If I am lifting just to have a good body, not necessarily be big, I really do not care about being big, what Hypertrophy zone should I go for 6-9 or 10-12?
I am already doing on a meal plan I just want to know how I should be doing my full body workouts reps sets and that stuff you guys should recommend.
This is what my program looks like
All 3x12 except dead lifts
Day 1
Rows
Bench Press
Incline Hammer Curls
Tricep Exercise (Don’t know name)
Machine Crunches
10 mins intervals
Next day: off
Day 2
Lat Pulldowns
db bench press
deadlifts
arnold press
weighted leg lifts
barbell curls
10 mins intervals
Next day: off
Day 3
Back extension
Reverse curls
Incline db press
One leg bench squat
decline crunches
dips
Next day: off
Day 4
Calf raises
tricep exercise (don’t know name)
Should press
decline db press
ab twist machine
pull ups
Next day: off
Then I just repeat.
This is usually how my meals go down.
6:10 - Protein Shake with skim milk, banana, multivitamin.
11 - Deli sandwitch about 500 cals
12:30 - piece of fruit before workout, never a banana
12:40-1:40 - workout
1:50 - Protein shake with skim milk, and creatine drink.
4:30 - some sort of snack, yogurt or something.
7:15 - whatever my mom is cooking, usually some sort of chicken thing, always try to avoid the more fatty stuff.
I can’t help on Fridays because my family pretty much always has pizza on Friday nights.
I am about 15% bodyfat, 183lbs if I had to guess and thats probably higher than it is.
First off, there’s no need to bicep-isolation every damn time.
Second, since you’re training 4 days a week, i think an upper/lower or push/pull split would be great for you.
You could for instance do something like this.
Workout A.
Bench press
Chins/Pull-ups
Overhead press
Barbell Rows
Dips
Workout B.
Squats
Deadlifts
Lunges
Some easy calf work maybe
If you want to, do some crunches
Then go ABAB.
This is just off the top of my head, I’m sure it could use improvements both here and there, but in any case, I believe it to be a lot better then what you’re doing now.
Edit.
ALso, your nutrition needs a lot of work. ; ) I suggest reading “Nutrition for newbies” here on T-Nation. It’s a pretty good article that covers all the basics and then some. My first thought is, you need a lot more food than what you’re currently eating. Could you calculate how many carbs, proteins and fats (and total kcal) you’re getting everyday? There’s a lot of basic stuff you need to know, for instance that to burn fat, you actually need to eat fat. Read the article, and you’ll get a better understanding of things.
Good luck man.
Your nutrition needs a makeover.
I don’t agree with your line of thinking, but respect that not everyone wants to be big.
However to “look good” you will need 2 things
Neither is easy by itself and if you choose #2 you will be dissapointed because at your present bw there isn’t enough muscle mass.
I would suggest you do the above program 3 times per week and alternate with 4 times doing cardio. The training sessions focus only on sets of 6 and lower.
Spend this year on that split while learning a ton about nutrition and experiment how your body reacts with certain principles (higher fat, lower fat / higher carbs, lower carbs / carbs in the mornings only, carbs in the afternoon only). When you know this then apply it to your expected goal for year 2. At the end evaluate and move to year 3.
If you do this by the end of year 3 you will know more about yourself than 90% of the kids I see training in my gym and you will look better than you can imagine.
So if I were to do upper lower body split, would this work?
Monday: Upper
Tuesday: Lower
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Upper
Friday: Lower
Sat: Off
Sun: Off
Yes, that would work very well.
I’m not a complete training noob by the way, I have been working out since January of last year. Went from a fat 236lbs to what I am now at 185lbs.
Oh and about the biceps, its kind of a pride thing, I got pretty big bi’s actually I have a 15" arm, so for a 17 year old I would think thats pretty big and my bi’s are all muscle. So that is kind of why I train them so often, because I don’t want to lose them.
Well, what you need to understand is this. No bicepcurl in the world could ever replace the workout your bicep gets doing chins, barbell rows and stuff like that.
There’s a saying that goes “the less you train your bicep, the more it grows”. I’m a firm believer in that. I pretty much never do isolation work on my biceps, and if and when i do, it’s only like 1-2 sets pr week. Again, chins, barbell rows, lat pulldowns and stuff like that, will beat any isolation work for the bi’s.
[quote]HOUSTON TEXAN wrote:
I’m not a complete training noob by the way, I have been working out since January of last year. Went from a fat 236lbs to what I am now at 185lbs.
Oh and about the biceps, its kind of a pride thing, I got pretty big bi’s actually I have a 15" arm, so for a 17 year old I would think thats pretty big and my bi’s are all muscle. So that is kind of why I train them so often, because I don’t want to lose them.[/quote]
Your biceps will get stronger (or bigger in your case) if you train them less and give them time to recover.
'xactly
If I did want to continue doing full body workouts, should I do them Mon, Wed, Fri, and take all the other days off?
Doesn’t really matter, as long as you keep at least 1 day in between your full-body’s.
