Critique My Workout

Bigger Stronger Leaner Beginners
1

I am a 17 year old athlete who is training basically for improvements in strength and speed. I have just recently started weightlifting and my current stats at 160 pounds is; 176 Lbs benchpress and 230 Lbs Squat.

The program is a modified westside program ( got a little help to make it.) which looks like this:
ME upper (Monday)
(Closegrip)/Benchpress up to 3RM.
Dips (weighted) 2x max
Standing rows 3x6
Shrugs 3x8
Biceps exercise/Pulldown 3x 8-12
Abs circuit

DE lower (Wednesday)
-Cleans/Snatch/Box squats (65,70,75) % 5x3
-Speed Deadlift (55,60,65) % 3x3
-Reverse Lunges- 3x10 // 3X10 STEP UPS
-Pull Throughs/glute ham raise- 3x12
-Ab Circuit

RE upper Thursday
(Benchpress up to 3rm?)
2x max dips
military press 3x6
3x 8-10 skull crushers
3x10 Pulldowns
3x6 shrugs

ME lower (Friday)
(Box) squats up to 3 rep max
Good mornings 3x5
Stiff legged deadlift 3x5
Bulgarian squats 3x3
abs circuit

What I have noticed so far is that it works better for me with benchpressing twice a week and that I really like the ME lower day. So, does this look like an alright program??

2

Anybody?

3

[quote]michelangelo wrote:
I am a 17 year old athlete who is training basically for improvements in strength and speed. I have just recently started weightlifting and my current stats at 160 pounds is; 176 Lbs benchpress and 230 Lbs Squat. The program is a modified westside program ( got a little help to make it.) which looks like this:
ME upper (Monday)
(Closegrip)/Benchpress up to 3RM.
Dips (weighted) 2x max
Standing rows 3x6
Shrugs 3x8
Biceps exercise/nedtrekk 3x 8-12
Abs circuit

DE lower (Wednesday)
-Cleans/Snatch/Box squats (65,70,75) % 5x3
-Speed Deadlift (55,60,65) % 3x3
-Reverse Lunges- 3x10 // 3X10 STEP UPS
-Pull Throughs/glute ham raise- 3x12
-Ab Circuit

RE upper Thursday
(Benchpress up to 3rm?)
2x max dips
military press 3x6
3x 8-10 skull crushers
3x10 Pulldowns
3x6 shrugs

ME lower (Friday)
(Box) squats up to 3 rep max
Good mornings 3x5
Stiff legged deadlift 3x5
Bulgarian squats 3x3
abs circuit

What I have noticed so far is that it works better for me with benchpressing twice a week and that I really like the ME lower day. So, does this look like an alright program?[/quote]

You could follow Defrancos Westside for skinny bastards, yours is similar to that, so check his out.

I think your ME lower looks a bit of a killer, with all tough exercises like that for low reps.

And for repetiton upper body, you wanna be doing 4x12-15, or 3 sets of max reps on your main lift.

Also what work are you doing for speed, or are you just working on stregth at first?

4

Are you sure you need to do speed deadlift after the oly stuff? I found myself that doing just powercleans does the same especially if you’re a narrow puller.
I see you’re doing standing rows and pulldowns, have you tried chinups/pullups (these would probably suit you better for athletic purposes) or barbell rows?
You have quite a lot of stuff on the RE upperbody day. Bench, dips, military presses and skullcrushers. You would probably do well by just alternating with heavy benches and military presses and then doing dips.
On ME lower you have squat and then GM and SLDL, are you sure you need to do both of them instead of changing between them?

EDIT: Ah, by standing rows do you mean upright rows? I was thinking using a pulley system for rowing with your upperback.

5

I am gonna work up a better strength base before i do any specific speed work. I am getting enough at the moment through football (soccer) exercises. In the summer I’m gonna try The vertical jump bible.

Well, my benchpress is not increasing at all when I work up to 3rm … Before when I trained hard bench twice a week I could raise the weight almost for every training, but now it has stopped on 80kg.

6

[quote]DOOM wrote:
Are you sure you need to do speed deadlift after the oly stuff? I found myself that doing just powercleans does the same especially if you’re a narrow puller.
I see you’re doing standing rows and pulldowns, have you tried chinups/pullups (these would probably suit you better for athletic purposes) or barbell rows?
You have quite a lot of stuff on the RE upperbody day. Bench, dips, military presses and skullcrushers. You would probably do well by just alternating with heavy benches and military presses and then doing dips.
On ME lower you have squat and then GM and SLDL, are you sure you need to do both of them instead of changing between them?

EDIT: Ah, by standing rows do you mean upright rows? I was thinking using a pulley system for rowing with your upperback.[/quote]

Actually I meant barbell bent over row. I’m not American so I don’t know the name of all the exercises. Your advices sound good, but I feel my training becomes to short with so few exercises, has that anything to say? And also could I do heavy bench twice a week in this program, and how should I do that?

