Beginner - Need Help (Advice)

Bigger Stronger Leaner Beginners
1

Hello,

I am new to this site.
I would be happy if you could help me fix my workout plan or give me one wich will help me. My goal is gain size, get some muscles because I am pretty skinny. I have already read articles from coach Thibaudeau for example Training for Newbies, Nutrition for Newbies and How to design a Damn Good Program and others. But here�??s problem that I am not from english speaking country Czech, Europe, I apologize for my engrish ) so I am not sure that i understood everything well. Mainly I am not sure about number of execrises, reps for exercises for example there was written three possibilities (6-8,8-10,10-12) so i am confused which one is the best for which exercises, etc�?�

Here is some info about me:
Height: 182cm (5’9")
Weight: 60kg (130 lbs)
Age: 16
Fat: do not know

I really will be happy if you help me. Thank you for your time and incoming comments.

Here is my workout tried to create:

Day1:
a) Pecs
- Bench Press (9-12 reps, 3 sets)
- Incline bench press (6-8 reps, 3 sets)
- Cable cross-over (9-12 reps, 3 sets)

b) back
- lat pulldown (Pull-ups later) (9-12 reps, 3 sets)
- Cable cross-over (6-8 reps, 3 sets)

  • DeadLift (6-8 resp, 3 sets) or Shurgs (10-12 reps, 3 sets)??

Day2:
a) Quadriceps
- Olympic squat (9-12 reps, 3 sets)
- LegPress (9-12 reps, 3 sets)

b) Harmstings
- Good Mornings (9-12 reps, 3 sets)
- glute-ham raises (9-12 reps, 3 sets)

Day4:
b) Biceps
- Standing barbell curl (9-12 reps, 3 sets)
- cable curl variations (9-12 reps, 3 sets)
- Machine curl (6-8 reps, 3 sets)

c) Triceps
- Close grip bench press (10-12 reps, 3 sets)
- decline barbell triceps extension (9-12 reps, 3 sets)
- Cable Tricep Extension (6-8 reps, 3 sets)

Day5:
a) Shouldres
- military press (9-12 reps, 3 sets)
- Arnold Press (6-8 reps, 3 sets)

2

Workout A
Squat 3x5
Bench Press 3x5
Deadlift 1x5

Workout B
Squat 3x5
Press 3x5
Pendlay Row 3x5

Alternate like this:

Week 1
Monday A
Wednesday B
Friday A

Week 2
Monday B
Wednesday A
Friday B

EAT.

3

[quote]DoubleSidedTape wrote:
Workout A
Squat 3x5
Bench Press 3x5
Deadlift 1x5

Workout B
Squat 3x5
Press 3x5
Pendlay Row 3x5

Alternate like this:

Week 1
Monday A
Wednesday B
Friday A

Week 2
Monday B
Wednesday A
Friday B

EAT.[/quote]

What the hell is this? Why would you recommend doing only these lifts? I know that you are going to respond with something about compound lifts creating more mass, but what is the point in doing only compound lifts? As long as he has compound lifts in his program then what harm will it do to perform other exercises too? Also, if he goes hard at all how to do expect him to squat 3 days a week with only 1 day of rest in between each day? His legs will be so sore after the first squat session that doing squats again for two more sessions in the same week will be basically useless. Telling someone new to lifting who doesn’t know any better to do this is just plain asinine.

4

Don’t be foolish, if he’s a beginner he is supposed to do them as often as he can to get the movement patterns down (and not even considering that young guys like the OP will recover very fast as he’s a beginner too). The fact that his legs might be sore still on the second day and skipping squats then is just plain stupid. If the OP is somewhat close to your average genetics, the biggest hypertrophy is already over by then, thus he should be squatting again after two nights have passed.

5

[quote]HKDOOM wrote:
Don’t be foolish, if he’s a beginner he is supposed to do them as often as he can to get the movement patterns down (and not even considering that young guys like the OP will recover very fast as he’s a beginner too). The fact that his legs might be sore still on the second day and skipping squats then is just plain stupid. If the OP is somewhat close to your average genetics, the biggest hypertrophy is already over by then, thus he should be squatting again after two nights have passed.[/quote]

Maybe, after two nights have passed, but definitely not 3 days a week with only 1 day of rest in between. And who says that he is supposed to do them as often as he can to get the movement pattern down? Why the hell would it take him 3 days a week doing the same movement to get the pattern down? It isn’t that hard of a concept. The thing that is just plain stupid is ignoring the importance of rest to someone who is trying to get bigger so that they can get a movement pattern down that isn’t that hard to figure out in the first place.

