Can I get some advice on this workout?

[SirHartlar]

My friend introduced me to free weights after doing a few months of resistance machines, and I wanted to know what to add or improve on with this routine. I'm not sure but I feel it's missing some back exercises, but I'm not 100% what I need to add to it.

 

[hide=Workout]Exercise/Seat adjust/Reps

Chest press/none/3x10

Chest press/incline/3x10

Chest press/decline/3x10

 

Pec fly/none/3x10

Pec fly/incline/3x10

Pec fly/decline/3x10

 

Overhead extension/none/3x10

Tricep pulley/na/3x10

 

Cable x punch/na/3x10

Bicep curl/na/3x10

Bicep pulley/na/3x10

 

Ab crunches/na/3x10

Plank/na/3x 60s

Side plank/left and right/ 3x30s each side

Leg raise/left and right/3x30s each side[/hide]

 

I did that workout yesterday and it felt pretty good, longest I've ever had and a lot more difficult than anything I've done before. All in all it lasted about two hours, but anything over that might be too much at once so how would I go about splitting it? Bearing in mind once my exams are over in a couple of weeks I'll be able to go pretty much everyday.

[Myweponsg00d]

First of all, when you seek fitness advice it is very important to determine your exact goals. There is a huge difference between a program that builds muscle size, muscle strength, flexibility, speed, and endurance.

 

If you are looking for muscle size, this workout is far too long. 1 hour is basically how long a weight training workout should be. I would never go over 1.5 hours. Putting that much strain on your muscles is going to cause them to basically eat themselves, plus it can set you up for injury, and also there is a hormone called cortisol that starts to be a real problem after 60-90 minutes.

 

Secondly, there are 5 exercises that need to be a part of every weight training program. Bench press, deadlift, squat, military press, and pull-ups. These exercises are called compound movements, which basically means they use a lot of different muscle groups together. This helps make sure that all your muscles work together and develop at a similar rate.

 

Thirdly, too much chest work. It is ridiculous to do flat, incline, and decline bench all on the same day, followed by flat incline and decline fly.

 

Fourthly, split your workouts into chest+triceps, back+biceps, and legs+shoulders. Bench press hits your triceps secondary, so you should do chest and tris. When you do pullups for your back, your biceps also work. So its a good day to do both.

 

Finally, yes you do need more back work. Rows, bent over rows, deadlifts, pullups, lat pulldowns, one arm dumbell rows, good mornings, and hyperextensions are all good back stuff. Do deadlifts, pullups, and pick 2-3 other exercises.

[Bloodstain]

snip

 

Everything he said.

 

There are some good routines here,

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3250231

 

or I guess you could try starting strength, but I'd go with one of the other routines.

Hard gainer is a lot of fun and people are seeing some good gains on it, so I'd give it a shot. You should also look into your diet if you want to lift weights

[SirHartlar]

First of all, when you seek fitness advice it is very important to determine your exact goals. There is a huge difference between a program that builds muscle size, muscle strength, flexibility, speed, and endurance.

 

If you are looking for muscle size, this workout is far too long. 1 hour is basically how long a weight training workout should be. I would never go over 1.5 hours. Putting that much strain on your muscles is going to cause them to basically eat themselves, plus it can set you up for injury, and also there is a hormone called cortisol that starts to be a real problem after 60-90 minutes.

 

Secondly, there are 5 exercises that need to be a part of every weight training program. Bench press, deadlift, squat, military press, and pull-ups. These exercises are called compound movements, which basically means they use a lot of different muscle groups together. This helps make sure that all your muscles work together and develop at a similar rate.

 

Thirdly, too much chest work. It is ridiculous to do flat, incline, and decline bench all on the same day, followed by flat incline and decline fly.

 

Fourthly, split your workouts into chest+triceps, back+biceps, and legs+shoulders. Bench press hits your triceps secondary, so you should do chest and tris. When you do pullups for your back, your biceps also work. So its a good day to do both.

 

Finally, yes you do need more back work. Rows, bent over rows, deadlifts, pullups, lat pulldowns, one arm dumbell rows, good mornings, and hyperextensions are all good back stuff. Do deadlifts, pullups, and pick 2-3 other exercises.