If you do mon, wed, fri/tue, thu, sat and so on… doesnt matter.
[quote]sphaw wrote:
Well, what you need to understand is this. No bicepcurl in the world could ever replace the workout your bicep gets doing chins, barbell rows and stuff like that.
There’s a saying that goes “the less you train your bicep, the more it grows”. I’m a firm believer in that. I pretty much never do isolation work on my biceps, and if and when i do, it’s only like 1-2 sets pr week. Again, chins, barbell rows, lat pulldowns and stuff like that, will beat any isolation work for the bi’s.[/quote]
I hope you don’t truly believe this. Can you please show me some bodybuilders that have built very impressive biceps without doing curls?
I do rows and pulldowns and chins to build my back and trying to force undo load onto the biceps is going to A) give me a crappy back workout and B) potentially tear my biceps with a load(say a 200 lb row vs 80 lb curl) that it’s not used to handling.
If someone is SO pressed for time that they only can do 2-3 exercises than yes, rows and chins are a good choice over curls but the OP made no mention of this and if he wants to look good he’s going to need to train just about every muscle.
Dude… you can’t compare a 17 year old with a bodybuilder. Are you REALLY saying that a 17 year old kid will benifit more from doing bicep isolation work than sticking to compound movements? If you are, i hope you’re not serious.
A professional bodybuilder, or an amateur for that matter who’s been training for years can of course mix things up, but for a complete newbie, there is no point. The best is naturally a combination of both, but in this case, yes, i truly believe what i said.
typically to keep people happy an isolation at the end of upperlower workouts would be a calf raise/tricep or bicep lift
at the end of a fullbody it could be either, one or the other, or neither.
just don’t overdo it.
[quote]sphaw wrote:
Dude… you can’t compare a 17 year old with a bodybuilder. Are you REALLY saying that a 17 year old kid will benifit more from doing bicep isolation work than sticking to compound movements? If you are, i hope you’re not serious. [/quote]
I didn’t say professional or amateur bodybuilder, to me anyone that lifts to look good is well… a bodybuilder haha, what else should we call the OP? I think his BICEPS will benefit from BICEPS work. I’m not steering anyone away from hard lifts, but to build the best arms he can he’s going to need to hit them directly in some fashion.
Triceps I can agree are primarily built through presses(dips close reverse etc) but biceps are not as involved in back exercises as triceps are in pressing and therefor need to be hit directly. There isn’t mounting evidence of people(see I took that B-word out) building impressive arms without direct arm work that I’ve seen, I have seen a lot of people that have good arms do curls.
[quote]
A professional bodybuilder, or an amateur for that matter who’s been training for years can of course mix things up, but for a complete newbie, there is no point. The best is naturally a combination of both, but in this case, yes, i truly believe what i said.[/quote]
I also agree that a combination of both is best, so why didn’t you say that first?
How many “My arms are lagging cause I was on that no direct arm work fad for awhile-big mistake” type posts do we need on here?
I wouldn’t mind seeing someone on a system like this(with whatever set reps they want I don’t care)
Upper
Incline Press(barbell or dumbbells)
Seated Overhead Press(dumbbells barbell behind the neck etc)
Close Grip Press
Pullup/lat pulldown
Dumbbell Curl
Lower
Leg Press Calves
Stiff Leg Deads
Back Squat
Decline Situps
[quote]Scott M wrote:
sphaw wrote:
Dude… you can’t compare a 17 year old with a bodybuilder. Are you REALLY saying that a 17 year old kid will benifit more from doing bicep isolation work than sticking to compound movements? If you are, i hope you’re not serious.
didn’t say professional or amateur bodybuilder, to me anyone that lifts to look good is well… a bodybuilder haha, what else should we call the OP? I think his BICEPS will benefit from BICEPS work. I’m not steering anyone away from hard lifts, but to build the best arms he can he’s going to need to hit them directly in some fashion.
Triceps I can agree are primarily built through presses(dips close reverse etc) but biceps are not as involved in back exercises as triceps are in pressing and therefor need to be hit directly. There isn’t a mounting evidence of people(see I took that B-word out) building impressive arms that I’ve seen, I have seen a lot of people that have good arms do curls.
A professional bodybuilder, or an amateur for that matter who’s been training for years can of course mix things up, but for a complete newbie, there is no point. The best is naturally a combination of both, but in this case, yes, i truly believe what i said.
I also agree that a combination of both is best, so why didn’t you say that first?
How many “My arms are lagging cause I was on that no direct arm work fad for awhile-big mistake” type posts do we need on here?
I wouldn’t mind seeing someone on a system like this(with whatever set reps they want I don’t care)
Upper
Incline Press(barbell or dumbbells)
Seated Overhead Press(dumbbells barbell behind the neck etc)
Close Grip Press
Pullup/lat pulldown
Dumbbell Curl
Lower
Leg Press Calves
Stiff Leg Deads
Back Squat
Decline Situps
[/quote]
I’m going to agree with Scott here. My training until recently consisted almost entirely of overhead presses, horizontal presses, rows, deadlifts and squats. And I build a pretty good base this way (~2.9 pounds of lean mass per inch of height). The problem? My arms are pathetic. They measure a pitiful 15 and a quarter inches flexed and cold and nearly all of that mass is tricep. I flex and there’s hardly any bicep. Maybe some people can build great arms using only compounds, but it’s certainly not the case for me.