6

But that wasn’t the main point of doing the squat that often, but one more reason to do it.
Yes, he should be doing the squat that often.
As a beginner he should be planning his workouts by one workout just because he will recover much faster than a trainer with more experience at the gym, because he isn’t strong enough to cause that much strain to not to recover from the workouts. When he reaches the point when he doesn’t recover fast enough, he’s supposed to plan the training by a bit longer time period rather than just go workout by workout.

For example when he reaches the point of not recovering from heavy, heavy, heavy… heavy workouts, he should change to heavy, light, medium, heavy, light, medium…, but the fact that we’re talking about a 16 year old boy here, it’s waste of time to start thinking stuff like this until he reaches the point when he can’t make progress by just going heavy three times a week.

Also one can squat just once a week if he wants to be sure he gets enough rest, but by doing so that person dismisses all the studies that point out why the person should be squatting three times a week.

7

[quote]HKDOOM wrote:
But that wasn’t the main point of doing the squat that often, but one more reason to do it.
Yes, he should be doing the squat that often.
As a beginner he should be planning his workouts by one workout just because he will recover much faster than a trainer with more experience at the gym, because he isn’t strong enough to cause that much strain to not to recover from the workouts. When he reaches the point when he doesn’t recover fast enough, he’s supposed to plan the training by a bit longer time period rather than just go workout by workout. For example when he reaches the point of not recovering from heavy, heavy, heavy… heavy workouts, he should change to heavy, light, medium, heavy, light, medium…, but the fact that we’re talking about a 16 year old boy here, it’s waste of time to start thinking stuff like this until he reaches the point when he can’t make progress by just going heavy three times a week.
Also one can squat just once a week if he wants to be sure he gets enough rest, but by doing so that person dismisses all the studies that point out why the person should be squatting three times a week.[/quote]

The fact that he is not strong is even more reason to not squat 3 times a week. Your theory that a weak person who trains suffers from less muscular strain than a strong person who trains is pure bullshit.

Instead of going heavy, light, medium… why not just go heavy every day and do different movements for different body parts? Also, could you please point me in the direction of one of these studies that say you should squat 3 times a week? I’m really interested in reading one of them.

8

Ironwarrior, that beginners program is recommended by these two: www.startingstrength.com/authors.html

Go read the book. :slight_smile:

9

http://apt.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1519%2F1533-4287(2000)014[0273%3ACODADP]2.0.CO%3B2&ct=1

Here’s one.
Heh, I was going to give out starting strength too but don’t have the book handy to check what kind of studies Rippetoe and Kilgore put into it. :stuck_out_tongue: If I recall right their periodization book had more stuff in it about this sort of stuff.

10

Hkdoom, that study is comparing the results of experienced lifters. He is clearly not experienced.

11
12

I am not going to argue or contradict the findings of this study. I agree that squatting more would probably make him stronger, IN THE SQUAT. It would train the muscles used in the squat and probably get them more accustomed to the movement. However, the op is not looking to just increase his squat, he is wanting to gain size overall.

The study you posted has virtually nothing to do with gaining mass, it is a study comparing strength gains in one lift over a period of time. Squatting this much might help his squat, but it would hinder the progression of his other lifts, therefore it would not be good for overall hypertrophy.

13

It’s actually quite the opposite. Squatting often and concentrating in the bigger lifts in general will keep growth hormone releases higher and that helps your body grow more than if you didn’t do them as often.

Getting stronger in some lift will make your body adapt to the new strain which leads to hypertrophy. I’m not only talking about squat, I’m talking about other lifts aswell. Benching often works too, although concentrating in just bench isn’t very wise like we all know already.

I’m not only talking about what the studies show, which should be enough for reasonable guys, but I’m talking from my own experience aswell. I started lifting like you’re suggesting and I consider that time wasted compared to the strength and muscle gains I’m getting now with this kind of training.

Some questions:

  1. What mechanism hinders growth and strength gains from other lifts if you squat often?

  2. What causes hypertrophy if not adapting into new stress (you get stronger in some lift which leads to the muscles that work in the said lift adapting to the new kind of stress)?

