Need a New Routine

[Ddevildownn]

I have a small dilemma, I have noticed that since I started a new routine about a month ago that I have lost quite a bit of my strength in quite a few areas, particularly Bench Press, Shoulder Press, french press, upright rows, and bent rows. Now, this is frustrating to me mainly because these were my strongest areas before the change. I had thought that the routine made should work nicely.

Anyways part of the dilemma is this I am adjusting to a new olympic bar that I just got, it is longer and a bit heavier than my old standard one. I had a split workout that setup from exrx.net that looked pretty good, it was an ABXABX, but all that resulted in was an overtrain. Before that I would just train what wasn't tired when I was justing starting out.

Anyway my stats are this. (I have been training 6 months)

Age: 16
Weight: 175
BF: ~17% (yeah, I am kinda flabby)
Bench: 180
DL: 300+ (300 is the highest weigth I have I can get it up about 6 times Sumo and 3 conventional, need to get ahold of some more plates for the bar still)
Squat: ??? (no squat rack I workout at home for now, no car yet.)
Bent Row: 195

The split I was working on lately was centered around size and strength, all it really resulted in was size and a loss of the form and shape I used to have. (used to actually have some nice cuts, even with the flab.) It looked like this.

Sunday: Shoulders, Abs: Decline Situp 3x20, Dumbell Side Bend 3x10, Crunches; Shoulder Press 5x6-8, Front Raise 3x10 , Upright Row 3x8-10, Lateral Raise 3x10, Rear Delt Row 3x10 (didn't have anything else for rear delts because the next on day had bent rows)

Tuesday: Upper Chest (kaka), Back: Incline Bench 3x5-8, Incline Fly 3X10, bb Bent Row 5x5, db bent row 3x10

Thursday: Lower Back, Legs: Leg Extensions 3x10, Lunges 3x10, SL DL 5x5 (I find my back responds better to this, and it hit the hamstrings really nicely aswell), Goodmornings 3x8 (would do 10 each set but I get tired of the bar moving around on my neck.), One legged dumbell calf raises 5x10

Friday: Chest, Lats, Arms if they are not dead already (note I know I should merge these exercises with another workout but some other but because of proximity or lack thereof of the lat bar, that is to say I do chest, and then ride my bike about 3 miles to a friends house who possesses a lat bar): Bench Press 3x5-10 (depending on what I want to do, I like to experiment with the bench press, ever since I hurt my shoulder pretty badly doing bench press to see what feels best.), DB Fly 3x10 (note this is my favorite exercise), Lat Pulldown to Front 5x10

I know this was a pretty long post, but I have some weird circumstances that need to be mentioned as you can see. Anyway I am looking for some reccomendations on what I could do so regain my strength and form. I wish I had before and after pictures but I don't. Thanks for your help, if I get any.

/feels stupid he has to be a noob and ask for basically a workout to be spelled out for him

 

[Ddevildownn]

I think that I may have pinpointed the problem or rather problems with what I was doing.

1. I think I need to make sure I train my Tri's more, they seem to be involved in all of the lifts I have lost strength in. Aswell as my biceps more, they although not involved in those lifts, could use some work. I have really noticed that my tri's went away when I had to take a break from benching and overhead presses because of a few injuries incurred because of my stupidity.

2. I need to change my diet, I have been watching my protein intake for a while now and I realized that I do not really take in enough protein to support my lifting. (which explains why it would take my chest up to all weak to recover enough to even be used as a synergist in a lift.) So I will be stopping in at a grocery to make sure I have some healthy sources of protein since no one else around here seems to need any protein in their diet.

3. I need more sets for some muscle groups, I also need to work some in succession with they synergists (e.g. Lats, which means I will need to get a pullup bar [as of right now I can do about 2-3 pullups/chinups this should help my rows.)

4. I need to lower some of the weights on my lifts and pay more attention to form for a while. Perhaps I should of figured this one out sooner, when I figured out my Erectors are proportionately stronger than any muscle in my body *laugh*.

5. More cardio to support a faster recovery by increasing circulation. I really didn't get much cardio and I think this really affected my recovery time.

6. For an interesting break I think I am going to add a day for pure increase of power output. (hang cleans, plyo pushups and what not)

Seem like a good play to everyone... I have seen that a lot of you have been working out 5+ years so a little bit of expert feedback would be nice.

