Trying to dial in a proper routine

[VelociTRAPtor]

let me start by saying if you read this please comment, critic or criticize we all start somewhere and have to learn
Age:24
Height:6'4
weight:240-250, BF 18-20%
training: standard on off since highschool, my current plan almost 5 weeks.

Im a little concerned about overtraining. I work 7days on 7 off and stay in a work camp on days on with a great gym.

my average week on is wake up at 3am and hit the gym for 45-60 and again after dinner around 8pm. Ill give a quick overall if you want specific exercises and weights i can post later on.
day1 Chest and Biceps---work--- then cardio usually 30-45mins on eliptical maybe a bit more or less or 3-4KM on a treadmill and 10 mins of stretching abouts
day2 Back---work---cardio same as above
day3 morning run/stairmaster/eliptical for 60 mins---work---early sleep
day4 Shoulders and triceps---work---you guessed it! same as cardio in days 1 and 2
day5 legs---work---light cardio walking and extra stretching
day6 same as day 3
day7 Off

and my 7 days off are the same but only the morning no evening cardio due to the fact that theres so much more to do when not stuck in camp, i know theres ALOT of cardio there but I put on muscle quick but seem to put fat on even quicker. I am playing with my diet as much as I can but the nature of the food they feed us is hit or miss so im adding the extra in to keep my BF down while still getting the Macros in

ill make a post in the diet thread tomorrow after shoulders! please comment if you like it hate it or just think its the wrong direction im learning here and would love to get your imput!if I left anything out ask and ill get back to you ASAP.

Cheers

[Brett N]

Personally, I do chest and tris on the same day. You seem to be hitting tris twice a week by doing them separate. Bench works tris as well.

I also do my back and bis together, my rows work my biceps which I later hit with any curls I want to do on same workout.

Shoulders I work by themselves because mine are lame and I have had injury.

Not sure of your workout but honestly, if I wasn't an extremely experienced lifter (which I am not) I would follow someone's routine that has already been proven by experienced lifters. (which I do)

I started out with Starting Strength (rippetoe) and I now do Wendler's 5/3/1. When I become more advanced I will switch to a more advanced workout which I will choose at that time. I definitely prefer heavy compound lifts like bench, deads, squats and shoulder presses over isolation work. Definitely more so in the beginning of gaining strength just because I feel you gain more overall mass at a faster rate. Everything gets bigger and stronger and it keeps you well balanced. IMO, isolation work is for advanced lifters.

Take my input with a grain of salt, I just saw you had 158 views on this thread and nobody had the time to offer their opinions. I have only been lifting for going on 2 years but I am pretty happy with the way my body has started to transform. When I walk in a room, peopl know I am a lifter and I get asked about it quite often. So, for me, the results speak for themselves. Nutrition is a huge part of it though and I highly recommend following some of the great advice in the nutrition section.

[psyBorg]

I second Brett N's opinion on chest+triceps and back+biceps. For me personnaly I have "pulling" days, "pushing days" and HIIT + core(abs) day.

"pulling" days: exercises such as seated rows, lat pull down, close grip chin-ups, deadlifts/good mornings, because they all work different areas of the back. I throw in some isolation exercises such as curls only after I'm done with those basic ones.

"pushing" days: exercises such as bench press, military press, dips, and squats, because they're all pushing movements. isolated movements at the end.


If you think about it, it makes sense to work out this way:

-First, your training will be functional. Since some muscles work in synergy(together) -think triceps and chest when you push something forward-, you increase their coordination by having a "push" day and a "pull" day split, instead of a split based on individual muscles alone.

-Second, increased recovery. If you have say for example, day1 "shoulder day" and day2 "chest day", some part of the shoulders won't have enough time to recover. However, since you use a different part of the shoulders for pulling and pushing, if day1 is pushing and day 2 is pulling, you won't have an overlap of individual parts of the shoulders even though you use shoulders on both days.

I workout same muscle groups 2x/week but I make sure to have two days in between. e.g. push, pull, rest, push, pull, HIIT&core, rest. If you recover fast enough you could leave only one day in between.

As for cardio I find HIIT (high intensity interval training) once or twice a week is enough along with lifting, because when you train at great intensity, your body burns calories for days after the training session just for the recovery process. You might want to go that way if the purpose is to burn fat and calories, unless of course you like the long steady cardio you're doing now. It comes down to personal choice.

If you are concerned with overtraining, IMO 20 minutes of HIIT once a week is really all it takes if you lift. Maybe you can get away with twice, but leg workouts might suffer from the sprinting. I usually rest one full day after HIIT.

Hope all makes sense and helps you fine-tune your program. Good luck!

[VelociTRAPtor]

thanks for the reply brett!

I definitely get what your saying about keeping the groups together like psyborg says in the next post "push and pull" days i wouldnt mind hitting arms extra i feel like my chest and shoulders are a bit disproportionately large compared to my arms

i read mark riptoes book and tried it for 4-5 months a few years agon but went to heavy to fast and hurt my back a bit so i lost alot of motivation for it but ill deffinantly look into in again and take it a little smarter this time, plus my legs are hugely my weak point...on a good day right now i can bench 205 for 8 and only squat maybe 185 for 4...even my shoulder press is 185 so i have to start catching up there.

