Bens Log

[ben1793]

Hi im a beginner just started workoing out, thought rarther than posting new stuff every day on the forums I would make a log and let you correct me when I go wrong.

My info:
Gender: Male
Weight: 10 stone (140lbs)
Hight: 70 inch's
Age: 18
Body Type: Ectomorph But bad metabolism because of bad dieting and excesive exercise so I gain fat easy.
Goal: Get to atleast 160lbs if not more and have some muscle so that when I do cut down its not just down to bones. At the minute I am concentrating more on my lifts than my body though since I know once the lifts get better the body will too.

I was on a bad diet in the past and lost allot of weight but being my body didnt get the correct nutrition it went into starvation mode and kept hold of allot of fat, I am currently eating at about 2700 calories a day.

All workouts are 3x8-12

My workout routine goes like this:

Monday (PULL):
Deadlifts
Row
Bicep Curls

Tuesday: REST

Wednesday(PUSH):
Bench Press
Incline Bench Press
Skull Crushers

Thursday: REST

Friday(LEGS):
Squat
Abs-Crunch's
One more leg exercise vary's between step ups and weighted lunges.

Sat/Sun: REST


This is a exercise plan that was set up for me by other members on the forum and I have only been following it for one day so far, before this plan I spent a little bit of time geting used to the correct form and then spent a week overtraining (5 day split), thankfully to the good support of the members of this forum they warned me that I would be better off following the program above instead of doing a 5 day split and overkilling it because the program above targets 1 muscle group and gives it a week's rest, it also uses all the main compound lifts throughout the week, I was planning on sticking to this plan for atleast 6 weeks and taking photographs of my progress each week.

 

[ben1793]

Day one:
This is the first day of following the program above and I feel great!
I did the 3 exercises for monday: deadlift, rows and curls

Deadlift:75kg 3x12
Dumbell Rows: 35kg 3x12 each arm
Curls: 20kg 3x12 I used dumbells for these 10kg each hand because I feel like I can lift more with a dumbell rarther than barbell and feel it targets my biceps more.

I know its very low and most of you warmup on allmost double of what I am doing at the moment but I have allmost no muscle and never really worked out before. I realised taking a cup of green tea and a banana and a pre workout protein shake made me lift much better than without it...I remember on my first week I couldnt even move the bar with 50kg without my back giving in but today did 75 kg 12x3 and still felt asthough I could do more but I am starting small and making sure I get correct form.
Bit embarasing, checked your logs and saw you lift so much...did you all start out like this too or did you lift allot more at the start?

 

[ben1793]

Push Day, felt very weak today maybe because it was my first workout which was on the night rarther than in the morning:
Bench press:80lb
Incline Press:60lb
Lying Down Tricep Extention: 40lb

I think it might have been because of bad form, I will try concentrate more on the form next time rarther than trying to add more weight.

 

[ben1793]

Leg day

Squats - 110lb 3x12
SLDL - 130lb 3x8
Calf raises - 70lb 3x12

It was my first day for proper leg workouts so they are estimated weights since I was testing what I could lift, I am not planning on following the workout because it was not chalanging enough and being a beginner dont think it was right for me so I have started moving into a 3 day full body workout.

All compound moves 3 days a week, drop weight by 10% each day (-10% day 2 -20% day 3) increase reps by 1 weekly for 5 weeks so go from 8-12 reps in 5 weeks and then add 10% weight and follow same plan.

Didnt do that workout today but added a few lifts from it.

My new plan for body workout will be:
Squats
Bench Presses
Bent-Over Rows
Overhead Barbell Presses
Stiff-Legged Deadlifts
Barbell Curls
Calf Raises

Plan has been made and tested in the past and I dont want to mess with it so I will follow it and hopefully see nice gains.
Macros are still the same: 340g carbs, 150g pro, 80g fat

 

[D-Lats]

Leg day

Squats - 110lb 3x12
SLDL - 130lb 3x8
Calf raises - 70lb 3x12

It was my first day for proper leg workouts so they are estimated weights since I was testing what I could lift, I am not planning on following the workout because it was not chalanging enough and being a beginner dont think it was right for me so I have started moving into a 3 day full body workout.

All compound moves 3 days a week, drop weight by 10% each day (-10% day 2 -20% day 3) increase reps by 1 weekly for 5 weeks so go from 8-12 reps in 5 weeks and then add 10% weight and follow same plan.

Didnt do that workout today but added a few lifts from it.

My new plan for body workout will be:
Squats
Bench Presses
Bent-Over Rows
Overhead Barbell Presses
Stiff-Legged Deadlifts
Barbell Curls
Calf Raises

Plan has been made and tested in the past and I dont want to mess with it so I will follow it and hopefully see nice gains.
Macros are still the same: 340g carbs, 150g pro, 80g fat

Hey bro congrats for hitting the gym
As for your workout, are you doing all those moves in one workput?

 

[ben1793]

I was searching around on the internet and found another forum called forum.bodybuilding.com
I checked out the workout plans on it and the beginner one was this plan and yes it says use all the workouts, the guy who posted it had to make like 3 threads because he had 10k limit of posts on each one, people are saying they see great gains on this program and beinners can recover from it because they are new from lifting heres the link: A Simple Beginner's Routine - Bodybuilding.com Forums
From what I have read if I read it correctly you use all the lifts listed and drop the weight by 10% then 20% on the third day, this means the body wont overtrain and you just slowly build up on a 5 week rep building cycle. I am not sure because if you do all these workouts it will probably take longer than an hour and the muscle building hormone levels will drop(thats what I have read) but people say it works so I will give it a go.
And thanks for the congrats

 

[ben1793]

Had a look over it again and it says do 2 warmup sets and 2 propper sets of each exercise, correct me if I am wrong please, I am thinking its telling me to do 1 set with 1/4 of th weight then one set with 1/2 weight then 2 sets with full weight.

 

[D-Lats]

Ill check it out bro

 

[ben1793]

Thanks , I had a look around and asked some questions and its all clear now, do all exercises in that order and you do 2 warmup sets for the first 3 exercises(Squat,bench,bent over row) followed up by 2 sets with the full weight then all the other exercises you just do 2 sets because the warmups at the start get all the muscles warmed up, people been saying something about first 2 weeks being deload weeks or something, that kind of confused me but I think I will just do what it says and do a full load day and then drop by 10% till the end of the week and increase reps next week.
I think it might be better to follow the plan than be mislead by others who have messed about with it.

 

[ben1793]

Was going to start the 100% full body workout on thursday but thought to myself, why wait, I can start 10% now and 20% tuesday and 100% thursday, so I started it today.
10% off full body workout

2x8 all
Squat - 100lb (2 warmup sets 2 full sets)
Bench press - 80lb (2 warmup sets 2 full sets)
Bent Over BB Row - 60lb (2 warmup 2 full sets) didnt feel like I had the right form...can lift 70lb with one hand dumbel row (each hand) 3x12 but when I try this I dont know why but cant lift much and didnt feel my back was doing much work.
BB shoulder press - 50lb (2 full sets)
BB curl - 40lb (2 full sets)
SLDL - 120lb (2 full sets)

Left the calf raises out since I had just done a leg workout 2 days ago, enjoyed the workout but didnt feel like I did allot, maybe it was my form, I will try work on that a bit before upping the weight by much.
After the workout had an amazing shake not sure if it will work the same way as adding stuff like dex though, it was: 50g coco-pops kids cereal, 1 scoop whey, 1 teaspoon creatine all mixed in water, tasted amazing and I think the coco-pops will be enough to spike the insulin for the creatine to get to the muscles.

ALSO...This morning I stood on the scale and realised I was about 2kg lighter...was just under 10 stone, I used to weight 10 stone, I am going to buy a propper scale which can read in pounds so it is more accurate, is it common for beginners to loose weight while bulking? IM CONFUSED

 

[ben1793]

FIGURED IT OUT!!!
It was the form, with the bench I wasnt using my lats, wasnt squeezing and pushing the bar outwards, with the BB curls I was not keeping my elbows out a bit from my sides and was using my back a bit to lift and didnt bend my knees at all, I am sure the rows are also bad for but cant find a bent over row video that will be good for the workout plan, also is it bad that I arc my back when I shoulder press?

 

[ben1793]

starting the 5x5 program, now I know your all thinking hes going to change it again soon...he allways changes it...but I am going to finally stick to a program and not change for another few months, I am changing because with the full body workout droping the weight 10% isnt much at the beginning only like 5kg drop so I felt like I was overtraining a bit, I could have droped it a bit more but the plan would have failed, I like the look of the stronglifts 5x5 routine and people have made nice gains on it.

 

[ben1793]

I started the stronglifts 5x5 today, followed what it said and started low weight, still felt like a nice workout but nothing big that caused me to put all my effort into it.

Workout A:
Squat: 60lb
Bench: 60lb
Bent Over BB Row: 60lb

It is low weight but the weight it going to be increasing fast according to the program, it is supposed to be about 5-10lb in the squats and you do 3 squats a week so thats a big gain, 5lb for rows pess and bench thats about 15lb 2 weeks and 10lb per dedlift till stalls, thats about 30lbs 2 weeks.

 

[ben1793]

I dont have the exact weights to get 5lb and 10lb on so I am going to try this:

The 5 lb adds: starting- starting bar(5kg) with 2x10 and 2x2.5= 30kg
next workout remove all weight add 2x7.5 2x5 and 1x2.5+bar = 32.5
add 2.5= 35
remove all weight add 2x10 2x5 1x2.5 +bar = 37.5
add 2.5 = 40
remove all weight add 2x10 2x7.5 1x2.5+bar = 42.5
add 2.5 = 45
remove all weight add 2x10 4x5 1x2.5+bar = 47.5
add 2.5 = 50
remove all weight add 2x10 2x7.5 2x5 1x2.5+bar = 52.5
add 2.5 = 55
That should be enough for now

The 10lb adds: add 5kg, next workout remove 5kg add 10kg, then start again with 10 still on.

Sorry about adding that if you are reading but this is for me so I remember how to add the weight on, got confused because I dont have the exact size plates.