New to Working Out, Routine Question

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bLaCkZeSt

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Hi there guys,

I am new to your forum and have done quite a bit of reading. I would have put this in the intro forum but I feel my post more pertains to weight lifting. Two years ago (grade 11) I weighed 237 lbs at 6 feet. I hated myself and over those last two years I have managed to lose almost 70 pounds to where I now sit at 170 pounds and 13% body fat. I have just recently started working out with weights as I was given a work out bench for my birthday that just passed. I was also given a book called "Get Strong" by Jake Steinfeld. I know it's corny and all to follow a book but I needed somewhere to start. I take his exercises and customize it to my liking.

My typical workout routine is this:

Monday - Abs, Lower Back, Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps Cardio 30 - 60 Mins
Tuesday - Legs, Back, and Biceps Cardio 30 - 60 Mins

I then alternate day by day doing the same muscle groups every other day. I know i've read that working out like this should not be done but my question is why? Is it because you are doing more harm then good or is it because people don't want to go to the gym everyday? I find that since my equipment is all in my basement I am very modivated and find that I do not want to take a day off. I love working out, especially because I love the protein bar I get to eat at the end :cool: .

My guess is that what I am doing is overkill and is not good. I know Jake Steinfeld suggests a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday routine. If this is better than my question is can I still work my abs every other day? That is the main section I want to work on as it is what impresses the ladies the most ;) . I know I still need to shed some pounds and have a lower body fat before my abs will show, but I work my abs hard as I now superset 3 exercises in one and do at least 3-4 supersets.

Thanks for any advice in advance. I think I will love it here. :)
 
search for "full body workout" on this forum, and you will find alot of reasons why a 3 day a week fullbody is better than a split.
 
First

Congrats on the weight loss.

IMO, the biggest problem with your routine is that it's too much. If you plan on getting a complete workout every time you go to the gym, that routine will lead you to overtrain. You should get atleast 2 rest days in a week. The other thing that I noticed is that you do your lower back on a different day from your upper back. That's not good either. You should do your entire back on the same day. Also, unless your doing a push/pull split, I wouldn't seperate my biceps and triceps into 2 days; do them in the same day. They both fall into the "arms' category and unless you're doing the push/pull, I wouldn't seperate them. I like to superset my biceps and triceps because I feel that I get a more extensive arm workout when I do that.

EDIT: On what Karky said: Since you're new to weightlifting then a fullbody workout would be the best way to go. But once you hit a plateau and the full body isn't enough, you should do a split. I like to alternate between a fullbody workout and a split; I found that it's the best way to go for me. I personally favor a fullbody workout over a split, but, for the best results I think you should alternate between the two.
 
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why alternate between the two if a full body gives best results? unless you are talking about an upper lower split or push pull split. Theres no reason to train like a proffessional BBer if you aint one, dont have their genes and want to pack on more than 20lbs of muscle over the entire body. When you are a BBer and just want to get in proportion, add mass to specific areas, while not adding mass to others to archeve a good proportion, then a split might be the way to go.
other than that, a split is usually what you use when you come to the point where you juice so much that you can handle so much volume that fullbody 3 days a week would take like like 3 hours to complete if you were to train with the volume your muscles can handle while jucing.
 
Thanks for the info guys, I really appreciate it. I have learned through much more reading around here that my calorie intake is also much too low for muscle gain. I usually limit myself to consuming 1800 calories a day when after calculating what I burn on an average workout day to be 3500 calories. Although this has resulted in rapid weight loss (probably not very healthy for me), I plan on uping my calorie intake with 5 - 6 meals a day alternating between protein/carb and protein/fat meals. I will also limit myself to working out between 3-4 times a week. I plan to continue my cardio daily as it keeps me in good shape and burns the fat. I will also consider doing full body workouts instead of splits, although I know it would take me an hour and a half to complete one. That's not a big deal, i'm just not used to it. I've seen many people suggest a Monday, Wednesday, Friday routine which I plan on trying.
 
Well, seems like you have learned alot.

Hour and a half? it only takes me about an hour :p just focus on big lifts, and use supersets if you want to save time, do like
Bench press, rest one minnute Bendt over row rest one minnute, bench press.. and so forth, instead of doing straight sets with 2 min rest time ;)
dont use exercises that fatigues the same muscles, and its a good idea to pair antagonistic muscle groups (muscle goups that are oposite of eacother, like biceps and triceps, chest and upper back and so on)

(the rest interval and exercises was just an example, use more/less rest according do your goals)
 
Karky said:
why alternate between the two if a full body gives best results? unless you are talking about an upper lower split or push pull split. Theres no reason to train like a proffessional BBer if you aint one, dont have their genes and want to pack on more than 20lbs of muscle over the entire body. When you are a BBer and just want to get in proportion, add mass to specific areas, while not adding mass to others to archeve a good proportion, then a split might be the way to go.
other than that, a split is usually what you use when you come to the point where you juice so much that you can handle so much volume that fullbody 3 days a week would take like like 3 hours to complete if you were to train with the volume your muscles can handle while jucing.
Click to expand...

