first year workingout, need some advice and answers

[basketballjunki]

Hi,
This is my first post to the forum, I've been reading for the past week and is very interested. I just had a few questions regarding my personal workout plan.

My situation:
I'm 22 years old, 5'11, and around 176lbs/80Kgs. Ive been working out for the past 2 months and is seeing some average to good results. My cardio routine involves competitive basketball 2 days a week, and treadmill/bike for 30 minutes 4 days a week. I'm at the gym around 5 days a week for about 70 minutes. I eat a balanced diet and can abstain from junk foods. Here are some of my questions.

1) I usually like to separate my upper/lower body workouts on separate days to help recovery time. My question is, with a full upper body workout (shoulders, chest, abs, arms, back, etc) how many days should I give it to recover properly? I usually only give it one day, for example work upperbody on monday then go back to it on wednesday. Is this too little time, my workouts are not crazy intense but I do hit the weights constantly with minimal rest.

2) I want to gain a lot more muscle than what is on me, I do have a bit of fat around the belly that I'm trying to lose, by doing more cardio and eating a balanced diet. Is 176 overweight?, should I concentrate on losing some of that excess weight? or if my goal is increased body mass what is my target weight level?

3) Is there a set fitness plan someone can suggest for me? in my situation?

Thanks for the help guys, if anyone needs more info please dont hesistate to ask!

 

[dswithers]

How often you can work the same muscle group depends on how intense your workout is and how fast you recover. It is different for everyone. There are some guidelines for the total number of sets for a specific muscle group you should do in a week, but that is also highly influenced by each individuals specific level of fitness, age, intensity level, etc. For most people doing eachmuscle group every other day is no problem as long as you take a complete rest day one a week or so.

One way to spread the workout stress a little would be to do horizontal pushing and pulling one workout day and vertical pulling and pushing on the alternate day, that is do not do the same exercises on any 2 consecutive upper body days.