SargeMaximus' Training Log

Training Training Logs
342

This is ballpark in the extreme, but I’d say around five years if you get most of it right. You’ll look noticeably better way earlier, I’m talking end point.

That’s a long list of exercises. Personally, I’m a fan of using fewer, but using them really well and progressing them (which I think you’re doing, so good on you).

For example:

Upper body, pushing
A flat bench variation, at most two
An overhead pressing variation
Dips, push-ups until you can do dips otherwise

Upper body, pulling
A horizontal row, both arms (barbell is a good pick, or chest supported/seal rows or t-bar rows)
A horizontal row, single arm (DB rows are king for me)
A vertical row
Chin/pull-ups, fatman pull-ups until you can do these otherwise

Lower body
A squat
A heavy hinge (deadlift variation, heavy kb swing, good morning)
A light hinge (back raises of some kind)
A single leg (lunge or split squat variations are my pick)

Upper back
Pull aparts, facepulls - every day you train

Other stuff like curls, tricep work, shoulder raises, calves, traps, abs: do twice a week, focus more on feeling the muscles than adding weight.

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343

I mean this in a constructive way; I hope it doesn’t come across as offensive.

I’m 175-180 lbs at 6’-6’1", and I look quite different than you. Flipcollar is around 200 lbs, and looks vastly different than me.

The number on the scale shouldn’t be the goal. Getting to 200 lbs doesn’t mean you’ll look a certain way.

Keep progressing on weights, calories, and anything else measurable. It can happen, but it’s a game of decades.

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344

Cool. Five years isn’t so bad, and I already look much better despite the gut.

Thanks. :slight_smile:

I’d rather do fewer too, but will my muscles develop and look like the pictures? The reason I do so many is I want to be muscular right? So, for example, I do all 3 shoulder exercises to develop my 3 shoulder muscles, and avoid the shoulder look that a lot of body builders have (huge front, nothing in the back)

What about inclined dumbell press and dumbell flies instead of the flat bench ones?

Dumbbell pullovers I do for my PE so they’re flat bench I suppose.

I don’t want to do chest supported rows because of my PE. I want to keep that area free of pressure.

DB Rows I do already.
What’s a vertical row?
I already do assisted pull ups, but are you suggesting I do fat-man pull ups instead of the assisted pull ops?

I do squats
I don’t do any hinges. Deadlifts are hard and time consuming. I’ll do them if I have to but is there a quicker exercise that accomplishes the same thing? Like KB swing perhaps? And what is ‘good morning’?
I don’t do lunges. For single leg I’m doing leg curls. Would lunges be better?

Pull aparts AND facepulls? Or “OR” facepulls?

I’ll add whichever it is, thanks!

Sounds good. I’m definitely doing that more and find the weight I can lift has gone down dramatically. I must have been doing it wrong before.

By the way, what about core?

Thanks MarkKo!

I hear you man. When I realized I was almost 180 it became pretty clear to me that the number on the scale didn’t mean much in terms of how you’ll look. I’m mostly after strength, stamina, endurance, and aesthetics now. However that is acconplished.

345

Your muscles will develop if you work them and feed them. You’ll look like a more muscular you.

I get the logic, but at this stage it’s probably unnecessary. In a few years, sure. Now, you’d probably be best served using simpler approach.

If those are your preference, go for it. I’d definitely make being able to do dips a priority though, because I don’t think there are many more bang for your buck upper body exercise.

Fair enough. Barbell rows then, especially if you don’t want to deadlift.

Where you pull down/pull yourself up like a pull-up or lat pull-down.

Yes, I’ve found fatman pull-ups way more useful.

Hard, certainly. Time consuming depends. Definitely not mandatory though. Heavy kb swings would be fine, especially if you also do barbell rows and back raises. A good morning is a hinge with a bar on your back, but there are tons and tons of variations. Or some kind of loading you push against.

By far. Even plain old unweighted walking lunges are great.

Mix them up, they’re both good.

Do ab wheel rollouts once or twice a week if you want.

