Growth hormone axis:
HPT/HPG-axis:
The difference between anabolic & androgenic:
The testosterone family
Pros & cons of using this axis:
Half-natty compounds: The following compounds are all not natty but often called ‘half-natty’ because they don’t give super crazy effects and are relatively mild. Short acting GH-peptides like ipamorelin, GHRP-2, MOD-GRF 1-29,… are pretty much useless when it comes to building muscle (and bone) mass. The effect they have on GH secretion is relatively minimal and will only have minor effects like better sleep, slightly better recovery,… which will indirectly positively impact muscle growth but to a negligible effect. Long actin GH-releasers like CJC with DAC or MK-677 will impact muscle growth meaningfully. They raise your baseline GH release giving you constant GH effects in comparison to your natural more pulsatile releases. It does suppress natural GH-release after a while, cycling is advised. Enclomiphene will naturally make your body release more testosterone; up to 2-3 times its natural production by fooling the brain into thinking you’re low in estrogen. However, it does not raise free-testosterone/bio-available testosterone that much. It is also known to meaningfully decrease IGF-1 and knock off your estrogen-to-testosterone ratio. Nonetheless a pretty useful gateway compound. Non-natty compounds: Not going to go too deep into this, there’s not much to explain anymore. HGH is more used for bone growth combined with collagen benefits rather than for its muscle building properties alone. Can be used synergistically with anabolic compounds. HGH is useful but avoid high consistent dosages (10IU+) because of high risks of organomegaly or acromegaly. Some people won’t even be able to handle dosages from 5-9IU because of CTS and high insulin resistance. Make sure to monitor your fasted blood sugar using a glucose meter. Testosterone is the most commonly used steroid for good reasons; test is best & test is base. You have different esters which dictate their half-life (how long it stays in the body), this does not matter that much as you calculate in test/week. Propionate, cypionate and enanthate being the most common ones. Your first cycle should ALWAYS include a testosterone base, in fact for 99% of you; ALL cycles should include a testosterone base. DHT-derived compounds like Masteron or Primobolan focus more on the androgenic effects while still providing substantial anabolic effects. You could include compounds like this in your cycle if your goal is more male dimorphism, which adds more risk for balding. Note that relying on DHT-derived compounds will nuke your estrogen, a testosterone base is key. Nandrolone-derived compounds like trenbolone and DECA focus more on the anabolic effects. These compounds are absolute mass-gainers but will risk estrogen, prolactin or other metabolite imbalances. Note that you should never rely on nandrolone-derived compounds, a testosterone base is key. Extra’s for building a cycle: Start slow & low and testosterone only to see how your body reacts for your first cycle. Aromatase Inhibitors (AI’s) inhibit or destroy the enzyme aromatase which converts testosterone into estrogen. The most used AI’s are Arimidex or Aromasin. I would generally advise always having this stuff laying around when you’re on cycle. This is not a quick fix to your high estrogen blood work but might be essential. If your bloodwork were to show high estrogen, first try lowering the testosterone dose, if that does not work then start introducing low dosages of AI’s. You do not want to risk nuking your estrogen with an AI. HCG is a useful compound which acts as an LH-mimetic. It basically signals your testes to keep producing testosterone. This is often used on cycle or before PCT. Including this is an absolute must if you don’t want to be on TRT for the rest of your life. Post cycle therapy (PCT) refers to the compounds you take in between cycles or after you’re done using steroids to kickstart your testes’ natural production again. Again, these are absolutely essential if you want to stay fertile and avoid TRT for life. Nolvadex, Clomid or Enclomiphene are the most used ones. DHT-blockers destroy or inhibit the 5alpha-reductase enzyme which converts testosterone into DHT. I would only advise using this when you’re almost certain you’re going to be balding. Topical DHT-blockers are superior to systemic ones in my opinion but both work. Using systemic DHT-blockers like Finasteride or Dutasteride can risk certain low-DHT side effects like low libido. |
My personal routine:
| Upper Day (2x/week): (warming up sets not included)
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| Lower day (2x/week): (warming up sets not included)
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| I personally track every calorie and macro I eat + every workout I do. I personally do not use PED’s but might do so in the future, I am very interested in the topic so that’s why I handled the basics here. Don’t slaughter me if this document has some minor mistakes, its my first post. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| (Made by @recess on .org) |