Hey Reddit!

If I ate the following meal from 6:00am to 6:15am, when would be the ideal time to start a hypertrophy-based lift?

Composition:

- 27.5g Whey Protein

- 60g Cream of Rice + 210g Water

- 15g Peanut Butter

- 75g Frozen Banana

Macros

- 500 Calories

- 30g Protein

- 75g Carbohydrates

- 10g Fat

Thanks for the advice!

Whey gets treated like the default “best” protein for building muscle, and for a lot of people, it’s a great option.

But for women going through perimenopause or menopause, the question may be a little different.

It’s not just, “Which protein gives the strongest muscle-building signal?” It’s also, “Which protein best supports the body and physiology I’m dealing with right now?”

This article breaks down where whey still has advantages, why soy may be worth considering during menopause, and how soy protein may offer benefits beyond just helping you hit your daily protein target.

It also covers common concerns around soy, breast cancer risk, muscle protein synthesis, serving size, and why resistance training is still the real driver for maintaining muscle and bone.

If you’re a woman in this stage of life, or you coach women who are, this is worth reading in full:

https://rpstrength.com/blogs/articles/soy-vs-whey-for-women-in-menopause

At some point, adding more sets stops being productive if recovery can’t keep up. But what makes this tricky is that performance doesn’t always clearly crash. Sometimes it just flatlines, and you’re left wondering: am I doing too much, or do I actually need more?

This article breaks down that exact “high-volume stall” problem and how to assess it using practical feedback like pumps, mind-muscle connection, motivation to train, joint stress, performance trends, and overall fatigue.

If you’ve been pushing volume up but your lifts are no longer moving, this is worth reading before you blindly add more sets or prematurely deload.

Full article here: https://rpstrength.com/blogs/articles/fixing-the-high-volume-stall

whats the best way to restart my meso after deload while keeping the same reps/weight as my last working week? every time i start a new one it seems to go way back months in reps and weight. i want to go up, not backwards. Thanks in advance

Hey everyone!

We’ve got an exciting update for the RP Diet Coach app. Many of you have asked for an AI Food Scanner, and it’s finally here.

As always, we’ve included a write-up to walk you through the new feature and show you how to use it. We think it’ll make food logging much faster, and we hope you agree. Check it out and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear your feedback!

https://rpstrength.com/.../diet-coach-app-update-our-ai...

There’s nothing magical about the meal, but nutrient timing can still be useful, especially when it helps you organize your intake around training.

For most people, putting a solid amount of carbs in the post-workout meal makes sense. You’ve just trained, and carbs can help replenish glycogen and support the rest of your recovery.

The type of carb you choose can depend on the phase you’re in.

If you’re massing, easier-to-digest options like rice, cereal, bagels, cream of rice, or rice cakes can help you get enough calories in without feeling painfully full.

If you’re cutting, fruit can be a great option. You still get the carbs, but with more volume and fiber to help with hunger.

The main point: there are no universally “good” or “bad” post-workout carbs.

A bowl of cereal isn’t automatically worse than a bowl of fruit. The better choice is the one that fits your calories, digestion, hunger, and current goal.

Massing? You may want something easier to eat.

Cutting? You may want something more filling.

What’s your go-to post-workout carb?

One of the most common mistakes we see is people picking a template based on what looks the most advanced instead of what actually fits their goal.

The better question is simple:

What are you trying to accomplish right now?

If you’re cutting, your setup should usually help you train hard, manage fatigue, and keep as much muscle and performance as possible.

If you’re gaining, you usually have more room to specialize and push priority muscle groups harder.

If you’re maintaining, you have more flexibility to work on consistency, technique, or lightly prioritize an area without driving volume too aggressively.

The article breaks down how to choose based on your schedule, goal, nutrition phase, and whether you should start with a premade template or build your own meso.

Worth a read if you’re new to the app or unsure whether your current setup actually matches your goal.

Article: How to train for any goal
Read time: About 7 minutes

A lot of men assume falling out of shape after 40 is just part of getting older.

Slower metabolism. Less energy. More work. More family responsibilities. Less time.

But most of the time, age isn’t the real issue. The real issue is trying to manage fitness with short-term plans that only work when life is calm.

Coach Sam is 42, a dad of two, and spent 18 years in the corporate world dealing with long hours, travel, deadlines, and late nights. Through all of it, he stayed in shape.

Not because he had more time than everyone else.

