Thread: how does this look

2 questions:

Why are you doing 20 reps for squats?

Why are you doing 100 reps for abs?

20 rep squats. THe best way for complete hypertrophy in the whole body. take your 12 RM and do 20. your thinking wtf but you go for 20 and if you make it up the weight. I learned this from someone and have heard nothing but success from this. I dont know how many reps for abs, so i pick 100.

On Wed, do pullups and rows before curls. Work larger muscles before the smaller ones.

4 reps per set for hammer curls? Why?

1 set for quads? Might be a little light, even if it is a 20-rep set.

Overall, the volume seems a little low, but that's just my opinion.

ive always heard to go with heavy hammer curls. For quads, believe me with 1 set. next time you work legs, do 1 set of 20 and take your 12 RM and do it. you wont be able to move. That right there is plenty enough for legs. You might even get sick from those 20 reps, but its worth the growth.

this isn't nearly enough swordfish, yoyu must be in and out of the gym in 20 min with that. You need to throw in a few more compound movements in with each day. You only have one exercise for the tris and 1 for shoulders, no way that is enough. The back is a huge muscle, you ain't gonna tax it with 1 exercise, C'mon. And 1 set for the legs, you must be joking, I do a high rep set like that on the squat as part of a warm up. Usually I am telling people that they are overtraining but you are undertraining.
try adding a few more exercise to increase the volume. If you need suggestions let me know.

Sword,..... son you need allot of work!! You need to kill one, maybe two body parts per day! i can help i just need some sort of schedule, and goals

Why not apply your squat protocol to the rest of your training? Granted, you will use fewer reps (6-10), but by taking each set to failure, you will make some substantial gains. If you were to apply this protocol totally, you would only perform 2-3 sets per bodypart, however.

ok guys, design a program then. help me with what i have now.

Originally posted by swordfish
20 rep squats. THe best way for complete hypertrophy in the whole body. take your 12 RM and do 20. your thinking wtf but you go for 20 and if you make it up the weight. I learned this from someone and have heard nothing but success from this. I dont know how many reps for abs, so i pick 100.

20 reps squats might "feel" tough but that does not neccessarily equate growth. If you can do an exercise with 20 reps, it is not enough resistance.

As far as the abs, 100 reps is too many, the abdominal muscles are have the same tissue as your biceps, you can go SLIGHTLY higher reps on abs like 10-12 reps but 100 is not enough resistance, you cannot spot reduce.

He is right, high rep sets only recruit certain muscle fibers, you gotta go heavy, especially with the squat. Don't you think everybody would have big legs if that was all you had to do? Legs take alot more than that man.
Pick a few solid compound movements that you can work to heavy weight in for each bodypart. You are 15 I see, stick to building the foundation, and that is done by heavy compound movements. squats, deads, powercleans, presses, and so on. You have gotta increase your intensity in the gym, don't just go in there and go through the movements, that is useless. Focus and make sure what you are doing has a purpose and you aren't just winging it in there.

Originally posted by naturalguy
20 reps squats might "feel" tough but that does not neccessarily equate growth. If you can do an exercise with 20 reps, it is not enough resistance.

As far as the abs, 100 reps is too many, the abdominal muscles are have the same tissue as your biceps, you can go SLIGHTLY higher reps on abs like 10-12 reps but 100 is not enough resistance, you cannot spot reduce.

Many trainers, including myself, have had substantial strength and size gains from a 20-rep squat program. I have yet to meet anyone who has not made signifcant gains from this program, so long as they are applying the principles correctly.

can you help me with a decent program then? tell me what i need to add for back and legs, tris, etc. I like the monday wednesday and friday workout so go that with those days to workout.

these are my goals, this might help in designing a program for me. I would like to add serious size to my forearms and my legs,lats and tris, then i want to be cut up and defined in my back and forearms. Im looking to get about 10 lbs heavier and just get ripped. Could anyone help me with a program for me?

You understand that you can't get ripped (burn fat) and add mass at the same time right, just to see that is understood, you need to start lifting with heavy movements. Pick a few certain movements for each BP and work your weight up in whatever excercises you choose. Keep it simple
example:
Chest, Shoulders, tris : Incline/decline/Flat B-bell bench, military press, heavy dips, parrellel weighted dips, DB bench, upright rows, heavy DB flys, close grip bench, reverse grip press, overhead db press, Behind the neck raises-DB or b-bell, Skull krushers, clean and press.

Back n Bis: Deadlifts, powerclean, snatch, bent over Rows, 1 arm DB Rows, wide grip pull ups, pulldowns, DBpullover, seated cable rows, B-bell curls, db curls, hammer curls, incline reversed db curls, preacher curls-Db or b-bell.

Quads, Hams, n Calves: Squat- a must, front squats, lunges, legg press, hack squat, stiff legged deads, quad extension, iso leg curls, seated and standing calf raises, legg press calf raises, donkey calf raises, lower cable ham extension, Glute ham raise, weighted step up, all types of plyometrics including sprints.

Keep in mind those are just examples of exercises that you could pick if you wanted to do 3 WO a week like you said. By no means are these all the exercises for each muscle, nor are they necessarily the ones you should be doing, except squatting. There are MANY more that you can take advantage, I just tried to give you an idea of some basic heavy movements that you can do. You should not do every exercise i listed in one training session. Pick one or two heavy movements, prefferably ones that do not recruit the same muscles fibers but instead hit the muscle a bit differently. After you pick some heavier movements, pick a few lighter movements that you can use to supplement the heavier ones by isolating a certain part of the muscle, use them in conjuction with each other. Almost all of those movements can be changed with different grip, or stance, or can be used to isolate one side of the body, or whatever else you want to so with them. This allows variety to be immplemented in your routine without even changing the exercise. Like I said though, you are young and you just need to build the foundation of the house before you start detailing it, right. Learn the movements and the correct way to perform them, then work your weight up, and most importantly , ...EAT EAT EAT. Hope that helps a little.

so how does this look, i do 2 exercises for each body part. Could you tell me how many reps and sets are good for getting cut vs. mass and getting big? are these tricep exercises good for power or more of the lines of looking good? i just want a program too look good, i dont care about how much weight i do.

Monday - 5x5 bench
3x8 flyes
3x10 skull crushers
3x10 dips
Wednesday- 3x8 bent rows
3x10 pull ups
3x10 curls
3x12 db curls
Friday - 3x10 squats
3x10 leg press
crunches
3x10 bb overhead press
3x10 db press

still too llittle IMO. Stay with higher reps and work your way down the rep scheme, bump up the set volume as well. Getting cut doesn't happen in the gym, it happens in the klitchen with the diet.

Why no incline presses? You do just as much for biceps as you do for the back? Does that make sense to you?

well, tell me what else i can add for my back and why it is not enough. Use that program that i have there and add stuff or subract stuff. Make the sets and reps how you think they should look. Take my program and mess it up to where it looks good to you guys.

are you workin out to get stronger or to get cut up????

i don't understand why you only have 4 exercises per day

i do at least 10

as previously mentioned, you must be in and out of the gym within 20 minutes with that routine... try going for at least an hour-hour and a half...

yall do some long workouts the longest i ever go is 45min but i usually do the main excercises!!

ok, now im starting to get confused. i thought it was 2 exercises per bodypart, not 5? 6 sets for each muscle group. 8 for the bigger ones. its not how long you workout for, but how much work you do. increase intensity, not volume is one of weiders principles. this isnt an endurance event. it would be dumb to go into the gym for a couple hours and workout. i thought it was 2 or 3 different exercises for each bodypart. sounds like you guys are overtraining with 10.

ok...... this is what i have come up with now. how is this???? 3 exercises, this seems like a good program. anyone disagree now that i have modified it???

Monday - 5x5 bench
3x10 incline bench
3x8 flyes
3x10 skull crushers
3x10 dips
2x8 kickbacks

Wednesday- 3x8 bent rows
3x10 1 arm db row
3x10 pull ups
3x12 reverse db curls
3x10 curls
3x12 db curls

Friday - 3x10 squats
3x10 leg press
3x12 calf raises
crunches
3x10 bb overhead press
3x10 db press
3x10 upright rows

what about something like stiff leg deadlifts on friday??