ExRx.net

What are u guys routine? im thinkin about changing my routine

my routine is
Mon:chest
tuesday:back
wedsney:rest
thursday:arm day
Friday:leg+shoulder

so is my routine ok?

For a once a week frequency it's not bad. Exercise selection is more keyl though. These are the routines I've been following for a while now.

Day 1
Squat
Bench
Row

Day 2
Squat
Incline Bench
Deadlift

Day 3
Squat
Bench
Row

-----

Day1
Squat
Straight Leg Deadlift
Calf Raise
Bench
Row
Military Press/Clean and Press
EZ Bar Curls
Triceps Pushdowns.

Same for Day 2 and 3

Upper/Lower Split
Day1
Bench
Row Clean and Press
EZ Bar Curls
EZ Bar Triceps Extensions

Day 2
Squats
Stright Leg Deadlift
Calf Raise
Shrugs

Day 3
Decline Bench
Lat Pulldowns
Military Press
Preacher Curl
Triceps Pushdowns

Day 4
Desd Lift
Good morning
Calf Raise
Shrugs

_________________
"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you..."

I have found working muscles that work together on the same day gives you the most for your effort. I like to take a few compound lifts and build routines around them. It also keep excercises from interfering with each other.

For example if you do overhead press on Friday, your shoulder day, you will not get much out of it because your triceps are still fatigued from Thursday (arm day). Maybe your ant. delts are still not quite 100% by Monday when you do your chest again.

You could do chest with ant and lat delts, upper trap and triceps on Monday. You could do
2 flat bench
2 incline bench
1 overhead
1 shrug
2 lateral raises
1 tricep extension

Or say you want Monday to be shorter, you can move lat delts and upper traps to another day, doing only chest, tris and ant delts like this.
2 flat
2 incline
1 front raise
1 tricep extension

I do my first example on Monday
Tuesday I do squats, wide stance squats and calf raises (lower minus hams)
Thursday I do most of the pull. back, bis, forarms, hams, abs.
3 bo row
1 pulldown
3 straight leg
1 decline weighted situps
1 curl
1 hammer curl
wrist extensors/flexsors.

You could do a 4 day split like this.
day 1: chest, shoulders, tri's
day 2: back, bi's
day 3: glute, hip, quad, calf.
day 4: lower back, abs, hams, inner thighs.

I like to take bench press, rows, squats and straight legs and build routines around them. That is the most efficient way in my opinion.

It depends on what you have been doing.

Why don't you post your background and a summary of how you have been training?

This is my current workout, with my goal currently is fat loss but maintaining/gaining muscle size and strength. If you have any suggestions, shoot em out!

All weights are done with 3 sets of 12,10,8 reps. Same weight. 2 mins rest between each set, about 5 mins between each exercise.

Monday

Barbell Row
Barbell Curl
Dumbell Curl

Tuesday

Bench Press
Incline Bench Press
Lying Triceps Extension

Thursday

Squat
Calve Raises
One-Legged Dumbell Calve Raises

Friday

Military Press
Barbell Shrug
Barbell Curls

I also follow up my workouts with 15 mins of cardio. M/W/F I run on the treadmill. Tuesday I ususally spar with a heavy bag, and Thursdays I do spinning. I follow my complete workout with a protein shake, and an hour later a small dinner. I take the weekend off to relax, although this is usually when my splurging occurs so I have to keep an eye out for my evil habit!

Any suggestions/recommendations?

^ u forgot deadlift?

For Thomas, although it is possible he forgot deadlift, there is nothing wrong with not deadlifting all the time. There are a lot of reasons for this and you should become familiar with them to maximize gains in particular lifts. If you want more information or even specific workouts I have some.

For Nunya, first off, if youa re doing the same weight on each exercise, you should do the same amount of reps for all sets. This is the progressive overload idea and is important for maximizing gains. Your current scheme of 12,10,8 is okay if you increase weight with each set, thus still producing a progressive overload. For example, if you did 12x100,10x120,8x140. Your last set is likely the hardest even though you are doing fewer reps.

Next, for fat loss 2 minute rest is okay at first but you should try pushing to 90-30 seconds. Also, I see that you are doing more of a bodypart split and this is causing you to rest between exercises. This rest also reduces the calorie burning effect of lifting. I admit there is merit to lifting heavy weights in terms of burning calories but if fat loss is your goal you should cut rest time to near 60 seconds and do exercises than can be done without too much rest between them.

I know for myself that this can be hard but after having some continual lower body problems I am certain are due to being too heavy.

Althoug leaving out deadlifts is certainly fine, your program is lacking in hamstring work and you should include some. There are a lot of good exercises on this site to choose from. Another exercise that I have found invaluable as of late are back extensions or hyperextensions (they are the basically the same thing). They are a good hamstring workout although when I had weaker hamstrings (due to lack of hamstring work) they made my hamstrings hurt a lot and I had to stop and fix the hamstrings first.

The 15 minutes of cardio is good but if you fat loss is your goal you should be doing more. I would say milkd splurging is ok on ONE day per week.

