Need help starting!

T

tmalik70

0
Hey,

I've been training for a month now, still trying to get the right balance of how much reps/set to do and how much times a week to work them. Anyway here's my plan so far which I've been doing for a month.

Monday - Shoulder, Traps, Crunches and Chest
Tuesday - NONE
Wednesday - Wrist Curls, Push Ups, Triceps and Biceps
Thursday - Shoulder, Traps, Crunches and Chest
Friday - Wrist Curls, Push Ups, Triceps and Biceps
Saturday - Shoulder, Traps, Crunches and Chest
Sunday - Wrist Curls, Push Ups, Triceps and Biceps

3 sets of 12 - 10 - 8 reps = weights
3 sets of 20 = bodyweight excersises

I use a 50lb dumbell, That's the heaveist weight I've got and can't afford to join a gym. I was thinking of getting this as a set,




Here's my questions,

- Should I be working out like this that many times a week? That's every muscle 3 times a week?

- Other then legs, am I missing any major muscle group out?

- Are the set/reps right for someone like me who wants to put on muscle mass, if not what should I change them to?

Any help would be really appreciated.

Thanks!
 
1. new trainees, I recommend fullbody workouts, 3x a week.

2. you NEED to work your legs. and you're leaving out your back, except for the traps. you need pullups and you need bent over rows.

3. that bench doesn't look well built or very stable, and those weight bars are tiny and will bow with any decent amount of weight on there.

4. your rep counts are good, but 20 reps won't build a lot of muscle. it would be good if you could add weight to those. like, put on a backpack, fill it with books. and then do pushups.

have you really looked at gym pricing? cuz, you're spending like 90 pound on some sub-par equipment...man you should be able to get 4-5 months of gym membership for that.
If my conversion is right, I pay about 16 pound a month for my gym membership ($31 US)
 
The nearest gym to me charges £30 a month so that would be around $60 and that's out of the question at the moment. Could anyone in the UK link me to a good set of weights/bench that would cost under £150?

Now onto the advice,

When you say a full body workout what do you mean? I shud be working all the body parts a day 3 times a week because that seems pretty hard? If it does I'll do it but just wanna know what you mean.

I'm gonna be heading some leg and back excersises back into the regime so thanks! Also I'll try and put some weight on my back and have someone hold it while I do push ups.

I haven't got a pull up bar and don't really wanna be doing them unless absoloutly neccesery, is it and if it is isn't there any other excersise that I can do instead?

Also what are bent over rows?

Thanks for the help mate, any more help is apperciated!

Cheers!
 
Yes, I mean working virtually every muscle in the body in one session, and do it up to three days per week.
It is a big hardcore, but, you do fewer exercises.
Here's an example:
Bench press - 3 sets
Pullups - 3 sets
Squats - 3 sets
Barbell rows - 3 sets
Stiff leg deadlifts - 2-3 sets
Military/shoulder press - 2-3 sets

That's most of the muscles in your body. If you added in some calf raises and abs you'd really hit all the important stuff.

"OMG...where are the bicep curls?!" I know that's what you were thinking ;)
No curls really needed, because you already worked biceps on the pull-ups, and barbell rows. Same for triceps: bench press and military press worked them a bit.
If you did want some arm work, do 1-2 sets max of either some kind of bicep curl, or a heavy tricep move like skullcrushers, french press, DB extensions behind the head, or close grip bench press.


Pull-ups - nothing builds a strong upper back better than wide grip pullups, combined with barbell rowing. lat pulldowns on a cable machine are close to pull-ups, but not the same, and should only be used in rotation with standard pull-ups. and a pullup bar is a lot cheaper than a cable pully machine.

bent over barbell row -
kinda like that, except the torso shouldn't move. The guy in the video is 'swinging' the weight too much for my liking...he needs more control.

Any gyms further away that are cheaper, but still a resonable distance to get to? 30pound is a bummer, I wouldn't pay that much either :)
 
Without a car no way to get to a cheaper gym!