That's one of the things I said in my initial post; if you should get to the point where a fullbody isn't enough, it's good to swith to split. I haven't gotten to the point where a fullbody isn't enough, but I still have to alternate between the two because during the basketball & volleyball seasons (6 months a year), a fullbody routine is just too much for me to handle; I'd end up overtraining whereas with a split, I don't overtrain. If it weren't for those 6 months of sports, I think I would most likely do fullbody year round.
 
The way i've always done it was to do 3 sets of the same exercise then move on. I'll now pair "antagonsitic" muscle groups and do it that way. I'm a little confused as to how many reps I should be doing in order to gain muscle the fastest (not just tone). I have been doing usually 3 sets of around 12-15 as I have read that it's the best way. After 15 my muscles are exhausted and can't do anymore. After reading around here however, I have heard other things such as only doing 3 reps (much more weight). What would you recommend my exhaustion amount of reps should be in order to pack on the muscle? :p
 
Whiplash said:
That's one of the things I said in my initial post; if you should get to the point where a fullbody isn't enough, it's good to swith to split. I haven't gotten to the point where a fullbody isn't enough, but I still have to alternate between the two because during the basketball & volleyball seasons (6 months a year), a fullbody routine is just too much for me to handle; I'd end up overtraining whereas with a split, I don't overtrain. If it weren't for those 6 months of sports, I think I would most likely do fullbody year round.
Click to expand...

wow, so your a world class athlete then?
And if you compare a split to a fullbody, its usually pretty much the same volume, only full body has it spread out over the week, which is alot better, since you keep the protein synthesis up and going. And if you dident notice from my post, i kind of stated my belief that being able to handle so much volume, that fullbody workouts 3 times a week just isent enough, you would either have to be a pretty high class athlete, or juice.
And hell, why not just move to 4 days a week full body, if you can handle the volume its a pretty darn good training method.
(if you are talking about alternating between full body and splits like upper lower or push pull, then disregard that :p )

you should really go to Testosterone Nation and search Full body on articles. you should find lots of articles where good trainers discuss the use of splits and full body routines.

and black.. the whole 15 reps to "tone" is bull****. But if you want size, 3 reps with alot of weight isent exactly the way to go either, since that is more for strenght without size gain. 8-12 is the typical hypertrophy range, which is muscle growth by making the muscle cells grow ;)
do 3-4 sets, 3 if you use the higher end of the rep range and 4 when you use the lower one. for example 4x8 .. 3x10.. 3x12
 
Karky, split workouts are a lot less fatiguing than full body workouts. That is the main reason why I favor splits over fullbody workouts if one is competing in a demanding sport on the side of weight training. Split workout routines are short, less demanding and lower your chances of overtraining. If you read this article from T-Nation, you'll see where I'm coming from:

Testosterone Nation - Full Body vs. Split Training

I prefer fullbody, however, because of it's high demand for energy expenditure, I cannot stick with it year round because I will over train. Splits are easier to perform than fullbody workouts and they don't wear you down as fast. On top of that, they'll give you results like fullbody workouts. And that's really the only thing I like about split workouts; they aren't as fatiguing as fullbody routines but nonetheless, give results.
 
Great Karky, i'll try to aim for 8-12 now doing 3-4 sets depending. Only one last question... the area in which I want the best results are my abs (I know I need to cut down to at least 10% body fat). Right now I train them every other day doing 3-4 trisets of as much as I can handle. Would there be a benefit to me upping it to once a day? Do my ab muscles need 48 hours to recover because I have read that they recover very fast.

Thanks a lot once again ;)
 
I have read that article. And an FBW doesnt take longer than 1 hour to complete, or atleast, it doesnt have to. And fatigue, ive put up an example on that before, what do you think is best for working the legs, like this:

Monday.
Back squat 3x10
Front squat 3x12
Bulgarian squat 4x8

..

or:
M
Back squat 3x10

W
Front squat 3x12

F
Bulgarian squat 4x8

--

with the exercises spread out over the week you would be able to go at them with higher intensity, if all were done on the same day, already by the front squat the weight you could use would have been reduced.

Read the roundtable discussion about full body VS splits, there you got 3 well respected authors giving their opinion on the matter, its a long series of articles, with ALOT more info than that article (which i BTW dident really like)

and what he says about the CNS.. well, with full body training you also allow for recovery of the CNS, you do alot less work than with a split, so recovery is faster.