[quote]Wimpy wrote:
Scott M wrote:
sphaw wrote:
Dude… you can’t compare a 17 year old with a bodybuilder. Are you REALLY saying that a 17 year old kid will benifit more from doing bicep isolation work than sticking to compound movements? If you are, i hope you’re not serious.
didn’t say professional or amateur bodybuilder, to me anyone that lifts to look good is well… a bodybuilder haha, what else should we call the OP? I think his BICEPS will benefit from BICEPS work. I’m not steering anyone away from hard lifts, but to build the best arms he can he’s going to need to hit them directly in some fashion.
Triceps I can agree are primarily built through presses(dips close reverse etc) but biceps are not as involved in back exercises as triceps are in pressing and therefor need to be hit directly. There isn’t a mounting evidence of people(see I took that B-word out) building impressive arms that I’ve seen, I have seen a lot of people that have good arms do curls.
A professional bodybuilder, or an amateur for that matter who’s been training for years can of course mix things up, but for a complete newbie, there is no point. The best is naturally a combination of both, but in this case, yes, i truly believe what i said.
I also agree that a combination of both is best, so why didn’t you say that first?
How many “My arms are lagging cause I was on that no direct arm work fad for awhile-big mistake” type posts do we need on here?
I wouldn’t mind seeing someone on a system like this(with whatever set reps they want I don’t care)
Upper
Incline Press(barbell or dumbbells)
Seated Overhead Press(dumbbells barbell behind the neck etc)
Close Grip Press
Pullup/lat pulldown
Dumbbell Curl
Lower
Leg Press Calves
Stiff Leg Deads
Back Squat
Decline Situps
I’m going to agree with Scott here. My training until recently consisted almost entirely of overhead presses, horizontal presses, rows, deadlifts and squats. And I build a pretty good base this way (~2.9 pounds of lean mass per inch of height). The problem? My arms are pathetic. They measure a pitiful 15 and a quarter inches flexed and cold and nearly all of that mass is tricep. I flex and there’s hardly any bicep. Maybe some people can build great arms using only compounds, but it’s certainly not the case for me. [/quote]
Heavy weighted chins put more arm muscle on me then curling ever did. I have bigger fish to fry but if you have time 2-3 sets of preacher or standing bb curls can only help.
[quote]zephead4747 wrote:
Wimpy wrote:
Scott M wrote:
sphaw wrote:
Dude… you can’t compare a 17 year old with a bodybuilder. Are you REALLY saying that a 17 year old kid will benifit more from doing bicep isolation work than sticking to compound movements? If you are, i hope you’re not serious.
didn’t say professional or amateur bodybuilder, to me anyone that lifts to look good is well… a bodybuilder haha, what else should we call the OP? I think his BICEPS will benefit from BICEPS work. I’m not steering anyone away from hard lifts, but to build the best arms he can he’s going to need to hit them directly in some fashion.
Triceps I can agree are primarily built through presses(dips close reverse etc) but biceps are not as involved in back exercises as triceps are in pressing and therefor need to be hit directly. There isn’t a mounting evidence of people(see I took that B-word out) building impressive arms that I’ve seen, I have seen a lot of people that have good arms do curls.
A professional bodybuilder, or an amateur for that matter who’s been training for years can of course mix things up, but for a complete newbie, there is no point. The best is naturally a combination of both, but in this case, yes, i truly believe what i said.
I also agree that a combination of both is best, so why didn’t you say that first?
How many “My arms are lagging cause I was on that no direct arm work fad for awhile-big mistake” type posts do we need on here?
I wouldn’t mind seeing someone on a system like this(with whatever set reps they want I don’t care)
Upper
Incline Press(barbell or dumbbells)
Seated Overhead Press(dumbbells barbell behind the neck etc)
Close Grip Press
Pullup/lat pulldown
Dumbbell Curl
Lower
Leg Press Calves
Stiff Leg Deads
Back Squat
Decline Situps
I’m going to agree with Scott here. My training until recently consisted almost entirely of overhead presses, horizontal presses, rows, deadlifts and squats. And I build a pretty good base this way (~2.9 pounds of lean mass per inch of height). The problem? My arms are pathetic. They measure a pitiful 15 and a quarter inches flexed and cold and nearly all of that mass is tricep. I flex and there’s hardly any bicep. Maybe some people can build great arms using only compounds, but it’s certainly not the case for me.
Heavy weighted chins put more arm muscle on me then curling ever did. I have bigger fish to fry but if you have time 2-3 sets of preacher or standing bb curls can only help.[/quote]
Umm. Im sorry, arent you like 160 lbs and a sophomore in high school? How much arm muscle do you have?