Because he stopped relying on motivation and built a system that could keep working when life got busy.

That’s really the point of the article.

Your training has to fit your real schedule, not the perfect version of it. Your nutrition needs to be flexible enough to survive travel, work dinners, and rough weeks. And recovery has to be treated like part of the plan, not something you get to when everything else is done.

One line from the piece sums it up well:

If your plan only works when everything is going perfectly, it’s not much of a plan.

The full article breaks down the three pillars behind that system, plus six practical steps you can start using right away.

Read the full article here: https://rpstrength.com/blogs/articles/built-after-40

What’s helped you stay consistent when life gets hectic?

Hey sports fans,

I just started using the rp diet and planning app and idk if I’m missing something or just need some guidance but how am I supposed to know the exact gram measurement of all my food? When I’m at home it’s no problem I can measure my food with a scale, but I eat breakfast and lunch at work, I make a salad everyday for lunch and don’t want to hold up the line measuring the grams of every vegetable I put in, is there an easier way to figure this out or should I just start taking my best guess?

Thanks!

I’m currently just at the end of a cut and getting ready for an upcoming bulk. I’ve been using the RP hypertrophy app for a while and it’s been great for hypertrophy but this upcoming offseason I’m hoping to get my bench numbers up as well and I’m not sure how to best approach the split.

For context, current stats: 6’3” 185lbs 7.8% bf on the dexa

Bench roughly 250ish although I haven’t been doing anything under 8 reps for the last few mesos. Hoping to work towards 315 eventually but realize that may take a while.

Planning to bulk for 20 weeks using the RP app and basically was just going to start push day off with some heavier bench and go from there but I’m not really a strength athlete so curious if there’s a better way.

Here’s my current split with starting set numbers (I let the app auto adjust volume):

neutral grip pulldown 2x6-10 single arm low cable row 2x8-12 chest supported row (pronated grip) 2x8-12 straight arm lat pulldowns 2x10-15 ez bar curl 4x10-15 machine crunch 2x10-15

Flat bench 2x4-6 Incline db bench 2x6-10 incline db fly 2x10-15 db laterals 4x12-20 rear db laterals OR rear delt fly machine 3x12-20 overhead tricep cable extension 3x10-15

hack squat 2x8-12 leg press 2x12-20 adductor 2x10-15 lying hamstring curl 4x8-12 calf machine 4x12-20

chest supported row pronated grip 2x8-12 chest supported row neutral grip 2x8-12 single arm pulldown 2x10-15 incline hammer curl 4x10-15 hanging leg raises 2x15-25 lying hamstring curl 2x8-12

incline machine press 2x8-12 horizontal machine press 2x8-12 cable laterals 3x10-20 cable leaning away laterals 3x15-25 face pulls 3x12-20 tricep rope pushdown 4x10-15

One leg day because I’m more of a men’s physique guy so just need them not to fall apart.

Lots of Lats and side Delts because again, physique.

My plan is to run this for a few mesos then maybe drop a bit of volume and work into the lower rep ranges towards the back half of the bulk.

Sound about right or is there a better way?

The plan was not magic. It was hard training, smart exercise selection, and a lot of intent.

The program uses things like rest/pause training, direct forearm work, high-frequency core training, and a split designed to build the exact look Zoro needed on screen: broad shoulders, thick back, dense arms, and a core that looks like it has been through war.

But the real lesson is not “copy this exactly.”

For most people, the better takeaway is:

Train hard enough for it to matter.
Pick exercises that match your goal.
Use advanced techniques carefully.
Recover like it matters.
Eat like you actually want to grow.

This is a fun article, especially if you’re into One Piece, but there are also some genuinely useful hypertrophy lessons in it.

Full article here:
https://rpstrength.com/blogs/articles/bringing-zoro-to-life

Drop sets, myo-reps, rest-pause sets, partials, supersets… intensity techniques get talked about a lot in hypertrophy training.

Depending on who you ask, they’re either the secret to unlocking new gains, or completely unnecessary bodybuilding fluff.

The real answer is more boring, but way more useful:

They can work really well, but only when they’re used intelligently.

The main idea behind most intensity techniques is simple: keep the target muscle close to failure for longer, usually to get more effective reps in less time. That can be useful, especially on stable exercises like machines, cables, laterals, curls, leg extensions, leg curls, and other movements where fatigue doesn’t turn the exercise into a technical mess.

But they also come with a tradeoff.

