What lifting program should I go with?

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prestigerg7

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I was having a discussion with a co-worker, and he told me that since I'm only looking to get a little cut and toned, and not ripped that I should change my routine from doing few reps with high weight to many reps with low weight. Since I don't have much experience in weight lifting I'm not sure which way I should go.

I'm 5'10'' 193lbs. (going down to 175-180lbs.) 20 years old. My diet is fairly good also, mostly fruits and vegetables, chicken, non-fat yogurt, protein shake after workouts, and lots of water.

What lifting program should I go with if I'm just trying to build some tone and definition?
 
Lately, I've been reading a lot of articles which say to vary your set/rep ranges. For example, if you workout MWF, do 5x5 on Monday, 3x10 on Wednesday, and 2x15 on Friday.

I've just started doing this this week, so I can't say personally whether this works or not. But I figured that it sounded good enough to try.

What does your routine look like now?
 
My schedule is, Monday, Wednesday and Friday I do Chest, Arms, and Shoulders, and Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday I do Legs, Abs and Lower Back.

I just work with a benching bar and dumbbells, I do a few various exercises. Depending on how hard it is I do 2 to 3 sets and stay between 8 and 10 reps for each set.
 
6 days a week might be a bit much. How long have you been following this routine and how have you progressed?
 
i've only really been lifting for about 3 months, first 2 months I just did full body workouts 5 days a week after my cardio and i've split it up into 6 days and upper and lower body for the past month. I don't really do backbreaking or extreme workouts thats why I didn't give myself more rest days.

But I've definitly noticed muscle in my triceps and biceps, around my calfs and my upper chest, the rest of my body i'd probably need to loose a good 10-15 pounds to see some muscle there.
 
Normally, I'd recommend doing more intense workouts 3-4 days a week, but if you're still making progress I see no need to make any changes.
 
prestigerg7 said:
i've only really been lifting for about 3 months, first 2 months I just did full body workouts 5 days a week after my cardio and i've split it up into 6 days and upper and lower body for the past month. I don't really do backbreaking or extreme workouts thats why I didn't give myself more rest days.

But I've definitly noticed muscle in my triceps and biceps, around my calfs and my upper chest, the rest of my body i'd probably need to loose a good 10-15 pounds to see some muscle there.
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IMO, that seems like a lot of time at the gym without any real rest or recovery. When I was first starting out- I would do Full body workouts (legs, chest, back, shoulders and arms) 15 reps on Mon Wed and Friday. Cardio on Tues and Thurs and took the weekends off. That's when I started to see a lot of definition. Now I isolate my training which is what you say you are not interested in- building muscle/hypertrophy. I think what you were doing before worked- why change it? Just maybe change up the specific exercises.
 
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