Split gives results, but not as good results as fullbody, due to for example, more days spendt where your protein synthesis is elevated.

Though if you feel splits give you an advantage, go ahead and do it. But i will argue full body workouts are better. And i would rather alternate between full body workout and an upper/lower or push/pull.

And if you feel fullbody workouts put you into a state of overtraining, then you're simply doing too much.

Though, i must say it does depend on the goal, i dont know who you are and what your goals are. For all i know, you could be a proffessional body builder, if so, splits are a good option to do if you want to alter your proportiones, since you are allowed to give different focus to each muscle group better than with a fullbody approach.

BTW: heres that article: Testosterone Nation - The Training Split Roundtable
there are sevral parts to it aswell.

Damn that was long :s

bLaCkZeSt: the abs need time to recover aswell. Squats, deadlifts, rows and other core lifts will improve your abs aswell because they use them for stabilization (brace your abs as if you were to take a punch while you do these). all you need is maybe one movement 2-3 times a week. Like Cable crunches, Russian Twists and ab rollouts (divide them over the course of a week).
If you want them to grow, do something that fatigues you in the 8-12 rep range for 3 sets. Thats the typical hyp (size) way of training.
 
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Okay, I see where you're coming from.

"And if you feel fullbody workouts put you into a state of overtraining, then you're simply doing too much."

That might be the problem. I'll tone the intensity of my fullbody workout down some and see if it changes anything. Thanks for the article.
 
Here's what my fullbody looks like:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday

Bench Press (3x8-12)
Seated Fly Machine (3x8-12)
Cable Front Pulldown (3x8-12)
Row Machine (3x8-12)
Dumbbell Shoulder Press (3x8-12)
Barbell Shoulder Shrugs (3x8-12)
Barbell Curl (3X8-12)(60 LBS)
Alternating Hammer Curls (3x8-12)
Triceps Press Machine (3x8-12)
Dumbbell Triceps Extension (3x8-12)
Barbell Wrist Curl (3x8-12)
Barbell Reverse Wrist Curl (3x8-12)

As for legs: my basketball & volleyball coach (depending on season) has the entire team do plyometrics and conditioning training that really takes alot out of my legs, so I can't do weights on my legs as much as I normally would like to. The only time that I will use weights for my legs is on Saturdays and the workout goes like this:

Squats (3x8-12)
Leg Press Machine (3x8-12)
Leg Extensions (3x8-12)
Standing Calf Raise (3x8-12)
Lying Leg Curl (3x8-12)

And abs? I do abs once a week. They're done on the same day as legs:
Crunches (4x50)
Twisting Crunches (4x25)
Incline Situps (4x20)
Vertical Leg-Hip Raise (4x30)
____________________________________________

The greatest problem for me with weight training is energy expenditure. The everyday practices and games take alot of steam out of me and I can't workout as much as I would off season. That's why I alternated fullbody and splits.

I'll give another try to fullbody workouts on Monday. This time I'll do 2 exercises for the larger parts (back, chest, shoulders) and 1 for the smaller parts. If it's still too much, then I'll just do 2 sets of 10-12 reps.

As for legs, I'm gonna try this routine: It looks good, I hope it works.
 
^^Therein lies your problem with full-body workouts. Way too many exercises and way too much isolation. In fact, almost none of it is compound movements. Stick with the big lifts and you can cut that list down dramatically, making it much more effective. Here can be a good sample workout: (By the way, read the article that Karky gave on full-body workouts, it is a very good article.

  • Squat
  • Deadlift
  • Push
  • Pull
  • Lunge
  • Twist

Everything can contain variations, but that is the jist of it. For example, switch it up between front, back, bulgarian squats; SLDL, Romanian, conventional deadlifts; DB Bench, Incline, Shoulder Press, etc.. and so on and so forth. Stick to the big lifts and you will see some dramatic changes with a full-body workout.
 
I would really appreciate it if someone could give me a sample of a good fullbody workout or guide me to a link that will provide me with one. Thanks for the help.
 
Yet another question guys...

As I have previously mentioned I have been focusing on weight loss for the last 2 years and have cut down to 13 percent body fat. I want idealy 10 percent body fat and have read that I am not intaking nearly enough calories to build muscle. I need to up my calorie intake from a measely 2000 to at least 3500 to have excess calories in which can form into muscle. My question is, should I concentrate on weight loss until I achieve my 10 percent body fat and then go for the bulk or start now? Can I gain muscle and still shed the pounds of fat to lower my body fat percentage? My goal is to have a nice six pack (eventually) as well as being bulk in general but I would have to say my abs are first on my list. I am very scared as to this whole idea of upping my calorie intake by so much, although i'm sure eating the right foods will only assist me. I just have this huge fear that the calories will just go into fat instead of muscle. I guess time will tell huh? :p
 
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