 

[camarosuper6]

More cardio to support a faster recovery by increasing circulation. I really didn't get much cardio and I think this really affected my recovery time.

Thats a negative. Aerobics wont help you recover. Increasing circulation? Dont know where you heard that... Flex Magazine maybe

Word of advice from me is not adding anything, but taking away. Raise your intensity level and lower your volume and frequency. Check out some of the online journals for High intensity routines. Even mine if you want.

1-3 sets per bodypart. One set to failure and beyond with rest-pause is the way to go for me.

 

[camarosuper6]

Base your workouts around

Deadlifts
Squats (find a way)
Pull ups
Rows
Shoulder Press
Bench Press
Barbell Curls
Close grip bench or dips

 

[Ddevildownn]

Who knows where I got the cardio thing, I just heard it a while back. Probably from my brother, he knows what he is doing but has given me some strange and horribly incorrect info in the past.

I base my workout around all of those exercises besides the squats, I have been looking into a squat rack or some place convenient (walking distance) with something to facilitate it. That or get a ridiculously strong spotter to help me if I fail. I know I need to squats, but I have managed to train my glutes and quads to a nice size, shape, and strength without them.

I have looked at the HIT journals it actually sounds like a great plan for me, infact that is really what I was doing this last workout, I would hit the muscle until completely failure, and just calculate the weight well. My only problem was if I didn't do more sets I would notice extreme losses of strength. I should mention by now that the only real reason I workout if for my scientific enjoyment, I just like to observe the changes, that and I figure the exercise won't kill me either.

I have put together a new workout after reading some, well actually, a lot of the journal on this site and taken some principles from each aswell as what has worked for me. Still going to use cardio even though after I made that statement I realized how assinine it was, just to see how assinine it was for the sake of experiment. Thanks for the replies, I have seen your friends journal I guess I will check out yours.

Going to go get more 45 plates and a doorway pullup bar tomorrow. So I should be able to start a much better routine soon. Anyway out for now, any more advice from other sources would be nice, not to impune your advice camarosuper6 I just like multiple opinions, by the way what about diet, how much protein should I really be getting each day? Each week?

Edit: You know I thought about it for all of two minutes and I decided that I think I will put together an HIT workout for myself, I think I might be able to get into the school weight room and squat on wednesdays. I am not completely sure, will check and see. What are some of the more exact protocols to high intensity? I will see about putting together one and editing the other one I made recently as a fall back plan in the case it does not work. Experimentation is good.

 

[camarosuper6]

Well, doing true HIT will NOT cause you to lose strength, but GAIN. HIT is probably the best (and maybe west-side) training method for gaining strength. However, you do need to eat properly to grow. I would try a one set to failure method, working one bodypart a week.

For instance...

Mon:
For chest do one set of bench press w/ spotter. Do some rest-pause techniques at the end. Be done

Back: Do Deadlifts... to positive failure. Nothing forced on these.
Pull-ups (weighted if neccessary)

Wed:
Squats
Hamstring Curls or stiff leg-deadlifts
Calf Raises
Abs

Fri:

Shoulder Press.. one set plus forced reps
Bicep Curls plus rest pause
Close grip bench plus rest pause

Rule of thumb is 1-1.25 grams of protein per lb of bodyweight. Any more than that IMO is a waste.

Make sure your getting adequate calories as well.

 

[Ddevildownn]

KK so, I am looking into getting a squat rack, because of school budgets they don't have people in the weight room anymore this year to watch kids and you need a note from a gym teacher to make up days. So I will be needed a squat rack, Dick's and Mcsports around here have nothing so I was wondering if anyone knew a place I could find one for about two hundred bucks. I have seen them on froogle I was just wondering if there were any places you guys could reccomend.

I will transition to something very much like what you spelled out for me after this week is over, I just won't be able to do squats quite yet but sometime in the next month or so I should get a Rack (big basement lots of money to kill, but not enough money I can afford one of the stupid gyms around here [none of them are good, and all of them cost like 400-500 a year, so I am better off buying my stuff and having it whenever I want it]).

This plan seems like it should really work out well if I play by your rules, hopefully I can bounce back to where I used to be very quickly.