Ex-Football Guy Getting Back in the Game -- Help Me!!!

Hi everyone. I'm getting back in the game (after 2 years of working out about once a week) and am looking for some tips on my routine. I've had some injuries so here is my background so you know what I'm working with.

I played football for like 7 years, powerlifted for 4 years. I tore my left shoulder labrum 3 times and had 2 surgeries, the last one being 4 years ago. Flat and incline BB bench are really my only problem exercises and my surgeon recommends that I don't do them. I'm willing to ignore this if I have to.

When I trained I did bench, squat, deadlift, powerclean and auxillary exercises supporting the big 4. Pretty much everything I did was for some functional football purpose and I didn't have much in the bicep/pec region. At 5'9", 195 lbs (after the first surgery), maxes were:

Bench - 330
Squat (deep) - 425
Deadlift - 515
Powerclean - 295


Right now I'm 5'9", a softer 184 lbs, and have belly fat mostly on the side around my obliques/lovehandles. I probably couldn't do anything close to the above lifts. I don't look THAT bad but there is a lot of room for improvement.

Basically, I want to get myself awesome looking first and then slowly start working on strength again. Not necessarily at the above levels, but functional strength for MMA. Here's what I started doing a few weeks ago:

----------
Monday (chest/ tris):

4 chests - (flat DB bench, incline DB bench, standing cable flys, dips)
3 tris - (DB skull crushers on the floor, tri pushdowns, overhead tri extensions with a 45 standing on a half stability ball)

Tuesday (back/ bis)

4 backs - (pull ups, seated rows, standing bent-over rows, lat pulldowns)
3 bis - (preacher curls with EZ bar, hammer curls, standing one arm curls while holding the other arm parallel to the floor)

Thursday (shoulders/ abs)

4 shoulders - (seated DB shoulder press, front raise, lateral raise, shrugs)
3 abs - (ab wheel, stability ball jackknife, that thing where you grab a rope on your knees and touch your head to the floor)

Friday (legs)

quad extensions, hammy extensions, calf raises, leg press

--------

This all with random cardio thrown in, 2000-2500 calories a day, and a 27g protein shake after every workout. Roughly 7-9 hours of sleep a night and 1-2 nights of heavy drinking every week (but I'm planning on cutting back). For all those exercises I do 3 sets of 10-12. Each week I try to mix up the exercises with the same template but don't have much of a long term plan for what I want to happen.

I want to incorporate full body workouts or power lifts but am not sure how to do it. The diet and or supplements also need tweaked. At this point I really think I can only get 4 days a week.


ANY help would be GREATLY appreciated!!!! :)

Thanks!!!
 
The program that you've been doing for a few weeks looks so familiar.. I've been doing that one for something like 6 years and it is not challenging my muscles anymore. So then I turned to superset routines: Mon- back/chest, Tues- run Wedn- shoulders/arms Thur- run Friday-legs.

Since then some people on this forum suggested compound lifting so I took their advise in conjunction with finding a nice routine from Men's Health. I'm on week 3 and I like it because it totally puts stress on my muscles encouraging them to grow. They had adapted to my rusty ol' routine of 6 years.

Day 1- Heavy Day 25 reps per exercise. 45 sec rest between
Squats
Chin ups
Dumbell Bench Press
Barbell lying tricep extention

Day 2- Moderate Day 40 reps per exercise 60 sec rest
Barbell reverse lunge
Standing calf raise
Dumbell one arm row
Dumbell one arm shoulder press
(and I throw in lateral and front raises)

Day 3 Light Day 50 reps per exercise, 75 sec rest
Deadlift
Cable standing face pull
Pushups
Standing hammer curls

Let me know what you think?
 
That looks like a pretty strong routine. I don't think I could do all that right now but I'm thinking maybe I'll do my thing week 1, supersets week 2, and alternate back and forth.

Do you think thats a good idea? Also, do you do each superset only once? So like day one you're doing 25 squats all at once, then no more? I know its hard, but this would be a pretty quick day at the gym. Do you add anything?

Thanks for your response!
 
That looks like a pretty strong routine. I don't think I could do all that right now but I'm thinking maybe I'll do my thing week 1, supersets week 2, and alternate back and forth.

Do you think thats a good idea? Also, do you do each superset only once? So like day one you're doing 25 squats all at once, then no more? I know its hard, but this would be a pretty quick day at the gym. Do you add anything?

Thanks for your response!

I think I understand what you are asking.. We'll use squats as an example: I need to do 25 squats total before I can move on to chin ups. But because the weight is heavy... I may only be able to do 7 in my first set (rest 45 sec) then do 6 (rest) 6 (rest) 6. Equally 25. So each exercise you are doing 4-5 sets of each as long as you get to your rep goal. Sometimes I find myself doing chin ups for 20 min trying to reach my 25 rep goal lol. Did that answer your question?

The longer you train with specific exercises, the lower the stress and more efficient you become at that exercise (and that's great for strength). But if you want to lose fat you want your body to act with more stress. And the exercises above that I have chosen if you notice work all of your muscles.
 
Back
Top