I’m in my first two months of “serious” working out. I’m not planning in competing or anything, I’m just 35 Male and decided to try to get in good shape. Currently I am training three days on, one day off. I’m doing upper on day one, lower on day two, and cardio on day three, then one day off. Each day on takes about an hour to an hour and a half.
I have been eating IBU profen pretty much everyday just so I can get out of bed. My routine is mostly heavy weights exercising with 80-90% of my maximum on each lift. I’m just wondering if this much tightness and soreness is normal or if I am just overdoing things?
I have also changed my diet as follows: eat six times a day each meal consisting of a fist full of lean protein, half a fist of complex carbs, and a thumb size of fats. Comes out to about 2400-2700 calories a day.
I’m kinda just winging everything hoping that I’m doing it all right. Any pointers or tips from some more experienced lifters would be greatly appreciated.
You appear to have a decent setup here. Diet looks good. When it comes to training I would look at some of the beginner routines on this site. As well starting strength is a good option for a few months. When it comes to soreness make sure to get lots of sleep, water and maybe stretch. But the soreness will subside with experience
Barbell Bench 4x6 185lbs. Sometimes the fourth set isn’t doable.
Accessory chest exercise usually 3x6
Barbell Shoulder press 3x6 135lbs
Accessory shoulder exercise usually 3x6
Barbell rows 3x8 115lbd
Accessory back exercise
Various biceps exercises
Various tricep exercise
Lower-
Squat 4x6 205lbs
Deadlift 4x8 275lbs
Reverse lunge 3x6 115lbs
Calves raises 4x20-30 with 115lbs
Cardio-
Rower, assault bike, slam ball, step ups, jump rope, burpees, mountain climbers, planks… usually one minute each for 15 minutes then I repeat once or twice more.
Putting cardio day between upper/lower could help. For long term you may want to break up the bench/military and squat/dead lift for their own day. So do a bench day, squat day, military day, dead lift day. To do all 4 with that intensity in 48 hours will catch up to you.
Study up on pre, intra, and post work out nutrition too.
Stretch hard immediately post workout and do some extra mobiity work on cardio day. Get on a proven template from this site that varies intensity and volume epsecially if over 30. Either of these work great…
This isn’t a great idea even when you aren’t using a lot of weight. It is probably the main reason for the constant pain, along with technique.
You need a progression model as well. Probably the easiest would be double progression: pick a set and rep range for your main lifts, let’s say five sets of five to eights reps (5x5-8). When you can complete all sets at eight reps, add 10 lbs to your lower body lifts and 5 lbs to your upper body lifts. Also, squatting and deadlifting on the same day is not ideal. Why not deadlift and press one day and squat and bench the other? The suggestion to break those days up is also good.
I would also highly recommend swapping out the biceps, triceps and calf work for back raises, fatman pull-ups and heavy dumbbell rows. You could also start any of the programs @RampantBadger listed.