 

Thanks for the advice. With the compound movement exercises, how much difference does it make if I use dumbbells as opposed to a barbell? My gym is very particular about U18s using the smith machine and they won't allow me to use it until I'm an adult. I'm 17 at the moment, but it's still a few months away. I've been watching a few yt videos to try and see exactly how the exercises should be done, but do you have any channels in particular you could recommend for learning new exercises?

 

If I'm splitting my exercises up, would I say go on Monday and do chest+triceps, Tuesday back + biceps, Wednesday legs+shoulders, Thurs cardio and repeat?

 

Thanks again for the advice! :)

[Myweponsg00d]

 

Thanks for the advice. With the compound movement exercises, how much difference does it make if I use dumbbells as opposed to a barbell? My gym is very particular about U18s using the smith machine and they won't allow me to use it until I'm an adult. I'm 17 at the moment, but it's still a few months away. I've been watching a few yt videos to try and see exactly how the exercises should be done, but do you have any channels in particular you could recommend for learning new exercises?

 

If I'm splitting my exercises up, would I say go on Monday and do chest+triceps, Tuesday back + biceps, Wednesday legs+shoulders, Thurs cardio and repeat?

 

Thanks again for the advice! :)

 

I'm a little confused about the first part of your question. I would not reccomend using the Smith machine for anything really. But in a normal gym, there is another place to use barbells, typically called a "squat rack" or a "power rack". Does your gym not have any racks beside the Smith machine? Are you allowed to use those?

 

If you can't load barbells, dumbells are an appropriate subsitution for beginners. Dumbell bench is great. Dumbell military press is also great. Dumbell deadlift is do-able, but not nearly as effective. Same for the squats. Its great for beginners though. But for example, after 4 months of regular exercise I was able to squat 180 lbs with 155 body weight. If I wanted to squat with dumbells I would need to lug around some 90 lb dumbells...which is just way too hard to handle. To fully develop your strength, try to also use the leg press machine so you can do heavy weight.

 

To learn exercises, this is absolutely great: http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/finder/

 

Your workout split sounds okay, but allow me to clear the air on something first. When you are trying to build muscle, it is not always better to do MORE. You still didnt exactly clarify what your goals are, but again I will assume that you want to build big muscles that look nice. When you lift, what you do is tear your muscle fibres. After you finish your lifting, your body goes to work and tries to repair the muscles. If you lift too often, your muscles will never get a chance to fully repair and thus wont grow in size as quickly.

 

Many sucessful body-building routines only work a muscle group once per week. So monday you would do chest+tris, weds is back+biceps, fri is legs+any other parts you feel need worked. But the thing is that you need to learn to lift hard to make this routine be the best for you.

 

My ultimate advice is to go ahead and do the schedule you wrote. Lift on mon, tues, wed. Cardio thurs, then repeat again if you desire. But be aware that you MIGHT over-work yourself. Building muscle is ultimately a game of trial-and-error, because you must learn what works for your own body. Just keep in mind that what you do outside of the gym is just as important as what you do inside of the gym. Get plenty of sleep, get enough rest days, and eat a lot of high protein food.

 

PS: I looked over your original routine and I wanted to add that 10 reps per set might be too much. You should try to do very heavy weight and get 6-8 reps per set. But always try to see if you can get more than 8. If you can get more than 8 reps then its time to increase the weight. This is called "progressive overload". Google that term if you want more information.

[SirHartlar]

The smith machine is the only rack we have at my gym, so I would have to stick with dumbbells. Sorry for not clarifying, but yes I am trying to gain muscle size. I think what I'll do now is take all this information away and possibly talk to my gym instructor about setting myself a routine, and hopefully I can also talk to my parents about my diet and changing it to suit my exercises. Thanks ever so much for your help, it's been really useful and I feel a lot more confident about upping my regime than I did before.

 

EDIT: What can you recommend for warm-ups/cool-downs? Should I do a run or some stretching or what?

[Myweponsg00d]

The smith machine is the only rack we have at my gym, so I would have to stick with dumbbells. Sorry for not clarifying, but yes I am trying to gain muscle size. I think what I'll do now is take all this information away and possibly talk to my gym instructor about setting myself a routine, and hopefully I can also talk to my parents about my diet and changing it to suit my exercises. Thanks ever so much for your help, it's been really useful and I feel a lot more confident about upping my regime than I did before.

 

EDIT: What can you recommend for warm-ups/cool-downs? Should I do a run or some stretching or what?