I apreciate the comments and the time guys really, ill rework my routine a bit because i really like the push and pull,and if you get a chance psyborg maybe you could forward any looks on HIIT youd recommend? ill check out the forums and do a bit more research but and shortcuts to the info is greatly appreciated


thanks again guys!

[psyBorg]

I'm sorry to hear about your back injury. I'm sure you'll get back to where you were, you seem motivated to get things moving!

Adding isolated exercises to target your arms seems like a good idea now that you talk of muscle imbalance. There's a good chance your bench will go up after the arms and grips catch up with chest.

For HIIT, I think looking at its wikipedia page will be a good start. You will see there are numerous researches on this method, each with its own different way of performing it. But if you want to get started right away here are the basics:

The idea of the HIIT method is to throw in all you've got for a short amount of time (some say 15 seconds of mad sprinting to 1 minute) then actively rest (jog slowly or even walk for 1-2 minutes), and repeat these intervals for a given amount of time, for example, 30s sprint, 90s jog, 30s spint, 90s jog, and so on for 16 minutes.
-> 8 x 0:30 [1min30s] => 8 high intensity intervals, 30s each, 1min30s low intensity intervals in-between.

Some will do several "sets" of intervals. I'll take an example here to get this through:

Let's call 1 interval of sprinting(30seconds) + 1 interval of jogging (60seconds) a "cycle".
When you do HIIT with sets, lets say 2 sets of 4 cycles, you'd have 8 of these cycles in total but between the two sets, i.e. the fourth and fifth cycles, you'd have one longer low intensity interval (active rest): so after the fourth cycle, instead of 60s of jogging you'd do maybe 120s, before you go on with the second set which is the last four cycles.
-> 2 x 4 x 0:30 [1min & 2min] => 2 sets of 4 high intensity intervals, 30s each, 1min low intensity intervals in-between, and a 2min low intensity interval between sets.

Obviously doing HIIT with sets helps with keeping the intensity of all of your high intensity intervals as high as the first ones, set after set.

Now, I'd like to point out the three common mistakes you'd want to avoid:

First- Keeping the "high intensity intervals" for too long. If your high intensity intervals are longer than 1 minute then you're not sprinting with maximum effort.

Second- Doing the "low intensity intervals" at high intensity: Active rest means very light jogging or WALKING. It's a crucial minute or two to recuperate so you can sprint again with full intensity. If you're going at more than 50% of your max speed it's not done right.

Third -and this is the worst- Doing HIIT for too long: if you're doing more than 30 minutes of HIIT either you're doing it wrong or you're killing yourself. It is counterproductive to do an HIIT for such a long time, and on a side note, you'd want to keep a low frequency too: I'd say not more than twice a week, once being optimal if you have other workouts and things to do in life.


Sorry for the long post again, this was the shortest shortcut I could provide lol. If you need anything to be clarified I'll do my best to. good luck

[VelociTRAPtor]

thank you that was several years ago and there's not lasting injury just haven't had the time or motivation to work back up to where I
was until now! after searching alot more threads and go ogle I'm starting to lean towards bretts recommendation of trying "starting Strength for a few month before going back into the really specific isolation stuff, it focuses heavily on compound lifts and building strength and size over look which objectively i have the time to do seeing as how it inst beach season until late July here, but adding a bit of extra work on arms to catch it up and toss in some HII T (what you described would kick the S&it out of me so i cant wait to try it)

dont apologise i really appreciate you taking the time and breaking it down for me! its been a huge help! and it gives me an extra motivation knowing theres like minded people out there...and that you dont get frustrated with my abysmal grammar and spelling errors

[Brett N]

Stronglifts is also a good starting program which is a takeoff of starting strength. If you like using a smart phone to track they both have apps. Stronglifts has their own and starting strength has biglifts app I think. Take it slow and get your form down or you will likely injure yourself.

Small steps now means big gains later. I know HIIT training is more productive for time but personally I prefer low intensity at around an hour. I walk at 4mph or do an elliptical. I am over 40 so the high intensity is pretty hard on my joints. May be just an excuse for an old wussy but it's the one I am using.

[CrookedBones]

Stronglifts is also a good starting program which is a takeoff of starting strength. If you like using a smart phone to track they both have apps. Stronglifts has their own and starting strength has biglifts app I think. Take it slow and get your form down or you will likely injure yourself.

Small steps now means big gains later. I know HIIT training is more productive for time but personally I prefer low intensity at around an hour. I walk at 4mph or do an elliptical. I am over 40 so the high intensity is pretty hard on my joints. May be just an excuse for an old wussy but it's the one I am using.

After a week or two of low reps, high weights, I'll switch to sets of 10 and come down on the weight to focus on form. I like working up to about 90% of max on low reps. However, my joints and tendons start to let me know it's time for a lighter week. I'm still making gains, and the lighter days keep me focused on form.

Most of my workouts are strictly dumbbell exercises. Currently focusing on symmetry and started ambidextrous exercises (brushing my teeth with my less dominant hand, for example). I'll do an extra set with my less dominant side. I notice it on my biceps and chest.

[Hrothgar]

I'm still in the linear progression phase of starting strength and I think it's great. Love increasing that weight every time.