Thanks for the awesome reply. I have read your answer 3 times trying to take it all in and make sense of it.
Anytime.
Current weight training is as follows (all 5 sets each);
Bench 10 reps (as I have no spotter I do a light amount to be safe, never fail)
E Z Curl Bar (biceps palms facing in) 10 reps never fail
Alternating Dumbell curls (10 each arm), fail in 5 set
Barbell rows 10 reps, never fail
Tricep extensions (seated dumbell extension) 2 handed 20 reps, never fail
preacher curl 10 reps each arm, failure in 4/5 sets
E Z Bar Curl Tricep (palms on flat part of the bar, slightly facing outwards) 10 reps each, failure in 5 set
Yea, this is pretty bad regardless of goals.
Put it this way; I've seens dozens if not hundreds of guys in my time come in and blast the beach muscles day in and day out in the gym.
They destroy their arms like there's not tomorrow. They go until they can't. Their arms swell with blood to the point where they feel like they'd have trouble scratching their back of combing their hair.
At the end of the day, they're shrimps, lol.
Unless you are genetically inclined to add mass amounts of muscle to your arms, trainging the way you are is going to do nothing good... possibly even hinder your progress.
All guys want big arms. I get that.
So do I.
More often than not, my arm training is limited to 2 sets of curls each week and 2 sets of extensions.
Read that again.
Why?
Because that's direct arm work.
Indirectly I crush my arms with heavy rowing and pressing. Real heavy. What people forget is your biceps and triceps are helping move these heavy weights involved in the big compound lifts.
So lifting with the big exercises (presses, rows, etc) and blasting your arms the way that you are is simply too much. I wouldn't even do that if I were bulking up. I would no doubt never do that while dieting.
It's easy to get caught up trying to force your body into a particular mold you're shooting for but unfortunately that is not how our bodies adapt. The fact that you are dieting, as I said above, means muscle growth is going to be hard to come by. Recover, too, is going to be down. You MUST be economical (wise) in your selection of what you do in the weight room.
What's best for maintaining muscle?
Compound exercises.
You're currently doing, primarily, isolation exercises.
Seeing the big picture?
rest for approx 30 secs inbetween each excercise.
1 set takes approx 10 min.
If you switch to something like what I'm suggesting, I suggest resting 90s or so between the big lifts. You're trying to lift a good amount of weight relative to your strength to send the signal to your body to preserve the muscle you currently have while dieting. Circuit-esque training isn't conducive for said signaling.
Circuit-esque = high volume, low rest
The low rest hinders or limits the amount of weight you can put on the bar. This will make more sense when you develop a more effective routine using the bigger lifts.
So if I am reading your answer you suggest the following,
work out 3 times a week, 3 sets heavier weights
ride the bike on the same days (uphill etc.)
easy flat bike ride on "off" days and
1 day/week with nothing
Pretty much. Nothing I say is written in stone. Nor is anything else anyone else says, no matter how they say it. A lot of people like you to believe that there is One Perfect Way to train for a given goal and there simply isn't. It's an art more than it's a science.
What I'm suggesting is 2-3 full body sessions per week using 2-3 sets of 5-10 reps of compound lifts. You can add some fluff stuff in at the end if you'd like, such as a couple of sets for arms. Emphasis on 'a couple'!
Ideally you ride bike intensely on days you strength train... but that's assuming your weight training your legs during each session, which I'll discuss below.
How many days off is up to you. If you feel the need or have the desire to do low intensity bike rides on all of your 'off' days but one, so be it. I see no harm in that.
1 hour a day is much easier to find then 2 hours every other day for me. I thought that since I am stressing different parts of my body on alternating days this would be ok, but you are suggesting to do a heavy bike ride the same day as I work out. I find when I do this I can't lift as hard.
Firstly, going by what I suggest, you will not be training 2 hours every other day. If you go to my initial post, I suggest riding your uphill bike rides once per week... twice if you feel the need.
Secondly, the only reason I recommend that is to allow more recovery time. This is part of that whole, 'being economical with your training' thingy majigger. Ideally you group intense exercise which creates 'rest cushions' throughout the week.
If your training was something like this:
Day 1: Weights
Day 2: Intense Cycling
Day 3: Weights
Day 4: Intense Cycling
Day 5: Weights
Day 6: Intense Cycling
Then you really don't have any recovery time. And you might be okay with that right now. We all have different recoverabilities based on genetics, diet, lifestyle outside of training, etc, etc. I tend to err on the safe side, personally and with my clients for the simple fact that I've seen what the 'beating your body into submission' route leads to. And it ain't pretty. I did it for 2 years and was left with a bum shoulder and elbow that still affect me to this day.
To boot, given that fact that you're eating pretty low calories given your stats, that reduces your ability to handle intense bouts of exercise.
Instead, in the above example I'd consolidate your intense bouts so it looked something like:
Day 1: Weights/Cycling
Day 2: Low/moderate intensity cardio
Day 3: Weights
Day 4: Low/moderate intensity cardio
Day 5: Weights/Cycling
Day 6: Rest/active recovery
Day 7: Rest/active recovery
With this, you've cut your intensity bouts down in half, from 6 to 3, allowing much more time for recovery.
It's important to note that fatigue is accumulative. It builds up over time like a ticking time bomb unless you manage it appropriately and that's where the whole concept of periodization comes into play.
My I realize that a total body workout is better for you but I have been concentrating on my arms/upper body figuring that the bike will take care of the lower body.
You realize it's better for you but you're not doing it, lol.
Define what you mean by "the bike will take care of the legs."
Biking isn't going to build gigantic muscles in your legs. And it's not going to do much in terms of preserving the muscles you currently have while dieting. It's a muscular endurance exercise. You need to have some muscular strength work thrown into the mix.
My brother would like to start training with me now that he is done playing hockey fulltime and that 1 day/week would be a day of "other" excersies involving plyometrics and core excercises.
Hmmm, why plyos?