My pleasure

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346

I just don’t understand how that makes sense. Surely working all the muscles now will be better than waiting, no? What is the benefit of waiting vs. doing them all now?

Oh yeah, I do dips. They are assisted, but I do them.

Barbell rows eh? Can I replace dumbbell rows with those or do they work different muscles?

Ok yeah, in my chest/back day (today as a matter of fact), I do a superset of dips and pull ups.

I’ll add Fatman chin ups to the day.

K, I’ll skip deadlifts then and do KB swings. I’ll put them in core day since they appear to work everything.

Awesome. I’ll switch those then. What about leg extensions, still keep those?

Will do.

Ok, ab rollouts hurt my back, so I stopped doing them. Any advice?

And thanks again! :slight_smile: I’ll give these a try and let you know how things go.

So today was:

Back and Chest Day:

Incline Dumbbell Press: (forgot)

Incline Flies: (forgot)

Pull-ups with Counter-Weight:
90 lbs 8
80 lbs 8
75 lbs 8-8-8

Dips with Counter Weight:
90 lbs 8
80 lbs 8
75 lbs 8-8-8

Dumbbell Pullovers:
35 lbs 8-9

DB Rows:
30 lbs 8-8

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347

Training economy mostly. You’ll grow your shoulders from vertical and horizontal pressing, as well as other stuff. Same deal with rowing, pull aparts and facepulls. Raises etc you’ll only hit shoulders.

I’d do both, especially if you’re not doing deadlifts. You can go heavier on DB rows without sacrificing technique, which is handy.

If you want, it won’t hurt.

Hanging leg raises.

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348

Ohhhhh light bulb :high_brightness: I get it. So you’re saying if I do the vertical and horozontal presses, my shoulders will develop without having to do the shoulder-specific exercises?

Fair enough, will do.

Oh but they do hurt lol. Kk, thanks.

I was going to start doing those once I could do 5x50 reverse crunches. Are you saying i can skip the crunches entirely and go straight to the hanging leg raises?

Thanks a million MarkKo!

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349

Exactly. In time you may add them back in because you want to give your shoulder growth a boost, but right now you’ll get a better return on your investment from other stuff.

Effectively, yes. Hanging will help your grip and also tends to be good for your back. Plus, hanging leg raises lend themselves to progression really well: knees up, straight legs up, shins to bar.

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350

Sweet! Sounds good. Thanks!

Ok cool, I’ll use those then.
But, shins to bar? What do you mean?

Btw, here’s my revamped workout routines. Let me know if I missed anything or if I can remove anything. I went over your replies but I may have missed or misunderstood something so I just want to make sure:

Core Day:

Hanging Leg Raises:

Leg Lowering Drill

Kettlebell Swings:

Plank:

Back and Chest Day:

Incline Dumbbell Press:

Incline Flies:

Fat Man Chin Ups:

Dips with Counter Weight:

Dumbbell Pullovers:

DB Rows:

Back and Arms Day:

Face Pulls:

Back Raises:

Barbell rows:

Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown:

Straight Arm Pulldowns:

Cable Row:

Shrugs (Using Calf Raise Machine):

Bicep Curls:

Dumbbell Side Laterals:

Leg Day:

Squats:

Lunges:

Leg Extensions:

Standing Calf Raises:

Leg Press:

351

If you’re hanging from a bar, lift your shins up to touch the bar. Literally googled ‘shins to bar’

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352

Oh shit, I didn’t know that was the exercise he meant. In my gym we have a station where there’s a ball thingy at your back (I’ll take pic of it when I go there next) and that’s what I intend to use. I’m not confident I could do the exercise you posted without falling and breaking my neck. At least, not yet.

353

That’s part of the progression. You start with the above and slowly work to shins to bar.

Yes, I know what this is. This is fine, I suppose. What MarkKo suggested is better for the below reason.

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354

Oh I see. Start at knees to chest and go up from there. My bad. I didn’t understand.

Ok, will do. Thanks dchris!

