Thoughts on this routine

MagicallyMinded

Amateur Bodybuilder
Just finished putting together this routine and planning to start Monday if all goes well.

Looking for some feedback from you guys because i know its honest and no nonsense.

Stats:
Age 20
Height 5'11
Weight 145lbs
Bench 55-60kg (6 Reps)


Monday
• Chest
• Back
• Abs

Tuesday
• Shoulders
• Upper arms
• Forearms

Wednesday
• Thighs
• Calves
• Lower back

Thursday
• Chest
• Back
• Abs

Friday
• Shoulders
• Upper arms
• Forearms

Saturday
• Thighs
• Calves
• Lower back


Chest:
Bench press 4x8-12
Incline bench 4x8-12
Lying fly’s 4x8-12

Back:
Wide grip pull ups 4x8-12
Pull downs 4x8-12
Close grip cable row 4x8-12

Abs:
Leg raises/Incline sit ups 5x25

Shoulders:
Military press 4x8-12
Upright rows 4x8-12


Upper arms:
Barbell curls 4x8-12
Seated dumbbell curls 4x8-12
Close grip bench press 4x8-12
Cable pulls over 4x8-12

Forearms:
Wrist curls 4x812
Reverse grip curls 4x8-12

Thighs:
Leg press 5x15
Leg extensions/Squats 5x15

Calves:
Seated calve raise (Machine) 5x15
Calves on leg press (Machine) 5x15

Lower back:
Stiff legged dead lifts 4x8-12
Good morning’s 4x8-12
 
I think it horrible. One bodypart a day per week for bodybuilding. Like this:

Monday: chest
Tuesday: Back
Wednesday off or cardio and abs
Thursday:shoulders
Friday: Legs
Saturday: Arms
Sunday off or cardio

You could throw abs in with back too since they help stabilize. All that volume is gonna hurt more than help.
 
i agree with gixer... at least the way i like to train, if i can hit it twice a week, im not hitting it hard enough the first time.

less volume too. i initially made the mistake of horribly overtraining and i didnt grow as much as i could have.
 
OK some points there i'll bare in mind. If i decided to train one body part per day like Gixer said what sort of volume would you suggest. Oh and im a hard gainer aswell, thought i should mention that.
 
I like between 9 and 12 working sets at the most. Warm up with as much as you need but actual work sets should be limited to 12.
 
I see your doing each muscle 2ice a week. Good way to start out in my opinion. As you get more advanced and stronger your will change how many muscle groups per day, and how many times you hit a muscle in a week, maybe, maybe not.

I can tell you right now that I personally would not do 2 big muscle groups together. Big with small, or big with 2 small is good in my opinion. I personally do one big with one small each workout day. BTW I actually like your chest day. Change things up as you develop if you need to.
For back start with the heavy stuff, not pullups in my opinion.
Shoulders do lateral raises. I really got great results from this under rated exercise. I also personally love french presses for tris. That is a great basic exercise like bb curls for bis.

Trust me you will make changes as you go, and that is good. Once you figure it out perfectly it will be a great routine. The reps look good too. Dont go over 11 or 12 ireps imo. You want to train heavy. People go low like 3-4 reps but I dont go under 6 personally.

Let us know if you have anymore questions. Good luck buddy. ;)
 
amt of volume used \calories needed to recover\ and genetic recovery all play roles here.

Best of luck w\your routine.
 
This thread has been very helpful. I have some amending to do i think. Cheers for the input guys. Cant wait to put this to the test.
 
I think you're workout is pretty good for starter's...but you might have to take a day off after the first three...but that's all dependent on how you feel. I started with basically the same workout, but if you are a hard gainer like myself...you must, i mean must, add some deadlifts and some clean and jerk. You must be doing big compound exercises to gain that solid mass amigo. Try this:

monday:
incline bench (i alwasy do it first as it's weaker than my flat)
flat bench
one more chest exercise (fly, pullover, machine press)
wide grip pull-ups
deadlifts
some sort of row machine

tues:
clean and jerk
lateral raise
upright row
machine military press or similar
barbell curls
dumbell curl vareity
dips
another tricep extension pushdown like exercise

wed:
squat
hack squat
calf raise
maybe finish with leg extensions and some ab work (core work)

because you hit triceps on tuesday...bench may lack on thursday thus why i recommend a day off here and start again on friday.

This basic set...that i've done for six weeks has brought me from 175 to 191...of course eating a good deal and sucking about 200 grams of protien a day and using some creatine...but day one in the gym i was putting up 135 on bench for 6 reps...now i'm back to 225 for 6 after a year off from training.

In my opinion..we true hard gainers must use big compound exercises...and try doing a set of 12-10-8-6 with increasing weight...this system does wonders for me as you can tell. And also..i've now broken chest and back into their own days...but i'm moving along quite well. btw..almost locked out 405 on a raw dealift yesterday...i've got that roid rage without the gear when the loud music is playing
 
evansss said:
i agree with gixer... at least the way i like to train, if i can hit it twice a week, im not hitting it hard enough the first time.

less volume too. i initially made the mistake of horribly overtraining and i didnt grow as much as i could have.


overtraining is not doing a body part more than once a week. i could do biceps 4 times in a week and its not overtraining. it can lead to overtraining which means your body is at the point where you have too much lactic acid and carbon dioxide buildup(maybe cortisol too, im not sure on that though). it basically means your body is really fatigued.
 
jynx said:
overtraining is not doing a body part more than once a week. i could do biceps 4 times in a week and its not overtraining. it can lead to overtraining which means your body is at the point where you have too much lactic acid and carbon dioxide buildup(maybe cortisol too, im not sure on that though). it basically means your body is really fatigued.
Def not what that means. Lactic acid builds up in your muscles during your workouts. hence the burning feeling. Overtraining would be training to a point in which you are not fully recovering. You could probably do 500 sets for a boypart if you did the bodypart once every 2 months but that would be stupid. Yeah you can do a bodypart twice a week with very low volume such as in DC training, but not with the volume he posted. Shit if he was doing working sets for all the sets he listed, doing 1 bodypart a day would be a little much. I also never liked the idea of doing sets in the way of 4x12 or 3x10 because if you are going up in weight every set and can still get 10 on the last heaviest set, then the first 2 sets were not balls to the wall.
 
