ExRx.net

I've reached my goal weight and knocked off several BF percentages (at about 13.5 now). I've moved away from lots of HIIT cardio to more lifting. Hypertophy is the main goal as I have a naturally narrow frame.

All exercises are 3 sets of 8-12 reps. Try to stay at the 8-10 range and increase intensity immediately once I hit 12.

Day 1:
Vertical Pull
Horizontal Pull
Good Morning
Deadlift
Squat
Calf raise
Curl
Bicep auxilary

Day 2:
Bench Press (incilne or flat)
Fly (incline or flat)
Lat raise
Rear delt fly
Upright raise (similar to row, but with dumbbels)
Rear delt row
Dip
Tricep auxilary

*For the 2 rear delt exercises, I lean over a flat bench until torso is paralell to the floor and make sure that elbow leads perpendicularly to torso to avoid hitting lats.
**No shoulder press as I feel that anterior delts are getting hit by bench, fly, and dip.
***Lots of shoulder exercises due to a narrow frame and to make sure that at least robertscott approves this part.

Day 3:
4 ab exercises
HIIT cardio

Repeat or take a day rest.


All thoughts and criticisms are welcome!

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I'm very proud of you for the shoulders thing, however I don't really like the routine. Here's why...

You say you're lifting weights 4 times a week. That's good, however the full body workouts are a bit long. I propose switching to an upper/lower split. You're training every body part twice a week still, which is perfect (any more tends to be overkill), and because the workouts are less cluttered (you won't have to do your whole body every session) you can be a bit more creative with your assistance work. I would lay it out something like this:

Upper Day A

Heavy barbell press (bench, incline, whatever) work up to a heavy set of 5
accessory press paired with a row (dumbell bench with dumbell row for example) 5 sets 8 - 12
flyes superset with rear delt flyes (3 sets 10 - 20)
Straight Arm Lat Pulldown superset with biceps (3 sets 8-12)
Triceps Extensions superset with Lateral Raises (3 sets 8 - 12)

Lower A

Squat ***high reps for all lower body exercises except deadlifts on day B***
Romanian Deadlift
Lunge
Leg Curl
Calves superset with core

Upper B

work up to heavy set of 3 on a barbell press, don't care what kind
Dips superset with pull ups (or chins, doesn't matter) 5 sets of whatever you can manage
Face Pulls superset with triceps ( 3 x 8-12)
Flyes superset with rear delt flyes (3 sets 10 - 20)
Biceps superset with lateral raises (3 x 8 - 12)

Lower B

Deadlift *** work up to a heavy 5 on the deadlift, high reps for everything else***
Leg Press
Lunge (different kind of lunge this time)
Leg Curl
calves/core

and there you have it. You'll notice your shoulders and back are getting a TON of volume. That's to overcome the narrow frame issue.

you'll also notice that most upper body exercises are paired with another exercise. This is a great way to get the volume in, and get your heart rate up a bit.

I hope that at least gives you some ideas

Upper/Lower splits FTW.

I knew you'd come around eventually

eh, I've been on board with you for a while. At least since I started 531 about 25 weeks ago.
I like the flexibility of it. It was the volume of movents I sometimes whined about, but he's BB'ing, and that's your thing, so, I keep quiet.

I know you are mate, I was just baiting you. Poking you with a stick like you were a big fuzzy bear.

And you say bodybuilding's my thing, but really, you're training to lose fat and build muscle. That sounds like bodybuilding to me. Maybe we'll get you up on stage all tanned and in a thong.

Thanks, Robert!

Some follow-up questions came up as I read.

- My current workout is about 60min. It looks like these workouts will be at least that as well. You didn't like that there are no supersets?

- What is the rest time between supersets?
- When you say "work your way up to a heavy set of," how many sets are you implying?
- Dumbbell press should be different than barbell press? (incline v. bench)
- No way for me to perform leg curls or leg press. What are good substitutes?
- Can you explain the logic behind switching between RDL and DL?
- Lastly, can I do Lower-Upper-[Abs+HIIT]  or take off completely?

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Just my three quarters about your program again.

1) I don't like the fact that your program has 8 exercises per day. Quantity doesn't go over quality. Not even in hypertrophy. You have hell of an amount of shoulder work there. If you seriously want to tackle hypertrophy and muscle building, I would lean towards splits. Full-body routines do work, but maybe it would be best for you to do an upper/lower split. Full-body routines work for building the big muscles, using only 4-6 lifts max, all good big compounds. You have lots of isolation and small muscle work, so a split might be better.

2) Strength and Muscle volume still go hand to hand, there's no denying it. They don't need each other, but they benefit greatly from one another. About your intensity. Doing Deadlifts for 12 reps for several sets is crazy. Doing 70 reps of squats and good mornings with 36 reps of deadlifts is pure madness. That's incredible amount of stress to your whole body. Your CNS, lower back, postural muscles, legs, hips. All will be quite burned after that madhouse. I'd suggest again, from roberts side of view, that you pick atleast one exercise where you would go heavier (3-5 reps). Other more hypertrophic way. 3 sets isn't a necessity. You can do 4 or 5. Or two. Doing 3x10 of everything is bloody boring.