I do 12,10,8 because I used to do 10,10,10 but I would never be able to hit 10 in the last set. My goak was 30 total reps so my thinking was, I'll do more at the first one when I'm fresh, do 10 on second, and 8 is my goal for the third. 30 total reps and I achieve the goal in each one. Should I just go back to 10,10,10 and just suck it up and accept that I won't always get 10 reps on each set?

I should also mention I do all of this in a home gym, which is just a squat rack, a bench, EZ curl and olympic bars. This makes it a bit tougher for me to do some of the other exercises so I mainly stick to compound exercises. I might do deadlifts on Friday instead of shrugs, but would that be too soon after squats to do them? Would deadlifts give me some hamstring work? I've done the stiff legged ones and I felt like I was walking funny for about 3 days so I never did them again!

Nunya, if it made you feel like that, you made 1 of 2 mistakes with your form. You either had one foot out farther which caused too much strain on one half of your lower back, or you held the weight out too far in front of you.

I would reccomend Straight leg deadlifts (have someone check your form) to help with lower back and hamstrings. That gets your abs a little too, but I would do a set of an ab/hip exercise. I would also add a set of pullovers on your back day to help get your lats better. maybe a wide stance leg exercise for inner thighs too. Probably shouldn't do biceps twice, maybe upright rows on Friday instead.

In my opinion, cardio is better on a seperate day. I would keep reps the same, 10 is good for a mass/strength mix. If you can't get 8 on your last set drop the weight a little, always go to failure and don't worry about getting 30 reps.

In my opinion, the rest should be the same regardless of weather you are switching excercises or just doing another set. I think 3 to 4 minutes is good for maximum recovery, this allows you to lift the most wieght. Also, you can probably do less sets on something that already got worked in a compound lift, like triceps for example.

"In my opinion, cardio is better on a seperate day. I would keep reps the same, 10 is good for a mass/strength mix. If you can't get 8 on your last set drop the weight a little, always go to failure and don't worry about getting 30 reps. "

Going to failure all the time is a good way to fail at your fitness goals. Training to failure places additional taxation on your body that do not give comparable benefits. Stopping 1-2 reps short of failure will greatly decrease your needed recovery time while still giving positive strength gains year round. Training to failure once in a while (say at the end of a 4-6 week cycle) can be a good way to truly test your progress but is not really necessary.

Nunya, if you continue to work at 3x10 you will eventually get all the reps. How long did you try to this setup? Are you increasing weight even though you arent getting 3x10 in your previous workout? You should keep doing the same weight until you get all 3 sets then up the weight and start over.

For the stiff leg DL's if you start light and workup there shouldnt be a problem.

My back was fine, it was my hamstrings that were killing me! Should I do the stiff legged deadlifts on thursday after squat then to hit quad/ham or Friday instead of shrugs, since heavy weight held like that should get my traps decently enough? I always did 10,10,10 but someone suggested I do 12,10,8 so I've been trying it out. I like the 10's because its more consistent though, I will switch back!

I can't do cardio on sep. day because it would mean just doing cardio wednesday. I would like to keep my weekends free if possible, but Saturday is workable. I tried cardio in the morning and found I'm more likely to skip it if I have to get up 40 mins earlier every day as opposed to post-workout at night! Thanks again for all the tips!

Ryan, I disagree. I don't see how you can make gains without going to failure on at least the last set. If you go to failure on all, that just decreases how many sets you need. Views on this topic do vary though.

Nunya, if it was hamstrings your form was fine. You were just over doing. You could have gone down too far and stretched the hams to much, or you went real heavy the first time. Heavy is good, but with that particular exercise you have to ease your way into it. Don't do squats and stiff legs within 24 hours of each other to avoid over use injury. It could go with shoulders. You might have to move your days around a little. Keep your chest and shoulder days appart like you have them though, or do chest and shoulders the same day. You should keep the shrugs. You can drop them to 1 set if you substitute the upright rows for the extra curls though. If you do your stiff legs on Monday, that will work, but keep in mind some stabilizers will be fatigued from the rows so you won't be able to do as much weight, but that's ok.

As for cardio, if you are going to do it the same day, do it after the weights.

Strength gains are a learned skill. One can get better at lifting more weight simply by practicing lifting a lighter weight.

I am not aware of many fitness organizations or groups who advocate training to failure all the time.

The muscle will grow because you are placing demand on it by lifting.

Take for example a new lifter who has never bench pressed before. Perhaps if he trained to failure he would be able to do 10x100 but if he stops short of this at 8x100 he will still gain strength and will likely come back for the next workout able to lift more 12x100 but again he only needs to do 10x100. By not training to failure he will have shortened his recovery time while gaining ability to move weight.

At a higher level of training where the trainee is not a beginner, the body will not be able to recover from training to failure the trainee has a better ability to activate his nervous system ie he has better neural drive. Training to failure for such an individual would almost eliminate his ability to train because he would never fully recover.

That last post was me as well. Starting a new thread to avoid hijacking this existing one.

The reason I added curls on Friday is because I am not seeing much growth on my biceps. I feel that I might not be working them hard enough so I thought adding a few sets on another day would help out. I think currently biceps are my weakest point, although its usually everyone else's strongest! If I lift too heavy, I swing the weight. Too light and I don't feel it. I go with a medium approach and hopefully adding in the set on Friday will help me get some growth.