7

Yes you can bench twice a week. You could do them both with the same grip width or one with your normal and then one with narrow. Monday and thursday are good days for that.
It’s ok if the training feels short if you just concentrate on a few, maybe even one or two, exercises a day if you just do them enough hard. It’s not really important to spend as much time in the gym as you can, but how effective the training is and how good progress you make, and most of the time you’ll make the best progress when you do only a few exercises enough hard.

8

I prettu much have the same advice some of these guys have given…

i think your upperbody days have too much volume for ME… just hit a couple of exercises hard. glad that you are starting at a young age though… keep going

9

Thanks guys! Really helpful advices. I’ve read a couple articles about DE days with speed bench and it seems like that would help over my current “plateau”, Has anybody tried it and did it work well for you?

10

[quote]michelangelo wrote:
I am a 17 year old athlete who is training basically for improvements in strength and speed. I have just recently started weightlifting and my current stats at 160 pounds is; 176 Lbs benchpress and 230 Lbs Squat.

The program is a modified westside program ( got a little help to make it.) which looks like this:
ME upper (Monday)
(Closegrip)/Benchpress up to 3RM.
Dips (weighted) 2x max
Standing rows 3x6
Shrugs 3x8
Biceps exercise/Pulldown 3x 8-12
Abs circuit

DE lower (Wednesday)
-Cleans/Snatch/Box squats (65,70,75) % 5x3
-Speed Deadlift (55,60,65) % 3x3
-Reverse Lunges- 3x10 // 3X10 STEP UPS
-Pull Throughs/glute ham raise- 3x12
-Ab Circuit

RE upper Thursday
(Benchpress up to 3rm?)
2x max dips
military press 3x6
3x 8-10 skull crushers
3x10 Pulldowns
3x6 shrugs

ME lower (Friday)
(Box) squats up to 3 rep max
Good mornings 3x5
Stiff legged deadlift 3x5
Bulgarian squats 3x3
abs circuit

What I have noticed so far is that it works better for me with benchpressing twice a week and that I really like the ME lower day. So, does this look like an alright program??[/quote]

Personally I like your routine. You might want to consider doing one “Lighter” bench day–working up to a 3 rep max two times a week could be overkill after a few weeks. You could still bench twice, just change the rep range. If you find yourself getting burned out on ME lower days, you should lighten up the intensity of your assistance exercises. In other words, only do 1 or 2 really heavy lifts, and do more hypertrophy stuff. If you don’t get burned out, stay the way you have it.

On DE lower day, I would do more than 3 sets of deadlifts. More like 6x2 or something. Volume is still low, but it gives you more practice for setting up and technique/speed work.

To whoever questioned whether or not you need to do speed deadlifts after power cleans, it depends on how much weight you can handle. I can handle a lot more on the deadlift than I can clean, so I personally do it. Some people don’t need to though.

My two cents.

11

Actually, with how low your max squat is, you might not need a true DE day. My experience has been that beginners need more repetition work than speed work. You should still keep power cleans though. So do 2 or 3 sets of max reps on squat or deadlift then instead of speed deadlifts.

But if you find that DE days work well, then keep it as written and don’t change.

People are telling you your ME volume may be too high. I would agree with them if you were more advanced and/or lifting heavier weights. However, since you’re a beginner and not very strong, you should have no problem handling the volume if you eat enough. Your body can’t really produce enough stress on your nervous system to really overtrain seriously.

Besides, the volume will help you get more muscle :).

12

Do you have an opinion on speed days for benchpress, or am I to unexperienced to do those?

13

It is my personal opinion that you are too inexperienced. I’m currently training a person similar to you and he definitely doesn’t need DE bench days. However, everyone is different, so you may notice a benefit. The only way to know is by trying. That being said, Most Westside Barbell guys (Dave Tate, Louie Simmons) tend to lean more towards repetition at these low levels of strength, simply because a solid foundation of general strength is generally needed before special methods need to be used (examples–max single attempts, and dynamic exercises).

It’s worth mentioning though that I am leaving DE days for my trainee in for the time being however. The reason is that it gives him a chance to practice technique without heavy fatigue.

So, its 50/50 each way really. The only way to know for sure is to experiment. I’m not trying to discourage you, just letting you know your options. I don’t know you personally so I don’t know if the guy who helped write this template is training you, or anything. Therefore I find it difficult to give concrete recommendations. The general template seems to be designed fairly well overall though.

These reasons are some of the reasons that Joe Defranco modified the original Westside template to his very successful “Westside for Skinny Bastards” program–it was geared mostly towards teen athletes. There are 3 versions (original and two other updated versions).

14

Is a DE day supposed to be 2 days before ME? If not I think you’d be better off moving that Wednesday to Tuesday, give yourself more rest.