New to the Site, Need Some Critiquing

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Hello all!

Just recently joined the website and was looking around, reading articles and studying up on different crap. Been working out now for about 7 months after having taken a good 2 years off due to laziness and life, but now back in action and wanted to see if you guys could help me out some. I am 23, weigh 214, 6’1".

Thus far I have dropped roughly 40 pounds and several pant sizes while increasing arms size from 14" to 16.5", reduced the midsection from 42" to 35" and been slowly making increases to legs and upper body.

My usual training involves 4 days out of the week

M - Chest/Bicep
T - Shoulders
W - Off
Th - Legs
F - Back/Tri
S - Off
Su - Off

Constantly changing exercises every week (i.e. barbell one week, dumbells the next week, mix of machine the following week and so on). I have been sticking to the archaic sets of about 4 sets of each exercise doing reps 12,10,8,8. Really looking to help shed that last bit of fat so that more definition can be seen.

My diet consists of 8 meals, each within 2-2.5 hours of each other

1 - Protein Powder, Oatmeal, Almond butter, blueberries
2 - Oatmeal, Whey
3 - Lean meat, veggies, beans
4 - protein bar
5 - pre workout (whey/casein w/ oatmeal)
6 - Post workout (whey/quick carbs)
7 - lean meat, veggies
8 - Casein, cottage cheese, something with fiber

Taking Creatine, Glutamine, thermogenics, and usually do 3 days of HIIT training first thing in the morning, along with some sport twice a week (tennis, mountain biking)

Diet right now is yielding about 2400 calories, 220-300 gr of protein, 150-250 carbs, 45-75 fat

Been looking into DC training and Carb cycling. Sorry for the long post. If anyone has any suggestions on how to better go about shedding fat so that my damn six pack can show up, I appreciate it. Thanks mates!

Edit: I do back/tri, not back/bi

2

Stop constantly changing exercises from week to week.

3

So you have dropped 40lbs and gained 2.5 inches on your arms and lost 7 inches on your waist but this isn’t good enough still? Sounds like what your doing is working for you.

4

[quote]Gaius Octavius wrote:
Stop constantly changing exercises from week to week. [/quote]

If he’s getting stronger on each of the exercises over time I don’t see a problem with it.

[quote]hardgnr wrote:
So you have dropped 40lbs and gained 2.5 inches on your arms and lost 7 inches on your waist but this isn’t good enough still? Sounds like what your doing is working for you.[/quote]

This guy has one of the best first posts ever. He actually seems to be on top of shit. But I agree, OP, keep doing whatever you’re doing.

5

Any reason for two biceps days and no triceps days (outside of what they get from chest work)?

6

Thanks guys…I change exercises every week with the idea that I don’t want my body to get used to it.

The results are nice, but like every person who gets back to working out, after that beginning phase ends, I am left with what I have been doing since high school, which leaves me where I was years ago when I was lifting normally. I was big, but was never able to achieve that ripped look…the one where muscles are visible regardless of flex and where you have that iron board stomach. After reading article, I keep seeing people post workouts consisting of 4 sets of 8 reps and some with 4 sets consisting of 10-8-5-3. One of my bigger issues which I failed to mention was strength. I am building strength for some exercises but not much for others (bench, overhead press).

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[quote]anonym wrote:
Any reason for two biceps days and no triceps days (outside of what they get from chest work)?[/quote]

sorry…typo on my part, it should be back/tri…kidding me?!? triceps are it! i prefer them over my biceps…lol

8

Sounds like your hard work is paying off. Once you feel you’ve leaned out a bit more, you might think about upping your overall cals in order to put on a bit more LBM. 2400 cals sounds pretty low for your frame, but again, after you lean out a bit more…

S

9

Hm, ever thought about doing bench and presses every week? I used to change a lot around my excersises, since I’m not doing that, I improved a lot on my bench.

Also, the others mentioned something like not training triceps. How would you expect your presses to improve if you don’t train your tris to get bigger and stronger? Keep up the good work m8!

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You may want to consider switching the shoulder day. Maybe Chest/Biceps - Legs - off - Shoulders - Back Triceps. You could even pair shoulders with triceps and allow a full day for back to focus on a deadlift mvmt, vertical pull, horizontal pull and maybe one other movement.

11

Let me ask you guys a question then concerning movements…typically I do 4-5 major muscle group movements (chest, back) and 2-3 minor muscle group movements (tri, bi) then for shoulders and legs I just split the weeks, with one week more focus on hams and the other more focus on quads (example for legs). I have people telling me I over train…is it to much? given i do 4 sets for each exercise (12,10,8,8)

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[quote]Core627 wrote:
Let me ask you guys a question then concerning movements…typically I do 4-5 major muscle group movements (chest, back) and 2-3 minor muscle group movements (tri, bi) then for shoulders and legs I just split the weeks, with one week more focus on hams and the other more focus on quads (example for legs). I have people telling me I over train…is it to much? given i do 4 sets for each exercise (12,10,8,8)[/quote]

If you’re making progress you arent overtraining.

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[quote]RossDB wrote:
Core627 wrote:
Let me ask you guys a question then concerning movements…typically I do 4-5 major muscle group movements (chest, back) and 2-3 minor muscle group movements (tri, bi) then for shoulders and legs I just split the weeks, with one week more focus on hams and the other more focus on quads (example for legs). I have people telling me I over train…is it to much? given i do 4 sets for each exercise (12,10,8,8)

If you’re making progress you arent overtraining.[/quote]

amen to that

thanks a bunch for all the responses guys, definitely going to take the back exercise advice and isolate my back to a day by itself. I have also decided to start dog crap training…I’ll let you all know how it goes

14

Dude, you are making good progress so far, but it is clear from your posts so far you aren’t ready for Dogcrapp training just yet.

I recommend reading the “best of” in the bodybuiding forum and reading some of the programs outlined in Cephalic_Carnage’s thread, you will seriously make great gains if you just follow his advice without needing to resort to DC training this early in your career.

Just my 2 cents.

15

[quote]namor wrote:
Dude, you are making good progress so far, but it is clear from your posts so far you aren’t ready for Dogcrapp training just yet.

I recommend reading the “best of” in the bodybuiding forum and reading some of the programs outlined in Cephalic_Carnage’s thread, you will seriously make great gains if you just follow his advice without needing to resort to DC training this early in your career.

Just my 2 cents.[/quote]

Thanks man, appreciate it. Yeah I talked myself out of DC training for now. Just going to continue the 4 days a week, but I think I am going to cycle weights and cardio, one day weights, one day cardio, next day weights.

Now I am just trying to establish the calorie and macro issue. I understand the idea of a deficit, and am now currently looking into the g-flux idea, especially since I know I easily get 6 days of either heavy training or high intensity cardio. I am thinking of jumping to a higher amount of calories but also going to a higher amount of calories burned. Just trying to establish a good base. I don’t necessarily trust the RMR calcs, so now I need a good baseline to go by for where to actually start with calories

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I never count calories, I do try to time my limited amt of carbs before and after training, the rest of the day I eat as much protein and meat as possible and then I try to get in the non starchy veggies. I get my fat from the meat and my usual 1/2 cup of mixed nuts. I think the balance of food intake, fat loss/gain, and muscle growth is the hardest part of BB. I have always had a hard time convincing myself to do cardio when I could just eat less carbs and workout hard as hell. Just my opinion, everyone is different.