some pointers about training please

Hi there, im a swede that basically just began to start hard training, before i was pretty fat and in the last 9 months ive lost around 46 pounds while mostly running and training on a home gym the first 6 months, the last 3 months however ive began to train at a real gym 5 days a week 1 muscle group each day. im taking some supplements like protein, san t3, hmb, calcium pyruvate and kreatin.
anyways what im wondering should be pretty easy for some of you to answer, i would like to know some basics in what kind of supplements you think is good, for getting a lean look, i still have some body fat i would like go get rid off.
Also what this cycle thing is all about(dont get it at all) and well some pointers basically.

also if someone knows where you can get that thing that mesures body fat. :)
thx for all answers.

ill also add a pic that u can laugh too :) (remember that i was really fat before) ;)
i hope someday ill look as good as some of you here, without taking any stuff that could harm my health.
thx again

Good job on the progress you made already! Anyway you want advice on training or supplementing or everything? Well I'd say don't worry about any supps right now except maybe some protein powder, lets see your diet and routine/ split and make sure thats in check because that is MUCH MUCH more important than any supplementation.

thx man.
well the thing is, i dont really have any diet rutine or whatever :)
i just keep off unhealthy food like pizza n burgers n stuff. other then that i just keep eating normal food and try to get some fruit n stuff in me often.

so as you can understand im pretty unexperienced when it comes to diets and stuff like that. so any help is welcome :)

You can get better help on this in other parts of the site but I'll skim over some stuff real quick. You want to be getting ATLEAST 1g of Protein per lb of body weight. Alot of us would recommend 1.5 grams of protein per BW. I wont get too technical but you generally want to be getting even more carbs then you get protein, so say you are taking in 200-300g of protein you'll want 350+ g of carbs, ESPECIALLY if your a hard gainer but considering you used to be "fat" then that means your most likely an easy gainer. Don't be afraid to eat fat (dont go overboard with it tho either), its good for bulking and will actually help you keep fat off your body by eating moderate amounts of it, and don't forget your good fats especially! Your split/ routine was refering to how you work out, how often you work out, how often you hit each muscle, what is your sets and reps like, and so on.

ok thx, now i know a little about carbs n protein, thats good :D
about my training, i train 5 days a week as i said and it looks in short something like this:

monday : breast
tuesday : biceps
wednsday : back
thursday : shoulders n legs
friday : triceps

and often its 4 exersices per muscle group and i do 3 sets with about 6-9 reps depending on if the weights im lifting is getting a bit to light but the next step is too hard for 6 reps and soo on.
i know your supposed to do alot of reps with a little lighter weights if you wanna get slim but im slim enough i think and wanna get some muscles showing so thats why im on 6 reps.

thx alot for helping me out, its cool to get some info from someone thats actually big in muscle size ;D

id like to see a pic of your breast haha

oh yea and have you ever thought of putting biceps and triceps on the same day and giving legs and shoulders its own day? i know alot of guys here will tell you that.. it must take a long time to get that shoulder/legs day done

If what your doing is working well for you then ignore what I'm about to say, what your doing doesn't look too bad but I might want to change it up mainly for intesnisty reasons. Like for example instead of having a bi and tri day(which consists of small muscles why not divide that up and then like someone else said give shoulders or something it's own day. Something like this.

Mon: Chest and tri (or if you prefer biceps)
Tues: Back and Biceps (or if you did them yesterday do tri, back includes rear delts)
Wed: Off
Thurs: Shoulders (and this would be the day to do military presses laterals, upright rows you could put shrugs here or put them on back day)
Fri: Legs
Sat: off
Sun: off

This would also give you one more off day which is very very important to have enough rest. Eat alot like I said, try to get 8+ hours of sleep and what I like to do and recommend is that you focus on a major lift (bench press, squat or deadlift, preferably the one thats furthest behind) and you try to up your reps by 2 reps or weight by 5 lbs every week (every workout for that muscle). If you eat enough, are new enough, and give yourself enough recovery time you should be able to do this. Then once that lift has come up considerably switch your focus to another lift and do the same thing. Sometimes you can bring up all lifts at the same time but this is much more unlikely to be achieved (especially naturally) and alot more draining to your body. And remember everyone is different and what works in general, doesn't always work best for an individual. Oh yeah and every two months or so consider giving yourself a week off. Your body will thank you.

haha i just made it clear to you all that swedes are dumb and cant write in english :chinese: im gonna pump my breasts as hell now !!! ehm or i mean ... chest :)
thx alot for the advices you have given me, ill try it out for sure.
have a nice day :lift:

oh also i forgot to ask, what is this bulk up and cutting phase your talking about, i think i know it basically but im unsure so might you give me a basic quick little answer on what your are suppose to do on the bulk up and cutting phase ?

Bulking is when you eat a ton to gain muscle mass, you try to put on as much muscle as you can with as little fat as possible. But eating like you do when you bulk will certainly put some fat on you if you bulk effectively no matter what you try. And cutting is when you diet to get rid of the fat your carrying from bulking, to show off what you've accomplished. Alot of times people bulk in the winter and cut in the summer. Or if they compete in body building they'll bulk off season and cut in the weeks before a show.

ok thx again i thought that was it, thx for the help man, appriciate it.

seems like it only keeps popping up new questions, hope you dont mind answering em, tell me if im getting annoying :)
anyways i was wondering if its ok to maybe drop the biceps and triceps training for a while and concentrate on chest and back 2 times a week and then shoulders n legs 1 time a week, how much will the biceps and triceps suffer from not beeing trained for a while, and how long could i go on with chest and back 2 times a week untill i should start training biceps and triceps again, any ideas ?
thx mate

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pronoob

seems like it only keeps popping up new questions, hope you dont mind answering em, tell me if im getting annoying :)
anyways i was wondering if its ok to maybe drop the biceps and triceps training for a while and concentrate on chest and back 2 times a week and then shoulders n legs 1 time a week, how much will the biceps and triceps suffer from not beeing trained for a while, and how long could i go on with chest and back 2 times a week untill i should start training biceps and triceps again, any ideas ?
thx mate

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just remember that you don't grow while you're training.. you grow while you're resting.

You know you COULD drop bicep and tricep training, thats not the real issue in what you just said, the real issue is training chest twice a week. Thats possible without overtraining, but you have to do a whole different type of training to do it. I'm not going to get too into details but basically you can't train a muscle hard and heavy (to failure more then 1 set with more then one exercise for that muscle) 2 times a week and expect to get results. It wont happen that way. What Chris said is exactly right, you grow on your off time, so you need lots of off time. The most I recommend you train chest is every 5 days. As for the bis and tris, hit the tris on chest day or shoulder day and hit the bis either on shoulder day or back day. What was your reasoning for not wanting to train them? Remember that working a mucle more often does not translate into better results... the key is a good balance between time between working each muscle, time between workouts period, and days off. BTW I don't mind answering any of your questions that I can.

keep up the good work bro!

well my reason for stop training biceps and triceps was basically because i think i have more muscles on my arms then i have on my chest and back, so i thought i would try to train a little harder on back and chest to get defenition there.
all your answers really helps me out, since im not that into training so im really greatfull for that.
thx again :elephant: