I'm new and looking for some tips.

[Bonesaw]

I just stumbled across this site looking for some info and after reading some post and being a newbie myself I figure I would join up and try to be an active member. Seem like there are a lot of knowledgeable people here. I started working out about 6 months ago, doing a full body workout twice a week. Now getting over some of the beginner's humps I've been trying to refine my workout plan, nutrition, and supplementation. I'm a hard gainer, 25yo M 6'2 150-155. My goal is to get to around 165. Not in a rush to reach this goal just want to do everything right and healthy.

This is what I've been doing for the last 6 weeks. I have a workout at home so my workout options are not that many.

My reps per set are usually 10-8-6-25 if there is a fourth number
Day 1 bi's and tri's
ez bar 40 - 50 - 56 - 10
rope pulldowns 80 - 90 - 100 - 25
dumbell curls 25 - 30 - 35 - 10
behind the head Triceps Extension 12.5 - 15 - 17.5 - 5
Concentration Curls 20 - 22.5 - 25 - 7.5
Decline Dumbbell Triceps Extension 15 - 17.5 - 20 - 5
Hammer Curls 17.5 - 20 - 22.5


Day 2 quads hams
seated quad extensions 55 - 65 - 75 - 25
Lying Leg Curls 35 - 45 - 55 - 10
squats 65 - 75 - 85
Romanian Deadlifts 60 - 70 - 80
Dumbbell Lunges 20 - 22.5 - 25


Day 3 chest back
straight bench 115 - 120 - 125- 45
behind the neck pulldowns 150 - 170 - 190 - 70
incline bench 95 - 105 - 110 - 45
lat chest pull downs 150 - 170 - 190 - 60
dumb bell flyes 17.5 - 20 - 22.5 - 7.5
seated rows 170 - 190 - 210
push ups

Day 4 off

Day 5 abs calves
Weighted crunchs 5 - 10 - 15
Barbell Seated Calf Raise 80 - 90 - 100
Side Plank Raises 0 - 5 - 10
Stair Calf Raise single 10 - 25 - 35 - 0
leg lifts 2.5 - 5 - 7.5
Cable Seated Crunch 80 - 90 - 100
Dumbbell Side Bend 45 - 50 - 52.5
Weighted crunchs 15 - 20 - 25
supermans


Day 6 shoulders traps
front delt 22.5 - 25 - 30 - 7.5
trap upright row 100 - 110 - 120 - 40
mid delt 12.5 - 15 - 17.5 - 5
arnold press 20 - 25 - 30 - 5
shoulder shrugs 115 - 135 - 155 - 55
seated flies 12.5 - 15 - 17.5 - 5

Day 7 rest

For nutrition I've been watching what I eat trying to stay away from fatty foods and stick to carb and protein rich choices. 3 meals a day with snacks in between lunch and after dinner, with a late night sandwich or something before bed.

Supplements im taking now are a multivitamin at breakfast and another at lunch, and L arginnie L citrulline before workout. Whey protein shake (~40 grams) after workout and a glutamine pill (1gram) before bed. I've been wanting to get some creatine.

All I know, is that i don't know nothin. Most of this info was been gathered from around the web. None of my friends think working out is cool so I can't really talk to anyone about this. I'm just trying to get some pointers on the above points. Anything I'm doing good, great. Anything I'm not I am 100 percent open to changing something right away.
-thanks

 

[ihateschoolmt]

Fat is not bad for you, you can eat plenty of fat, just not saturated or trans fat. Testosterone is actually produced from fat calories. If you want to gain weight you have to eat more calories than you're burning. I'm about 6'1 ~165 and I eat around 4000 calories a day. Also, your rep/set scheme is confusing me. Usually it's weight lifted - sets - reps like Bench 150 3x8

 

[dteller1]

one thing....too much volume!!! unless you are assisted you cant possibly be training with a good level of exertion with that many sets.

if im reading this right your doing 24 sets on the shoulder and traps day, that is insane.

let me direct you here:

The Ultimate Weight Training Workout Routine

that has a lot of really helpful info

 

[Bonesaw]

24 reps on the last set, thats why its so much lighter than the other 3

 

[Built]

Define hardgainer.

 

[Bonesaw]

look like a marathon runner my whole life no matter what I ate or did lol. I was 143-148 pounds months back before I started working out.

 

[Built]

How many calories do you eat daily?

 

[Bonesaw]

i've been trying to hit or exceed 3500 daily

 

[Built]

For how long, and how successful have you been - do you manage to average this?

What macronutrient mix are you running (grams protein, carb and fat)?

Are you gaining? How much and over what time frame?

 

[Bonesaw]

I've been focusing on eating more for the last few months, now that I realized its almost more important then working out. I don't record the calorie intake of everyday but when I do add up some meals with snacks its around the 3000 mark. This is probably my weakest point. I know nothing about food and what to eat. Since I started I have made some solid gains. Before I started 6 months back It would be uncommon for me to dip into the 130's now for the last 4 weeks I've never been below 150.
I take GNC Mega Men Sport vitamins
and EAS 100% whey protein

 

[dteller1]

im confused by your workout, how many total SETS are you doing on the shoulder/traps day? by my count its 24 sets ie 4 sets for each exercise with 6 different exercises.

 

[Bonesaw]

yes you would be right.

 

[Built]

I've been focusing on eating more for the last few months, now that I realized its almost more important then working out. I don't record the calorie intake of everyday but when I do add up some meals with snacks its around the 3000 mark. This is probably my weakest point. I know nothing about food and what to eat. Since I started I have made some solid gains. Before I started 6 months back It would be uncommon for me to dip into the 130's now for the last 4 weeks I've never been below 150.
I take GNC Mega Men Sport vitamins
and EAS 100% whey protein

Your vitamin and your protein powder are fine. Finish the glutamine, then don't buy any more. You're probably getting about 20g of glutamine daily from your food. The extra gram won't do anything noticeable for you, and no, you won't spike GH with one gram of glutamine. Keep the preworkout supp if you like the pump. Protein powder is a good source of liquid calories, and ordinary creatine monohydrate is the gold standard of creatine supplements - get whatever plain monohydrate is on sale and take a teaspoon a day every day.

FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal

Track your intake.

As noted above, the easiest source of healthy mass-building calories is fat. I highly suggest red meat and olive oil. Load up on the olive oil - two tablespoons will give you almost 250 calories and that type of fat supports testosterone anyway.


Most folks maintain at or around 15 times their bodyweight in pounds (higher if young and active). For you, at your age and activity level at 150lbs, maintenance is likely around 2500 calories so if you keep eating 3000 a day, you should gain weight at least initially.

If you told me you were carefully monitoring your intake and find you can't gain unless you eat 4000 calories a day, I'd agree you're a hardgainer. As it is, you're just an ordinary undereater with an ordinary metabolism.

Track your intake, make sure you consistently eat more than 3000 calories a day and monitor your weight. You stop gaining, you know what to do - as you correctly noted, eating is most of the game here. Nobody gains weight by lifting weights. The only way to get bigger is to consistently eat more calories than your body requires.

 

[dteller1]

24 sets is way to much for just your shoulders and traps. i dont know how you can keep up any kind of reasonable intensity for 24 sets for muscle groups like shoulders and traps.

 

[Bonesaw]

@ built thanks alot, a sound approach
@ dteller1 i take about 2 min break in between if i need it. the first set is like a warm up set. the middle 2 are the hard ones, then the last one is for getting the pump effect. I just recently added the 4 set to everything that I thought should need it.

 

[dteller1]

pump means nothing unfortunately you could do a set with a really light weight for 100 reps and get a great pump it would do nothing for you. read the link i gave you that should help and use either a workout on that link or use this

http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/training/60741-designing-training-routines-cowpimp.html

 

[Bonesaw]

my logic in making my plan the way it is was to workout a muscle to complete kill it, then 6 off from working out that muscle. From the beginning I was told to use the pyramid technique with descending reps per set as you increase the weight per set.

 

[Built]

You don't need to completely kill a muscle to grow. You just need progressive overload and food. You'll likely grow better if you DON'T train this way, but rather, train in full-body workouts three days a week, focussing on heavy compounds and your diet. "Rape your bodypart" day and pump training tend to work best for those on gear - for whom everything works better.

 

[dteller1]

the workout im using works quite well:

workout A
squats 4 x 5-7
bench press 3 x 5-7
db fly 3 x 5-7
military press 3 x 5-7
french press 3 x 5-7

workout B
deadlift 3 x 5-7
pull up 3 sets
db row 3 x 5-7
db curl 3 x 5-7

each week A, B, A then next week B, A, B.

 

[Bonesaw]

so basically it would be better if i took one exercise from every muscle i listed above and make one full body exercise. Then alternate the different exercises for the same muscle on exercise a and b? doing what you said day 1 a day 3 b day 5 a then swapping them the next week b a b.

 

[Built]

If that translates to what dteller is doing, then yes.

 

[PainandGain]

If that translates to what dteller is doing, then yes.

 

[oden]

drink a gallon of milk and 10 eggs a day work out less but heavy-sleep look into Test E!

 

[Bonesaw]

As far as my workout plan goes would something like this be better than what i was doing?

In a 2 days on one off pattern.
Exercise A
ez bar
rope pulldowns
straight bench
front delt
trap upright row
lat chest pull downs

Exercise B
squats
Lying Leg Curls
Weighted crunchs
Side Bends
Calf Raise single

Exercise A version 2
Concentration Curls
Decline Dumbbell Triceps Extension
incline bench
seated rows
mid delt or rear delt seated flies
shoulder shrugs

Exercise B version 2
seated quad extensions or Dumbbell Lunges
Romanian Deadlifts
leg lifts
Cable Seated Crunch
Barbell Seated Calf Raise

 

[dteller1]

a little confused, i would do a PUSH day and call it workout A and a pull day call that workout B. dont do seated rows (i assume thats with the machine?) do bent over bb or db rows, where are your pull ups? where is straight bench? where is military press?

i think your over complicating things a little, use cow pimps design

http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/training/53106-designing-full-body-routine.html

and look at the push/pull templates on that page, imo that sort of thing is most effective.

 

[bentoverrows]

As far as my workout plan goes would something like this be better than what i was doing?

In a 2 days on one off pattern.
Exercise A
ez bar
rope pulldowns
straight bench
front delt
trap upright row
lat chest pull downs

Exercise B
squats
Lying Leg Curls
Weighted crunchs
Side Bends
Calf Raise single

Exercise A version 2
Concentration Curls
Decline Dumbbell Triceps Extension
incline bench
seated rows
mid delt or rear delt seated flies
shoulder shrugs

Exercise B version 2
seated quad extensions or Dumbbell Lunges
Romanian Deadlifts
leg lifts
Cable Seated Crunch
Barbell Seated Calf Raise

Yep looks good.

See to it that you finish your training within 55 mins.
Dont go to failure in any of the sets except may be the last one.
Do no more than 10 reps each set.
(thats what I ve been focussing lately.)

 

[Built]

It doesn't look good to me.

Start with a heavy compound lift, then progress toward higher-rep concentration work. Make sure you include free, below-parallel barbell squats, deadlifts, weighted chins, bench press, cleans and presses of some sort. Balance your push with your pull, avoid machines for the heavy compound work and do concentration/isolation work only as a finisher.

Upright rows are a lousy sub for powercleans. Avoid.
All pushing hits front delt. Side bends - what do you expect from these? Leg curls do very little - keep them as a finisher only. A version 2 makes no sense to me. No, this doesn't look great as a setup.

Exercise A
ez bar
rope pulldowns
straight bench
front delt
trap upright row
lat chest pull downs

Exercise B
squats
Lying Leg Curls
Weighted crunchs
Side Bends
Calf Raise single

Exercise A version 2
Concentration Curls
Decline Dumbbell Triceps Extension
incline bench
seated rows
mid delt or rear delt seated flies
shoulder shrugs

Exercise B version 2
seated quad extensions or Dumbbell Lunges
Romanian Deadlifts
leg lifts
Cable Seated Crunch
Barbell Seated Calf Raise

 

[MDR]

Built speaks the truth. You would do well to listen to her suggestions here.

 

[natural1]

Builts right as usual,

your using far too many isolation movements and machines and there dosent seem to be any kind of structure to your idea for a routine. If you dont like the one thats been suggested to you already then have a look at this routine below Ive been doing it for the last 4 or 5 month while ive been bulking and had great success too. Obviously your still going to have to eat pleanty and rest pleanty too.


Day 1
Squats x 5 sets 5-8 reps
weghted Lunges/Split Squats x 3 sets 8-10 reps
Front Squats x 2 sets 8-10 reps
Calves

Day 2
weighted overarm grip pull ups 3x5
Neutral grip Pull Up 3x 5-10
Hang Cleans 3 x 8-10
Single arm bent over rows/ Bent Over Rows x 3 sets 8-10


Day 3
rest


day 4
Flat Bench Press x 4 sets 5-8 reps
incline Dumbell press x 3 sets 8 reps
Military press x 3 sets 6-8 reps
Arnold press/corner press 3 sets 8-10 reps
Dips x 3 sets 8-12 reps

Day 5
Deadlifts x 5 sets 4-8 reps
RDL/Good Mornings x 3 sets 8-10 reps
Glute ham raises 3x8-10
Calfs


Day 6 and Day 7
rest


You could throw in a couple of sets for isolation movements and the end of your workouts for stuff you wish to target further (like arm curls) but dont go overboard. You could maybe do some Power Cleans on dead lift day too.

 

[Bonesaw]

dam still way off then, im a little limited on what exercises i can do because i am working out at home. thanks for the advice everyone. i still have a lot to learn. So do exercise a as full body push and exercise b as full body pull?