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355

It looks better than what you were doing before. You could change the order on a couple of things, though. I’d suggest:

A
DB incline
Dips
DB rows
Pullovers
Superset flies and fatman pull-ups

B
BB rows
Lat pull-down
Back raises
Pull-downs supersetted with cable rows
Shrugs supersetted with curls
Side laterals supersetted with facepulls

C
Squats
Leg press
Lunges
KB swings supersetted with leg raises
Calf raises supersetted with leg extensions

Train four times a week, going ABCA, BCAB, CBAB, etc

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356

Looks good MarkKo, thanks. The only issue I foresee is the supersets. My gym is really busy and so unless the exercises take place on the same machine, it could be hard to switch back and forth without getting your spot taken. Any suggestions on that?

357

Do the supersets when you can otherwise just do the exercises. Honestly, you could even drop the supersetted exercises and just do the first three on each day, go after a hard top set on each and leave it at that.

You’d still make good progress, as long as you really bust your arse on those three exercises four days a week. Every week you’d do one day twice and two says once, so it all evens out.

When I say go after a hard top set, let’s take squats as an example. You’d work up to the hardest set of 10 you could without butchering technique in maybe five to seven sets (or less, depending on the top weight and how big your jumps are), starting with the bar. Next time, you’d either push for 11 reps or add five pounds and see if you can get 10. If you can’t, you’d keep that top weight until you do get 10, then move on, etc.

If you go in with that mentality and keep to three exercises per session you’ll very likely get better results for less time in the gym and less fiddling with different exercises. Training economy, remember?

You can do all sorts of fun things with your progression, like spending a month seeing how high you can drive your set of 10 load on the squat, then next month drop to five reps and see how heavy you can push your top five, etc. Same with leg press and lunges.

Some exercises lend themselves to pushing load (squats, leg press, incline press, dips, etc), others to pushing reps (back raises, lunges, flies, etc).

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358

Ok, So basically: start with using just the bar. Try to do 5 sets of 10. If I can do it in perfect form, I add 5 lbs next C Day, and keep adding till I can’t do it in form, then stay at the weight I’m struggling with till I can do it in form, then add 5 more lbs?

Likewise, with all the other exercises, go for 5 sets of ten and add weight exactly the same way, correct?

Yeah, sounds good. I like the simplicity of 3 exercises. Did C day today actually and it was tough (especially the lunges) and I wasn’t in form on my squats as you’ll see in the record below. But it was good.

Cool man, and thanks again. I really appreciate it.

C Day
Squats:
95 lbs 10-10-9(NIF)

Leg press:
140 lbs 10-10-10-10-10

Lunges (In Steps):
15-15-15-15-15
5 lbs next time

359

That’s one way of doing it, but it’ll get harder and harder and harder as you get stronger.

Let’s look at today’s work: you hit two 10s and a nine at 95 lbs. Awesome! Next time, why not go

Barx5 (45 lbs), 5x65 lbs, 5x85 lbs, 10x100 lbs

Now, if that set of 10 wasn’t too hard but just work (which I’m pretty sure is what would happen), you’d go

10x110 lbs, or as close to 10 as possible. Again, if that wasn’t so hard at 10 reps, you’ve got a choice: keep going to see if you can hit 12, then 14, etc OR you’d rack it, got to 120 lbs and have another crack at 10 - by this stage you’d be pretty tired, but you might be able to get 10, but for demonstration purposes well say you get seven. No worries, that’s your squat done for the season.

BUT next time, you work up like this:

Barx5 (45 lbs), 5x65 lbs, 5x85 lbs, 5x105 lbs, 10x120 lbs

And it all starts again.

Initially, you may well find you end up with a new top set weight each time, which is great. As you progress, you’ll probably find you spend longer with a top weight before it’s easy enough for 10 that you add a set after.

I hope that makes sense.

Bingo. I’m guessing it took the same or less time than you’re used to?

I’m glad I can help

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360

Hmm, kind of. How are you deciding the weight?

Yeah about the same.

361

Partly by feel, partly based on what you’ve done previously.

You logged 95 lbs for two 10s and a nine, so it’s almost certain you can do 100 lbs for 10.

The rest was all an example, but based on the numbers you logged so I’d say realistically something you could or very soon will be able to do.