  3. How doesn’t the increased growth hormone release help the rest of the body in general if you squat often?

14

[quote]IronWarrior24 wrote:
DoubleSidedTape wrote:
Workout A
Squat 3x5
Bench Press 3x5
Deadlift 1x5

Workout B
Squat 3x5
Press 3x5
Pendlay Row 3x5

Alternate like this:

Week 1
Monday A
Wednesday B
Friday A

Week 2
Monday B
Wednesday A
Friday B

EAT.

What the hell is this? Why would you recommend doing only these lifts? I know that you are going to respond with something about compound lifts creating more mass, but what is the point in doing only compound lifts? As long as he has compound lifts in his program then what harm will it do to perform other exercises too? Also, if he goes hard at all how to do expect him to squat 3 days a week with only 1 day of rest in between each day? His legs will be so sore after the first squat session that doing squats again for two more sessions in the same week will be basically useless. Telling someone new to lifting who doesn’t know any better to do this is just plain asinine.

[/quote]

your an idiot.

this is mark rippetoes starting strength.

15

Eloquently put dlfury. :slight_smile: I’ve been trying to tell the same but that’s a way too.

16

[quote]HKDOOM wrote:
It’s actually quite the opposite. Squatting often and concentrating in the bigger lifts in general will keep growth hormone releases higher and that helps your body grow more than if you didn’t do them as often.

Getting stronger in some lift will make your body adapt to the new strain which leads to hypertrophy. I’m not only talking about squat, I’m talking about other lifts aswell. Benching often works too, although concentrating in just bench isn’t very wise like we all know already.

I’m not only talking about what the studies show, which should be enough for reasonable guys, but I’m talking from my own experience aswell. I started lifting like you’re suggesting and I consider that time wasted compared to the strength and muscle gains I’m getting now with this kind of training.

Some questions:

  1. What mechanism hinders growth and strength gains from other lifts if you squat often?

  2. What causes hypertrophy if not adapting into new stress (you get stronger in some lift which leads to the muscles that work in the said lift adapting to the new kind of stress)?

  3. How doesn’t the increased growth hormone release help the rest of the body in general if you squat often?[/quote]

  4. What mechanism? Are you just plain stupid? Anybody who knows anything about lifting or muscles will tell you that if you can’t or don’t lift hard you can’t achieve optimal hypertrophy. The fact that you are squatting 3 days a week is going to decrease the intensity of each subsequent squatting session.

Also, I’m sure you know that muscles that are used in the squat are also used in other lifts too. Doing this amount of squatting is going to kill your deadlifts, for example. How you say? If you go hard in the squat you know how your legs feel after a hard squat workout. They are often sore for days after. Deadlifting is the best overall mass builder for your back and is a huge mass builder overall. But it also uses a lot of legs too.

So by squatting this much your deadlifts are going to go all to hell. So you’re going to be left with overtrained legs and a shitty back because you can’t muster up enough strength to hit it hard.

  1. The workouts you perform do not make your muscles grow larger. The workouts tear the muscle fibers down and rest and proper nutrition is what causes them to build back up.

  2. The increased growth hormone released from squatting would help the body overall, but in this case the amount of muscle breakdown is too much. Regardless of the increase in output of growth hormone by doing squats, your muscles still need time to rest before they can grow. The presence of growth hormone does not alter this basic principle.

17

[quote]dlfury wrote:
IronWarrior24 wrote:
DoubleSidedTape wrote:
Workout A
Squat 3x5
Bench Press 3x5
Deadlift 1x5

Workout B
Squat 3x5
Press 3x5
Pendlay Row 3x5

Alternate like this:

Week 1
Monday A
Wednesday B
Friday A

Week 2
Monday B
Wednesday A
Friday B

EAT.

What the hell is this? Why would you recommend doing only these lifts? I know that you are going to respond with something about compound lifts creating more mass, but what is the point in doing only compound lifts? As long as he has compound lifts in his program then what harm will it do to perform other exercises too? Also, if he goes hard at all how to do expect him to squat 3 days a week with only 1 day of rest in between each day? His legs will be so sore after the first squat session that doing squats again for two more sessions in the same week will be basically useless. Telling someone new to lifting who doesn’t know any better to do this is just plain asinine.

your an idiot.

this is mark rippetoes starting strength.[/quote]

No, you’re the idiot. Next time you decide to post something in a thread maybe you could back it up with an educated opinion. For one thing, posting in here and calling me an idiot is not going to help your cause at all and for another your reasoning for this is meaningless to me. I clearly disagree with the program whether it was written by Mark Rippetoe, Mahatma Gandhi, or Ronnie Coleman himself.