Anyway I've taken your advice and bought a pull up bar. As soon as I get that I'll start this workout regime. Should I just go with your example or is there more needed? I just want some sort of workout so I can then modifiy it for my needs. Also with the 2 - 3 sets how much reps should I be doing to gain muscle mass and should the reps stay the same in all the sets?

Also where do stuff like crunches and push ups fit in here... or don't they?

Thanks for your help!
 
crunches are for abs. with the bench press, at least right now as a newcomer, don't worry about the pushups.

the above routine really is comprehensive. its designed from this article:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=508031

give it a read.

as far as rep schemes, there's a million opinions.

generally speaking, I keep my reps the same for every set. most days lately, I'm going for 4-6 reps. some days, 8-10.
common recommendation for gaining size, is sticking to 8-12 reps per set.

Also since you probably won't be able to get far on squats without a power rack, feel free to sub in lunges for squats.
 
Ok thanks for the advice, this is what I'm planning on starting this coming Monday.

Bench press - 3 sets
Pullups - 3 sets
Squats - 3 sets
Barbell rows - 3 sets
Stiff leg deadlifts - 3 sets
Military/shoulder press - 3 sets
Crunches - 30

I'm gonna be using a 50lb or 21kg dumbell for them all and do sets of 8 reps. I'm gonna do them on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with rest on the others days.

Is that ok?

Also anyone in the UK, is there any places to get cheap weights? The ones I linked from argos are the best for value I can find?

Thanks!
 
50lbs might be a bit much for shoulder press (just a wild guess, as i have no clue what your strength is like).
 
I was doing shoulders before and am just about able to do them so I think I'll be fine. I've decided to add some wrist curls into the workout because my forearms are really small so want them to grow.

I'm planning on buying a bench, 50kg worth of weights and a pull up bar all for £98. That's under 4 months membership at the gym and I think this will help me for the next year or so. After that I should hopefully be earning money and be able to join a gym.

Thanks for your help mate, it's really appreciated!

Also if anyone has any advice please post it because I'm at a stage where I'm learning all about bodybuilding so wanna learn whatever I can!
 
I wouldn't focus too much on wrist curls. forearms will get worked everytime you hold heavy weights, as well as on back exercises.

Dont' get caught up in trying to isolate every little muscle. Use lots of compound exercises to hit lots of little muscles at the same time as big ones.
 
i used to be able to deadlift 100kg with my forearms BARLY being able to hold it, now i do 125kg with no grip problems. what did i do? started doing all my compound movements without straps.
 
Last edited:
Cool I'll cut out the forearm excersises and stick to,


Bench press - 3 sets
Pullups - 3 sets
Squats - 3 sets
Barbell rows - 3 sets
Stiff leg deadlifts - 3 sets
Military/shoulder press - 3 sets
Crunches - 30

3 sets of 8 reps = weights

I've bought myself a bench and 50kg worth of weights as well as a pull up bar so i'm ready to go. I'm going to start most of the excersies with a barbell weighting 25kg and slowly move up to 50kg when I feel the time is right.

Out of these excersises which one's should I be using a barbell for and which ones should I be using dumbelss for? I've always used just a barbell for every excersise but now I've got some dumbells I just wanna know if their better suited to any excersises?

Also should I be doing pull ups like weights with 3x8 or like crunches with a set amount?

Finally what's a good number of crunches to do?

Thanks.
 
tmalik70 said:
Cool I'll cut out the forearm excersises and stick to,


Bench press - 3 sets
Pullups - 3 sets
Squats - 3 sets
Barbell rows - 3 sets
Stiff leg deadlifts - 3 sets
Military/shoulder press - 3 sets
Crunches - 30

3 sets of 8 reps = weights

I've bought myself a bench and 50kg worth of weights as well as a pull up bar so i'm ready to go. I'm going to start most of the excersies with a barbell weighting 25kg and slowly move up to 50kg when I feel the time is right.

Out of these excersises which one's should I be using a barbell for and which ones should I be using dumbelss for? I've always used just a barbell for every excersise but now I've got some dumbells I just wanna know if their better suited to any excersises?