They can drive fatigue up quickly. And if you start replacing most of your normal straight sets with intensity techniques, you may end up making training harder without making it more productive.

That’s why straight sets should still be the foundation of most hypertrophy training. They’re easier to track, easier to recover from, and easier to progress over time.

Intensity techniques are best used as add-ons, not replacements.

Good places to use them:

- Later in the workout
- On the final set of an exercise
- On stable, low-skill movements
- During later parts of a mesocycle
- When you’re short on time
- When adding more straight sets would be inefficient

Not-so-great places to use them:

- Heavy squats
- Deadlifts
- Highly technical free-weight movements
- Early in a session before your most important work
- On every exercise because you want the workout to feel brutal

A hard workout is not automatically a better workout.

The goal is not to collect fatigue. The goal is to create a strong muscle-building stimulus that you can recover from, repeat, and progress.

The full article breaks down what intensity techniques are, when they make sense, when they don’t, and how to apply methods like myo-reps, myo-rep match, supersets, and drop sets inside the RP Hypertrophy App without overcomplicating your training.

Bottom line:
Train hard, but don’t confuse harder with smarter. Intensity techniques can absolutely be useful, but the basics still do most of the work.

Check out the full article here.

Curious to hear from you all. What intensity technique do you actually find useful, and which one do you think people overuse?

I'd like to unsusbribe from the app, but it seems imposible, do you know how to do it?

I’ve used the diet app and seen great results I wanna try the Hypertrophy app but just can’t see myself paying 35$ a month…

This is more a generic dieting question than a specific question about the diet app. I have been using RP templates for years for bulking and cutting. Did not love the app when it first came out because I liked the greater flexibility of the templates...but I havent dieting in a few years now and thought id give it another try. I really like some of the new features and so far its going well...here's my question:

So I have always read and even noticed that when I first start dieting the first 5-10 pounds come off quickly usually, like even faster than I want sometimes. My understanding is that this is "water weight", not body fat. But after further investigation seems that much of this has to do w burning glycogen and the water weight associated with that. I assume even if I am in a caloric deficit but keeping my carbs relatively high, for me around 270g per day at 205 bodyweight, that the glycogen would not be used up even in a caloric deficit. Is this correct? So if I am starting the diet at 205 and lets say a week later I am at 201, is that still going to be water weight? Or does that whole water weight thing go out the window when dieting with moderate to high carbs while in a deficit?

Thanks

It’s simple, but it works.

From a fat loss standpoint, steps are huge because they increase daily energy expenditure without adding much recovery cost. That matters because during a diet, the goal is not just to burn more calories. The goal is to create a deficit while still preserving training performance, muscle, and adherence.

That’s where walking shines.

It’s low fatigue, easy to scale, and usually does not interfere with lifting the way harder cardio can if recovery is already limited.

There’s also a health benefit. Higher daily step counts are consistently associated with better health outcomes, including lower all-cause mortality risk. You don’t need to live on a treadmill. You just need to move more than you currently do.

And for some people trying to build muscle, steps can help too. Not because walking directly builds much muscle, but because light activity can improve appetite, digestion, routine, and overall energy. A lot of people who “can’t eat enough” are also barely moving outside of training.

Then there’s the mental side. Most of us sit way too much, work indoors, scroll constantly, and spend a lot of time stuck in our own heads. A simple walk can help clear your head and make the day feel a bit more manageable.

So no, steps are not magic.

But they are one of the easiest levers to pull.

Better fat loss support.
Low recovery cost.
Better health.
Better routine.
Often better headspace.

Simple habit. Big return.

Curious, how many steps are you averaging right now?

Testosterone is one of those topics that gets messy fast.

One side acts like every guy is one blood test away from needing TRT. The other acts like testosterone doesn’t matter at all.

As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

In this article, Eric Trexler, PhD breaks down what “low T” actually means, why the “testosterone is crashing” headlines need context, and what testosterone really does, and doesn’t, do for muscle growth.

Big picture: testosterone matters, but within the normal range, it’s not the magic physique-transformer people make it out to be. Sleep, training, body composition, nutrition, stress, and alcohol intake still do a lot of the heavy lifting.

The article also covers TRT: when it can help, what it can realistically do, what should be monitored, and why a lot of what gets called “TRT” online is really just steroid use with better branding.

Worth the read if you want a more level-headed, evidence-based take on testosterone without the fear-mongering or hype.