18

This routine is designed for beginners, like the topic creator.

It is a whole body workout, done heavy three days per week.

The reason inexperienced/young trainees can workout like this is because they are inexperienced and young.

[quote]
Mark Rippetoe wrote:
The less experienced the athlete, the simpler the program should be. The stronger an athlete becomes, the more susceptible he becomes to overtraining, a condition produced by the body’s inability to adapt to the stress level provided. Rank novices are not strong enough to tax themselves beyond their ability to recover, and can be trained to the limit of their ability nearly every time they train.[/quote]

-Starting Strength Page 189

Because he is young, the topic creator (I don’t want to use the word TC on here), has higher levels of hormones and more recovery ability than he would if he were 30.

This routine has worked just for thousands of trainees just like the topic creator; I don’t understand why you fail to accept that.

19

[quote]DoubleSidedTape wrote:
This routine is designed for beginners, like the topic creator.

It is a whole body workout, done heavy three days per week.[/quote]
And?

Foolproof reasoning there

[quote]Mark Rippetoe wrote:
The less experienced the athlete, the simpler the program should be. The stronger an athlete becomes, the more susceptible he becomes to overtraining, a condition produced by the body’s inability to adapt to the stress level provided. Rank novices are not strong enough to tax themselves beyond their ability to recover,[/quote]

How can this make sense to you? It says right there in the paragraph that overtraining is caused by an inability to adapt to the stress level provided. Now, think about it, an athlete who trains regularly is going to more easily adapt to stress than a non trained individual whose muscles have never had to adapt to any high stress level.

[quote]and can be trained to the limit of their ability nearly every time they train.

-Starting Strength Page 189

Because he is young, the topic creator (I don’t want to use the word TC on here), has higher levels of hormones and more recovery ability than he would if he were 30.[/quote]

I would agree that he would have higher levels of hormones and recovery ability than a 30 year old, but he would not have as much recovery ability as a trained individual of the same age group as him. Regardless, he still would not have enough recovery ability to adapt to the stress level of this program and still achieve optimal hypertrophy.

It may have appeared to have worked, but anything is better than nothing. I’m sure beginners have had some results with the program, but we’re talking about eliciting the highest amount of hypertrophy possible, and I’m sure this program could not achieve that.

20

Read it again:

“Rank novices are not strong enough to tax themselves beyond their ability to recover, and can be trained to the limit of their ability nearly every time they train.”

It says that a novice is unable to cause enough stress to himself to overtrain, because he is not strong enough to fatigue himself to the degree that an experienced lifter is.

[quote]

It may have appeared to have worked, but anything is better than nothing. I’m sure beginners have had some results with the program, but we’re talking about eliciting the highest amount of hypertrophy possible, and I’m sure this program could not achieve that.[/quote]

You are sure? What experience or sources give you that idea?

I am sure that most of the posters on T-Nation are either extremely grateful that they started training with this program, or wish they had known about it when they started lifting, because they could have made much better gains with Rippetoe’s method than the body-part split you are likely to propose.

[quote]
Mark Rippetoe wrote:
A program of this nature tends to produce the correct bodyweight in athletes. That is, if a trainee needs to get bigger, he will grow, and if he needs to lose bodyfat, that happens too. It is possible , and quite likely, that skinny kids on this program will gain 10-15 lbs of non fat bodyweight in the first 2 weeks of a good barbell training program, provided they eat well. “Well” means 4 or so meals per day, based on meat and egg protein sources, with lots of fruit and vegetables, and lots of milk. Lots. Most sources within the heavy training community agree that a good starting place is one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day, with the rest of the diet making up 2500-5000 calories, depending on training requirements and body composition. Although these numbers produce much eyebrow raising and cautionary statement-issuing from the registered dietetics people, it is a fact that these numbers work well for the vast majority of trainees, and have done so for decades.[/quote]

Starting Strength Pages 204-205