Also should I be doing pull ups like weights with 3x8 or like crunches with a set amount?

Finally what's a good number of crunches to do?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

With the exercises you have listed (which are great btw), I would go with a barbell BUT switch it up sometimes. The DB's would be good for the shoulder/military presses...bench presses as well sometimes.

Have you tried pullups before? It's gonna be tough to do 3 X 8, at least it is for most people with good form. If you have a lower rep day (6 or below) I would put the pullups there and try them at lower reps but higher sets. So instead of 3 sets of 8 reps, do 6 sets of 4 reps - you still get the same number of reps in.
 
Thanks I'll take your advice and switch the pull ups to 4x6.

I had my first workout yesterday and am feeling really tired. I could only do 4 pull ups so the 4x6 might be a good idea. Everything else went pretty good, the shoulder presses were difficult with a 25kg dumbell and I struggled near the end but got them done.

I'll keep going with this workout but when should I change it around as in increase the weight or change a few excersises. I was thinking around 4-6 weeks?
 
increase weight every time you feel like you need to increase weight.

at first, you'll increase weekly as you learn to control all the muscles needed to move the weight. then it'll slow down on the poundage increase.
1-2 months you'll change the routein a little.

if you can do 20 crunches easily, and properly, then you probably need to hold a weight on your chest. but I doubt you're at that point yet.
 
I had my second workout last night and had some problems. I started off with pull ups followed by shoulder presses and bench presses. Half way into my shoulder presses my arms were hurting real bad and with the bench presses it was hard to complete. I can do around 4 reps properly and then the form isn't great. I wanna change it so I'm thinking, should I increase the weight and lower the reps to 4 or should I lower the weight and keep going at the 3x8 formula that I'm going for now?

Thanks.
 
i suggest doing bench press before you do shoulder press, you always want to work from biggest to smallest muscles.

Since shoulder press hits shoulders and tris and bench press works out chest, shoulders, and tris, you are fatiguing your shoulders and tris with the shoulder press so your chest workout will suffer cause you have fatigued the other muscles required to do the exercise.
 
I'll give that a go tomorrow and hope that helps. I didn't know there should be a specific order to working out so could you please give me an order to do the following excersises in?

Bench press - 3 sets
Squats - 3 sets
Barbell rows - 3 sets
Stiff leg deadlifts - 3 sets
Military/shoulder press - 3 sets
Pull ups - 6 set (4 reps)
Crunches - 50

Thanks!
 
tmalik70 said:
I'll give that a go tomorrow and hope that helps. I didn't know there should be a specific order to working out so could you please give me an order to do the following excersises in?

Bench press - 3 sets
Squats - 3 sets
Barbell rows - 3 sets
Stiff leg deadlifts - 3 sets
Military/shoulder press - 3 sets
Pull ups - 6 set (4 reps)
Crunches - 50

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Are pulldowns an option, or are you physically able to do 6 sets of 4 reps of pullups? With what you have, I would do squats first, deadlifts second, then bench/rows or rows/bench, then shoulder press.

Pullups, if you have enough juice left, would turn out to be last here, but, I would often put pullups first before squats at the beginning after I stretched out because the pullups warm me up quite a bit more and don't take too much energy out of me, but of course everyone is different and pullups make take quite a bit out of you. You don't NEED pullups every workout though, you could switch between rows and pullups.
 
Yeah, I'm doing a very similar workout but I space my excercises a bit differently... It's best to hit the larger muscle groups first and I dont like to do two consecutive exercises that hit the same body parts... I'd try doing something like...

Squats
Bent Over BB Row
Deadlifts
Bench Press
Pull Ups
Military Press
Crunches

That way you hit the biggest compound exercises first, since your leg muscles are the biggest in your body. At the same time you don't have to work the same muscles twice in a row... for example you don't do Bench and Military back to back and you don't do Squats and Deadlifts back to back. Anyways, that's the way I set it up, works good for me.
 
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