I have been a long time lurker here on T-Nation and I have read many of the great training articles, however many of them seem like they are on the complex side(requiring more equipment than I have access to). I was wondering if their were any simpler workouts considering I have a squat rack, bench, 350 lbs of free weights, and twenty-five, thirty-five, and forty-five dumbbells.
My max lifts are weak and I want to gain strength and size. I have lifted off and on for the past two years with no real sense of organization to my workouts. Even though I have lifted for the past two years I consider myself a beginner and I need some advice.
First of all, you’re not an ectomorph. You’re just not eating enough. Get rid of the labels.
Secondly, make a routine where you have the three basic compound lifts, bench, squat, and deadlift. Then pick your auxillary lifts for your arms and other body parts.
Go for heavy weight and low volume on the compound lifts (although squats can have higher reps, i.e. 6-10 reps). On your auxillary lifts I would stay with heavy weight and around 4-10 reps.
Remember, heavy weights, milk, food, sleep.
It’s just basic shit I spout out to you, and you have to do the job of tweaking/removing/adding things to it. That’s why I didn’t list sets. Personally, I get away with 3 sets. You may not. EXPERIMENT.
Thanks for the advice. I have managed to gain weight over the last two years. I started off at 170 lbs. at 6ft1 and now am up to about 200 but I do not have a very muscular physique and I still do not look like I have mass. I do always hit up on squatting, benching, and rows but I experience some major lower back pain when deadlifting (I think due to bad form, but I am not sure). I am curious what kind of auxillary lifts you mean.
I definitely have a heavy squat day, a heavy row day, and a heavy bench day each week and those exercises are performed on different days, but then I sort of just lose focus on what I should do after.
One last question, When I deadlift I explained that my lower back has became very sore. Is this natural (does this happen to everyone?) to become that sore just in the lower back? I thought if I was doing it right that my hamstrings would also feel very sore and my hamstrings only feel a little sore the next day.
Clean and press is good compound excersice well. I use it on my shoulder day. (Squat, bench, deads on back day, cleans on shoulder day. This has worked so far. 150 to 195lb at 5’11". It did take me about 8 years because of nutrition factor I believe. Reason being I am consistant.