Thread: considering changing

Howlong have you been doing the ABA routine for? Sometimes you have to give it time before you change it up. Otherwise you will be changing routines and you will get no where!

a good 2 months or so, but i just think its too much, guess my recovery abilities arent as good as some peoples

One thing I've learned is that just about any workout routine will work... but it will only work for a little while. So you gotta change it up. Push/Pull/Legs is my favorite of all of them coz I get to work legs that much sooner, while getting enough rest in between.

you think its a good routine for a natural builder?

I am one and I use it. It works for me. See if it works for you. Its definitely worth a try.

can you post up your routine please?

Originally Posted by dteller1

a good 2 months or so, but i just think its too much, guess my recovery abilities arent as good as some peoples

I see, did u gain anything from your routine at all, depending on your goals, did you gain strength or mass? Do u want a three day workout routine? If u can do four, it would be great so that you can do two days upper body and two days lower body because I think for a natural bodybuilder is better to work the same muscle group two times a week than one time; however, you have to becareful with the volume in order not to task your CNS too much tho.

Originally Posted by dteller1

can you post up your routine please?

I just posted this recently so I'm just gonna copy and paste it...



I always mix my routine up but this is what I did last.

Pull-
Pull Ups (BW)
Dead Lift (rack)
Iso-Lat Yates Row
BB Shrugs
Seated DB Curls

Push-
DB Shoulder Press
Smith BB Shoulder Press
BB Bench Press
Dips (BW)
Skull Crusher

Legs-
Squat
Hack Squat
Standing Leg Curl
Standing Calf Raises

Originally Posted by alan84

I see, did u gain anything from your routine at all, depending on your goals, did you gain strength or mass? Do u want a three day workout routine? If u can do four, it would be great so that you can do two days upper body and two days lower body because I think for a natural bodybuilder is better to work the same muscle group two times a week than one time; however, you have to becareful with the volume in order not to task your CNS too much tho.

4 days would be EVEN worse, if im doing ABA and each muscle group gets worked approx twice every 8 days and im finding that too much, making it twice every seven days is going to be worse. i train with a very HIT mentality, every set all out, i think this is what makes it tough to recover, the effect on the CNS

Originally Posted by dteller1

4 days would be EVEN worse, if im doing ABA and each muscle group gets worked approx twice every 8 days and im finding that too much, making it twice every seven days is going to be worse. i train with a very HIT mentality, every set all out, i think this is what makes it tough to recover, the effect on the CNS

I think you are doing too much volume per workout. Can you post your current training? I'm doing a 4 day routine where I do two days upper body and two days lower body and I have gain some solid gains interms muscle and strength gain. You have to set specific goals in order for you to find the best way to achieve them. For example, if someones goal is to gain strength, his or her workout would be totally different from someone whom goal is to increase lbm( hypertrophy). So post your goals and your training.

all sets are 5-8 reps

routine A

squats 3 sets
bench 3 sets
db fly 3 sets
mil press 3 sets
french press 3 sets

routine B

deadlift 3 sets
pull up 3 sets
bent over row 3 sets
hamstring curl 3 sets
db curl 3 sets


then A, B, A, B, A, B etc

but i think the issue is going to failure or very close every set means that my CNS gets knackered, think this is where the issue is

if you look at program like 5/3/1 they are one muscle group every week and that seems to get good results, was thinking of maybe doing something like max OT

All out HIT eh? Not to step on your toes brah, but I think Mike Mentzer would slap you for going over one set. The whole point of HIT is to do the minimal amount of work possible to induce muscle growth without completely killing the muscle and depleting its energy stores.

dteller1, you remind me a lot of myself when I started training, so I'm going to give you some advice.

My brother and I both started lifting at the same time, but with different ideas. For the sake of simplicity, I will use chest exercises as an example. My brother started by doing only pushups, then went to a routine using 4-5 different chest exercises with 4-5 sets for each. He later changed to more sets of lower reps with fewer exercises. I however, did a more basic routine with 2-3 exercises for 3 sets, then changed to 3-4 exercises for one set, then 2-3 exercises for one set. I met up with my brother a couple of weeks ago, and we had the exact same five rep max on bench.

All that to say, don't change your workout so frequently, don't use anymore of your life searching for the perfect routine. Find something that allows you to gain and make slight modifications to it with time. And the most important thing... EAT LOTS. And that's all

Dteller1, as far as the A workout, I don't think it's a good idea to do three compound movement in one day! Especially doing military press after bench press?! Man you are killing your shoulders! Not mentioning that you do them in a Hiit way!! That is why you are not recovering and not seeing any results. Even tho if you are on the juice, this would be to much! And I know you are training naturally. Compound movements are the most taxing exercises one can be exposed to. In a sence, you need to take a considerable amount of rest between sets, minimum 1:30 min. Honestly you need to reconstruct your routine, but first of all you need to come up with a goal! What are you training for?! Are you after strength? Hypertophy? Cutting? Then you can construct a solid routine with a solid diet that would support it.

after hypertrophy, thats why i thought it may pay me to do something like max OT, where there is more rest for each muscle group? im not sure what to go with want an effective hypertrophy routine that i can progress on each week without feeling frustrated that my lifts arent increasing and feeling lethargic before i even get in the gym. Hubauer what routine would you suggest? i can only commit 3 days a week to lifting if that makes a difference