First off, Aczech, thats for taking the time to post that. I was thinking that maybe i should take a day off. Sounds like a good idea and being a hard gainer im sure i would benefit from a complete days rest after blasting the fuck out of my muscle. (Aim to do that whenever im in the gym.)

Compound exercises i will add a few more as i totally argee with you. Clean & Jerk....hmmmm. Will have to look that up. Think i read something about that in Arnolds encyclopeidia.

I see where both you guys are coming from about overtraining. I personally did not think and still dont that it was possible to over train a muscle in the gym on any one given day. I see it as giving all you got. It goes without saying though that the harder you train a muscle the longer it needs to recover. Training again before it fully recovers, now thats overtraning in my opinion.
 
If you are truly a hardgainer, which most people probably aren't to the extent they think they are, which is do usually to lack of diet and rest, then check out one of Iron Addict's hardgainer routines. They are posted in the sticky by him at the top of the training page. Volume routines work the best FOR A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME. It is better to gradually increase your general physical preparedness rather than going balls to the wall with everything you can and then burning out. What happens there is you make great gains for a little while then you plateau and get discouraged and stop working out. I did it for YEARS and I know countless others who did the same thing. I read too many BB magazines and tried to follow dumbass routines set up for elite level guys on boatloads of gear and it burned me out. It is better to make slower progress over time and be able to learn your body and know when and how to change things when it is necessary then to grow as fast as psosible and then get stuck.
 
"The body doesn't know muscles. It only knows movements."

-Mel Siff

"If you are still training body parts and not movements, you have missed a signifigant amount of information written on the subject of resistance training in the past 10 years."

-Mike Boyle

"Write programs. NOT workouts."

-Alwyn Cosgrove



I would do push/legs/pull or and upper/lower split.
 
Checked out Iron Addicts routine and it looks pretty cool. However ive decided im gonna stick with mine and make a few adjustments. Lower the volume, add a few more compound exercises and take a day off after the first 3.

Also, i think im gonna try doing some sets of 12-10-8-6 with increasing weight as Aczech mentioned earlier. No doubt there will be more adjustments to be made as i progress further into the routine. Oh, and do yous think it would be better to train one big muscle with one or two small ones, rather than two big ones together?

Cant wait to get this down on paper, then its off to war!

Cheers.
 
Here’s a generic routine that is a good starting point. This is a mass building routine. Probably less volume than you are used too but very effective. Three days per week because that’s all most folks can handle if they are training heavy. They key is near failure or forced/assisted reps. Painful but very effective if you really want to put on size. This does not include warm ups so that is up to you to make sure you are stretched and plenty warm before performing work sets. A work set is defined as a set that you just barely get all reps or need assistance on one or two reps. If you get all the reps fairly easily then it is a warm up and not a work set. Add cardio on the days off to fit your needs.

Monday:
Squats 2 x 5
Box squats 2 x 5
Leg presses 1 x 20 (pick 1 of the squats + the leg presses)
hips (ad/abductors) 1 x 20-25 reps
posterior core movement 2 x 10-20reps
Calves (your choice of exercise if you like) 2 x 10
heavy abs 2 x 20

Tuesday:
Wide grip flat bench 2 x 6 (index fingers on the rings)
flat bench hammer grip db press 2 x 8-12 reps
tricep push downs 1-2 x 8-100reps. (yup 100)
db side laterals 1-2 x 10reps light
db front raises 1-2 x 10reps light
pull-a-parts 1-2 x 20reps

Thursday:
Dead lifts (rotate variations each week) 2 x 5
posterior core movement 2 x 10-20reps
rows 2 x 4-8reps
Reverse grip narrow grip pull downs 2 x 4-8reps
Standing wide grip curls 2 x 8-12 reps (or your favorite curl here)
hammer curls or reverse curls 2 x 8-12reps
heavy abs 2 x 20reps


Every one of these movements is a mass building exercise or an assistance movement to incease the core movements. These are the essential movements for putting on size. Rest and nutrition are just as important as lifting, neglect any one of the three and you will not grow. Juice or no juice all will grow with this routine or a similar one. Consistency is the key. Adding 5 lbs to the bar every other week equals 130lbs/year. Not bad considering many are moving the same weight year in year out. Strength gains are the key to growth, not the other way around.

Bear in mind this routine or any other will need some tweaking after several weeks. but if you looking to keep it simple give it 12 weeks and you will be amazed.

I hope this helpful to all who read it. I have designed many programs for a variety of athletes with varying needs. If you have special needs such as martial arts, football or gymnastics (to name a few) the program can be altered to accommodate these needs.

posterior core movements include:
good morning variations
reverse hypers
45° hypers
hyper extensions
sldl
romanian deads
dimel deads
glute ham raise
pull thrus
the list goes on
 
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