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2005/06/02, 05:19 PM
Hi,
Wondered if I could pick your brains on a topic.
I have trained for about a year training 3 times a week. I've made good gains in the year in terms of strength and (more importantly) weight loss. I lost 5 stones and am now at a pretty healthy weight. I'd like to push my training a bit harder now though and try and gain a little more muscle. What do you think of the following program? I have now done it for about 2 weeks but am unsure if it suitable;
Monday
Bench Press - 5 sets of 12-6 reps
Incline Press - 5 sets of 12-6 reps
Dumbell Flyes - 3 sets of 12-8 reps
Crunches - 3 sets of 15-20 reps
Leg Raises - 3 sets of 15-20 reps
Tuesday
Military Press - 5sets of 12-6
Dumbell Laterals - 4 sets of 12-8
Dumbell Rear Laterals - 4 sets of 12-8
Barbell Shrugs - 5 sets of 12-8
Calf Raises - 3 sets of 12
Thursday
Barbell Curls - 5 sets of 12-6
Incline Dumbell Curls - 3 sets of 12-8
Concentration Curls - 3 sets of 12-8
Incline Tricep Press - 4 sets of 12-8
Close Grip Bench Press - 4 sets of 12-8
Russian Twist - 3 sets of 12
Friday
Deadlift - 6 sets of 15-6
Barbell Bent Rows - 5 sets of 12-6
Lat Pulldowns - 4 or 5 sets of 12-8
Squats - 5 sets of 12-6
Leg Extensions - 3 sets of 12-8
Leg Curls - 3 sets of 12-8
Really appreciate it if you could offer a bit of advice on whether this is suitable or not. If it is relevant, my diet is very good - I lost weight with Weightwatchers which helped me form good eating habits, I eat a lot of white meat and fish, lots of fruit and try to consume extra protein between meals with the odd protein rich snack like tuna, sardines or milk.
Thanks in advance,
Gaz
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2005/06/02, 05:45 PM
That looks good to me.
DX
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2005/06/02, 05:48 PM
Looks like a good routine. Only change I would make would do barbell bench and dumbell incline bench. Other wise I would say stick with it, looks like a really good routine.
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2005/06/02, 06:15 PM
6 sets of deadlifts looks just a tad high to me. I would drop it to 4 then every once in a while to shock you body you could do 5 or 6 sets to keep your body guessing. Cause if you start at 6 you reall have no place to go 8 sets would be over kill in my opinion. I would also keep the deadlift at 12-6 reps wise. I see you also use 5 sets in a couple other exercises as well I'm not sure if one of those is a warm up? Other than that your split looks pretty good to me as well.:dumbbell:
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2005/06/02, 08:20 PM
I am not too sure about your split....training legs and back in one workout is counterproductive....both require a ton of energy and you can't focus well on either....
legs and back should be the hardest workouts....mainly because you'll be doing the hardest compound lifts/using most muscles......
I have no issues with your volume for any exercises since you're going moderate in terms of resistance...so 6 sets of deadlifts is fine...however like I said separate back and legs into separate workouts....either have them on separate days....or combine smaller bodyparts alongside with them....legs/biceps, back/triceps.....this way you'll have more energy to focus each bodypart better....
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2005/06/03, 04:58 PM
Cheers for the advice - very much appreciated. I'll certainly put your advice into action.
So far as the sets and so on are concerned, I actually plucked this routine from a website rather than designing it myself but I have been using the first set or two in exercises with 5 or 6 sets as a warmup. I can very much see your point, Menace about the legs and back on the same day. The squats late on in the workout was a concern of mine when I first started because a few good sets of them can really drain you. That said though, it doesn't seem to be causing me problems yet. I used to do squats first in my workout and can still go at them with as much gusto as I did then.
Thanks again, always good to benefit from others' experience.
Gaz
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2005/06/03, 05:40 PM
I agree with menace, doing deadlift and squat together isn't a good idea. I failed to notice that when I first posted. Once you get into higher weights, when you do dead lift or squat you'll need 2-3 days to recover before you can do the other. Ever heard of the push/pull routine? Doing chest/biceps together, shoulder/back together, etc. Works really well, keeps you from draining yourself too much.
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2005/06/03, 06:21 PM
No, I've not heard of push / pull routines before. Any suggestions as to how that would work with he above routine as a basis? I mean, I like all of the exercises in the routine and the timing of each training session is great - I train in the mornings before work and so can't really train for more than an hour and a half (including warm-ups and cooldowns) each day.
I do see what you mean about the exercises becoming difficult as time goes on and my strength improves - hard to do good sets of squats after you've already used up energy on the deadlifting. At the moment my deadlift is 217 lbs for 4 reps and my best sqaut is 161 lbs for 3 reps and the squat has not really improved in months come to think of it (though I've followed a different routine previously and focused on weight loss rather than muscle or strength gain so that's not a great concern yet).
Any suggestions you might have would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Gaz
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2005/06/25, 05:59 PM
I swapped my routine around so I do Legs and Triceps on Thursday and Back and Biceps on Fiday, thereby splitting back and legs over two days as you suggested. It's worked a treat and I can now train with far more energy than I could before. Training legs after doing a back workout was a bithard going!
Thanks again for the advice, much appreciated.
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Homer? I know no Homer - my name is Guy Incognito
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