 

Some people really love to do a quick 10 minute cardio warm up. I personally dont like it at all. I just stick to stretching and limbering up my joints. For example before my chest+tri day, I stretch chest, triceps, shoulders, and back. Then to limber up my joints I grab a 5 pound weight and do some shoulder movements. And before I do the bench press I do 1-2 warm up sets with a very light weight with 10-15 reps at a fast pace.

 

As long as you feel like you are limbered up you can start off doing anything you want to basically.

[Bloodstain]

 

EDIT: What can you recommend for warm-ups/cool-downs? Should I do a run or some stretching or what?

 

Ramp up the weight, start with a weight that you can do really easily for a set, then do a little more, and do that a couple times until you get up to your working weight. It'll get the blood flowing and loosen you up

[assassin_696]

I don't know about other people's opinions on this, but I'd probably think that a smith machine squat is still better than a dumbbell squat, as much as I hate smith machines. Not so for bench press or shoulder press (dumbbells are great), but you just can't get the mass over your centre of gravity for a squat with dumbbells like you can with a bar, or get the weight as high.

[Myweponsg00d]

I don't know about other people's opinions on this, but I'd probably think that a smith machine squat is still better than a dumbbell squat, as much as I hate smith machines. Not so for bench press or shoulder press (dumbbells are great), but you just can't get the mass over your centre of gravity for a squat with dumbbells like you can with a bar, or get the weight as high.

 

I think the issue is that they don't let him use the Smith machine or something. So the options are dumbell squats or forget squatting and use the leg machines only. Not sure what the best approach would be.

 

Im actually a huge fan of this squat:

This type of squatting motion is more natural for the human body. Well, maybe "natural" isnt the right word...maybe "practical"? I mean, this would be the type of motion a cave man would use when he was moving rocks around and such. Just make sure to use the biggest weight you could imagine holding.

[SirHartlar]

Is this a decent programme? I've split it up into three days (Mon/Weds/Fri) and split it up as Myweponsg00d suggested (Chest+tri/bicep+back/legs+shoulders) plus doing ab work everyday. Are these exercises good and is it a viable way of building muscle mass as a beginner?

 

Monday (Chests/triceps/abs)

Dumbbell bench press - 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Incline dumbbell bench press - 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Seated triceps press - 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Tricep pushdown - 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Ab crunches

 

Wednesday (Biceps/back/abs)

Dumbbell bicep curl - 4 sets of 6-8 reps

Pull ups - Until fatigue?

Lat pulldowns - 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Ab crunches

 

Friday (Legs/shoulders/abs)

Dumbbell squat - 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Leg press - 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Leg extensions - 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Seated dumbbell press - 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Machine shoulder press - 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Ab crunches

 

 

 

I wasn't sure where to fit ab exercises in, so advice on that is appreciated. Also, I couldn't find a dumbbell alternative for deadlifts which you suggested as a core part of any routine. Is there enough variation/sets/reps in my routine?

[Bloodstain]

I might have missed it, but why can't you do barbell deadlifts? They don't require a smith machine or rack/cage of any kind.

 

Oh, and I'd switch the lat pulldowns for Yates Rows, but that's just me.

[SirHartlar]

I might have missed it, but why can't you do barbell deadlifts? They don't require a smith machine or rack/cage of any kind.

 

Oh, and I'd switch the lat pulldowns for Yates Rows, but that's just me.

 

My gym doesn't have a barbell that's seperate from the smith machine.

[Faux]

 

I wasn't sure where to fit ab exercises in, so advice on that is appreciated.

 

try alternating crunches with hanging leg raises or just replace it completely

 

and as for legs/shoulders... i like spending a day just focusing on legs alone. i mean just doing squats properly will tire you out very very fast

[Bloodstain]

 

I wasn't sure where to fit ab exercises in, so advice on that is appreciated.

 

try alternating crunches with hanging leg raises or just replace it completely

 

and as for legs/shoulders... i like spending a day just focusing on legs alone. i mean just doing squats properly will tire you out very very fast

 

Straight leg Straight back deadlifts are great for the hamstrings too.

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Hamstrings/DBStrBackStrLegDeadlift.html

 

Dumb bells.

Although one thing with those, bend your knees slightly, don't keep them locked or it'll hurt the back of your knee