3) Supersetting is awesome. I especially like the agonist/antagonist supersets, like Lats/Chest (Rows/Bench) and Bicep/Tricep. It causes great burn and pump if you will. And the benefit is that when the other muscle is working, the other is lengthening and relaxing. Do both exercises in a row, then rest for 30s-120s and do both again. Simple

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Prove the impossible!

Always welcome your input, Dub.

Would your opinion change regarding the total weekly volume quoted above if I told you that I have just started weighted leg work? Only did squats once so far with a bare barbell. I'm trying to ease my knees into this. Goddmornings and Deadlifts are as light as they get at 95-115lb.

It's all VERY new and I am a bit hesitant to "go heavy" as I don't have the form down yet (reps don't always look the same).

For example, I watched/read a nauseating amount of RDL vs DL tutorials. Still it seems that only RDL looks close to proper. If you have a good link, send it over.

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probably about that, give or take. Supersetting the exercises will get the routine done faster. There's no real need for them, but while one muscle group rests, it makes sense to train another. In my mind anyway...



just whatever you like. You'll naturally need to rest longer between big compound exercises but for stuff like curls and raises you won't need much rest. I wouldn't worry about timing rest periods. Just rest as long as you need to ensure decent performance on the next set.



as many as it takes. The stronger you get the more you'll need.

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yeah you should split your chest pressing between flat and incline, so say you worked up to a heavy 5 on the flat bench, you can do an incline press (dumbell or barbell) as assistance. I would do the majority of the strength stuff flat or overhead, and the majority of the assistance on an incline (not too high an incline, like 30 degrees or so). That'll emphasise your upper chest and make your pecs look awesome.



do you have a swiss ball? You can do leg curls on those (google it). Step ups are a good hamstring exercise. Instead of leg press do some Dumbell Bulgarian Split Squats (google those also). You'll hate those but they're good.



a good program should include both. You have the conventional deadlift for a big, heavy strength lift, whereas the RDL is an assistance lift for hamstrings which you wouldn't load up as heavy. You'd do low reps for the conventional (5 or so) and high for the RDL (10 - 20).



you can do your HIIT & abs on any of your off days. I would personally just do abs on your lower body days (I've listed it as "core" in the sample routine You could structure it like

Monday - Upper A
Tuesday - Lower A
Wednesday - off
Thursday - Upper B
Friday - Lower B
Saturday - off
Sunday - HIIT

or whatever. That's just one possible way to structure it.

I will switch to Upper/Lower starting today after work.

When I "work up to heavy 5," wouldn't I be exhausted by the time I get to the heaviest weight? Assuming I start at 10-12 reps and add weight in 10lb increments.
It looks like I will be doing 1 vertical pull and 1 horizontal pull per week. Is that sufficient?


Thanks for all the ideas. It certainly looks more interesting. Hope I can handle the supersets without sacrificing form.

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you will adapt to the extra demand of the supersets really quickly. Don't worry.

And no, you shouldn't be too exhausted by the time you get to a heavy 5. Remember it's just a heavy 5, not a balls out, blood vessel bursting, teeth grinding effort. Just a challenging 5.

You are absolutely right to stay light at first. This is a bit of a departure, but you might try this for a while. Keep the weight very light, and do a bunch of sets of 3 or 4 of any given exercise (especially squats, DLs). Just "play" with the movement. Try different stance widths, different grip widths. If you go too extreme, you won't hurt yourself if you only have the bar on your shoulders, etc. Learn a lift the way a child learns basic motor patterns, a little at a time. Only when you start feeling really comfortable with a movement and confident in your form should you start loading it up.

A separate thought; if you are working up to a heavy 5, there's no real reason to be doing 8-12 (or whatever). Do 5s. How much you add to the bar each set depends on how far you have to go. If your "heavy 5" is going to be at 300, don't work up by 10! If it's going to be 100, don't work up by 50s. So a work-up to DL might look like 45/95/135/185/225/245/265/275/etc. Work-up to a shoulder press might look like 45/65/75/85/95/etc.

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Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan

This definitely applies to my leg work. Squat for sure. I'm more comfortable with DL, but it seems that in one exercise/set I am doing several DL variations. I have looked into many sources online; is there a good, clear link in mind?


This applies to my bench. Right now I do 3x10 at 155. Should that be my first set before the first increase?

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I'm not sure what you are asking. Robert suggested working up to a heavy set of 5, and you asked about how to work up to it. "Heavy set of 5" means 1x5, but you mention 3x10. I'm not telling you which you should do, but trying to answer what I thought you were asking about working up.

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Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan