Hi comrades, what do you think of my routine?
shoulder press 3x10 25kg chest press 3x10 25kg incline press 3x10 20-25kg seated dip 3x10 30kg biceps curl each arm 10kg 3x10 total arnold pose 3x10 7.5kg biceps curl with iron rod 20kg 3x10 middle chest 5x8 10kg leg press 3x10 20kg mid row 3x10 35kg lat pulldown 3x10 35kg
I go three times to the gym per week. I’m getting noticeable improvements lately, wondering if I can do any improvements. No splits at the moment.
Some good exercises here. It’s very chest heavy. I’d want to balance it a bit more and do more leg work.
I’d alternate the flat/incline chest press. Then I’d swap the single arm bicep curls for either a barbell or dumbbell row. I’d alternate the barbell bicep curls with a tricep exercise (skull crushers). And I’d swap the seated dips for a leg exercise: either alternating squats/deadlifts or one day leg extensions, one day curls, one day calf raises. And I’d move the biggest leg exercise first because it’s best to do while you have most energy to help you to avoid compromising your form (not that you have to go ‘heavy’, still—that’s up to you).
You don’t have to do splits with a three-day routine. Full body, building from big compound lifts always worked well for me. It will depend on your goals though. If you’re going for size, you’ll likely want a split eventually.
Thank you comrade, the info provided is really helpful! I will aim to implement everything you’ve said and make an update later on. At the moment I’m just trying to do a caloric surplus in order to bulk, I was really skinny, now I’m better but I still need to bulk a lot, at least 10 kilograms.
I was the same once. If you are tempted by supplements like creatine, drink plenty of water. You want to look after your kidneys! Personally, I’d just go with food, water, and exercise. If I did add a supplement I’d limit that to whey protein or egg whites because they seem closest to ‘real food’ to me. Others may disagree. I think @[email protected] is good with nutrition, although I realise you were asking about the routine side of things, here.
Back, legs, and triceps involve a lot more muscle mass than chest and biceps, so they involve more muscle that can grow. I.e. if you train full body and hit legs and back well, you’ll grow and look bigger sooner.
I’m under the impression that squats and deadlifts hit so many muscle groups, that they encourage your body to produce more testosterone than doing isolation exercises. Over time, it adds up to a greater increase in muscle mass. I could be wrong about that but at least legs and back are fun to train so even if I’m wrong about the science, you’d get to have fun being wrong with me.
If you are going for mass, I’d drop the reps to 6–8 per set and go slow on the negative part of each rep. But the science might have moved on since I learned what I know so double check that with someone who’s more up to date.
If you do add squats and deads, you may want to up your calories a little more because, for me at least, it’s like a HIIT session and my metabolism will be sky high for a day or two afterwards.
I’m not eating any supplements, getting my protein from hummus, nuts, eggs, etc. I usually do them pretty slow though. Yeah I definitely need more leg exercises. Thanks for the tips!
Thanks for tagging me. I don’t only do nutrition 😁
I’m still a proponent of the “muscle building routine” (yes that’s what it’s named) which is in my fitness guide which I think chay is aware of. It’s a bit long, I’ve actually cut it down in my own training, but the foundations are solid. But at their stage there’s nothing wrong with doing full-body (to address other comments I’ve seen), it’s good to get an idea of what exercises they like most and learning to do them well. If they’re still in newbie gains it’s actually a very good idea to do full body.
Onto your suggestions more specifically, I can offer some pointers. Food, water, exercise and SLEEP. That’s when your muscles get repaired. Sleep is probably the first factor.
All supplements are taken from natural sources, they’re not things we can readily synthesize (I actually had this conversation with a colleague the other day, they want to take everything “natural” and I said all we do is isolate the important part from a natural ingredient). Pea protein from example is still taken from real food; keep in mind whey protein is not straight whey, the protein was mechanically extracted from the whey (and the whey itself was chemically isolated from the milk through enzymes in the cheese-making process).
The good part of whey protein is that it contains all essential amino acids. But ideally you should still try to get all your protein from “normal” food, which is achievable with a calorie and macro tracking app.
For back and legs, they are BIG muscles. Legs actually take longer to grow, but have the potential to grow bigger than other muscles. Your back should be treated as one giant muscle so imagine all the area you have for growth there. Also working the posterior chain and the back in general is important; we tend to focus only on the front because that’s what we can see, but your back also plays an essential role in your body (we wouldn’t have evolved one otherwise).
In general the focus should be on compounds -> “side” -> isolation. Compounds like the bench press, squats and deadlifts target many muscles with more or less intensity, and that’s what a routine should start with. Then move on to “side” exercises which target “biggish” groups (e.g. lats) as well as the smaller groups (eg the lat pulldown will work your lats first, but then also your shoulders, other parts of the back, and the biceps in a lesser capacity). Finish with isolation on the smallest muscles like ab/adductors, biceps, triceps, deltoids, etc.
But the science might have moved on since I learned what I know so double check that with someone who’s more up to date.
It seems it doesn’t really matter, and if you train for slow reps you’ll become better at slow reps, and if you train for fast reps you’ll become better at fast reps. But growth seems to be the same for both rep speeds. However it’s still important to control the negative.
If you do add squats and deads, you may want to up your calories a little more because, for me at least, it’s like a HIIT session and my metabolism will be sky high for a day or two afterwards.
I think this makes sense mathematically. You train big muscles = you expend more calories. They also need more nutrients and energy to repair however whether that results in increased calorie intake (certainly can increase feelings of hunger) I can’t say as I don’t know enough to say.
I remember looking at your guide actually. It was helpful. Might have to have a refresh.
You have some good specific recommendations from @[email protected], so I’ll talk more about high level, type stuff.
I’d worry less about the specific amount of weight and reps and more about RPE (rate of perceived exertion). Make sure you are pushing yourself to change through progressive overload. I don’t know what your progression plan is, but if you don’t have one, you should consider having a plan in place. You need to stress the body to change or it won’t, that includes muscle growth, strength or whatever your goals are.
That leads to my other point, it’s great to get active and improve your health, but part of what will inform a good program is what your goals are. Are you looking at health, practical strength, sport, aesthetics? There’s overlap in all of those, of course, but knowing what you want out of your time at the gym can better inform what you want your routine to look like.
I just add 5kg to the exercises when I feel capable to do it, for example I recently jumped from 20kg to 25kg after being there for like a month and a half. My goals right now is to bulk, I managed to bulk around 6kg since I started, so I won’t be so skinny lol. Mainly health and practical strength.
Deadlifts and squats are the best exercises for gaining mass because of how many muscles they target and how big the targeted muscles are.
I would agree with @[email protected] again and say you’ll want to focus on big complex lifts then. Bench, overhead, squat, deads, barbell rows, etc. The dips you’ve got are good, and I’d add some sort of pull/chin-up. Wide grip is the most effective in my opinion, but they are rather difficult and you do have lat pull downs, so neutral grip could be good too.
Once you get more comfortable with lifting, I’d say Olympic lifting might really be where it’s at (assuming you have the space/equipment for it). Moving bigger weight with a wide variety of muscles is a great way to build mass and health. We all love curls and having pump in the arms, but for health and mass, you can’t beat a powerful clean and press. Big weight, lots of muscles involved and puts a good amount of stress on your cardio system for health.
This seems like an universal recommendation hah, thanks a lot!
You do all of this in a single routine? 😳
Yep, takes me about 2 hours or so, depending on how many breaks I take
Id recommend you to switch to a muscle focused workout (i.e. push day, pull day, leg day) with less volume but higher intensity. Less time at the gym + better progress, although its fine to start with full body circuits to condition your body, with the shorter lift sessions you could squeeze a light cardio every day too.
Yep, I plan to do that later on, probably in a few months. Right now I want to finetune my workout as it is then do splits, I first need to do a lot more research about them
Also try different excercises, variations, different grips, etc… For example, on lat pulldowns i never felt my lats using the normal wide grip bar until i tried a neutral grip bar.
Alrighty, I’ll try the neutral grip bar, I usually do it with the wide grip bar with a neutral pose
My only advice would be to try and incorporate deadlifts and squats. The reason is that they strengthen your legs and your posterior chain (lower back, glutes, hamstrings). Legs and posterior chain are the foundation upon which your body stands so it feels really good once you strengthen them. You don’t have to concern yourself with lifting too much weight because once you get started, those muscles will see a noticeable spurt of growth that sticks with you for a long time even if you stop working them out.
The problem is that you need to have good form to not hurt yourself. This is very important. Do not under any circumstances underestimate the necessity of warmup, stretching and good form when doing heavy exercises. If you hurt yourself badly it is difficult to get help and recovery can be difficult unless you have access to a decent sports physiotherapist. You have to really make sure you don’t hurt yourself.
So because of this, if you decide to incorporate these exercises make sure you have an experienced person who can show you the ropes and check your form. Please make sure you don’t hurt yourself.
On the other hand, I think as long as you are enjoying your workout and seeing improvement I would say don’t worry about minmaxing your routine. It is a good trait if you don’t get obsessed with working out in and of itself and only use it as a supplement to improve your quality of life.
There are instructors available, I can talk with one of them I think. Thanks for the heads up! Do you think I should implement ab exercises or not really?
I haven’t done them so can’t give you any informed opinion. Sorry.
That’s alright, thanks!
I do ab exercises daily, because you can a small number of them in < 2 minutes and see results pretty fast. Some vids:
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
I don’t know anything about anything but id expect chest press to have higher weight/grow faster than shoulder press?
Personally I find it harder than the shoulder press