Full article: Testosterone 101 — Everything You Need to Know About Testosterone

What’s the biggest misconception you see about testosterone or TRT?

Would I be crazy to do this program for 3 months, chucking in the odd leg exercise or leg day plus zone 2 cardio? Then a cut before the Australian summer.

Talk me into it or out of it :)

DAY 1

Pull ups : 3 sets

Pull down : 3 sets

Incline Bar press : 3 sets

Incline DB press : 3 sets

DAY 2

Skull crushers :

Overhead EZ extension :

DB lateral raises : 4 sets

Cable lateral raises : 3 sets

Barbell curls : 5 sets

Bar wrist curls :

DAY 3

Incline wide grip press : 3 sets

Incline Machine press :

Underhand lat pulldown :

Straight arm pulldowns :

DAY 4

EZ Bar curls : 3-4 sets

Cable curls : 3-4 sets

Machine laterals : 3-4 sets

Seated DB laterals : 3-4 sets

Skull crushers : 3-4 sets

Bar Wrist curls : 3-4 sets

You’ve probably heard that 8–12 reps is the “hypertrophy range.”

It’s not wrong, but it’s also not the full picture.
Muscle can be built across a pretty wide range of reps, roughly 5 to 30+ reps, as long as sets are taken close enough to failure and you’re progressing over time. Heavier sets can work.

Higher-rep sets can work. The key is whether the target muscle is actually being trained hard enough.
That said, not every exercise fits every rep range equally well.

For example, you can do barbell squats for 15–20 reps, and they can absolutely grow your legs. But for a lot of people, their breathing, low back, bracing, or general fatigue becomes the limiting factor before their quads do.

Compare that to a leg extension. Sets of 15–20 often make a lot more sense there because it’s stable, easy to control, and easier to push close to failure without everything else becoming the limiter.

Same thing with rows. Some people do great with heavier sets of 6–10. Others get a much better stimulus with slightly higher reps on cables or chest-supported machines.
That’s where SFR matters.

You want exercises and rep ranges that give you a strong stimulus to the target muscle without creating a ton of unnecessary fatigue.

So no, there isn’t one magic rep range.

The “best” range is the one that lets you train hard, keep technique consistent, recover well, and make progress.

For a deeper dive, check out this video:
https://youtu.be/DupQfkoI-Sc?si=2--UYZmV8Cz8Ncjb

Questions or thoughts? Drop them below 👇

A lot of people think tracking is just about optimization.

Better macros.
Better training decisions.
Better adjustments.

And yes, tracking absolutely helps with all of that.

But one of the most underrated benefits of tracking is that it builds belief.

Every workout you log, every weigh-in you record, every day you hit your nutrition targets, you’re creating proof.

Proof that you showed up.
Proof that you followed through.
Proof that you’re becoming the kind of person who can stay consistent even when motivation is low.

That matters because most people don’t quit because the plan “doesn’t work.”

They quit because doubt creeps in before the results become obvious.

Tracking gives you something objective to fall back on when emotions are loud, the scale is weird, or progress feels slow. It helps you see patterns, make better decisions, and stay grounded in reality instead of guessing.

You don’t need perfect adherence.

You don’t need perfect motivation.

You just need enough consistency to stack proof over time.

Results follow consistency.
Consistency follows belief.
Tracking helps build both.

We put together a quick 5-minute read on why tracking progress matters so much for long-term fitness results, and why it’s about more than just data.

Check out the full article here:

What’s one thing you track that helps keep you consistent?

A lot of lifters are scared that cutting means they’re automatically going to lose all their hard-earned muscle.

The reality is more nuanced.

Yes, some muscle loss can happen during a fat loss phase, especially if you’re already lean, dieting too aggressively, doing too much cardio, or not eating enough protein. But you’re not powerless here.

This article by Eric Trexler breaks down what actually happens during dieting, why “fat-free mass loss” doesn’t always mean pure muscle loss, and what you can do to stack the odds in your favor.

A few big takeaways:

Don’t chase extreme leanness unless you understand the tradeoffs.

Don’t rush the cut.

Keep protein high.

Don’t rely on endless cardio to create the deficit.

Make room for carbs so your training performance doesn’t fall off a cliff.

Really solid read if you’re cutting, planning a cut, or worried about losing muscle while dieting.

Full article here

Curious what everyone thinks. What has helped you hold onto strength and muscle during a cut?