Hows it goin everyone, this is my first post on T-Nation. Ive been following these pages for a few months now, and decided to ask for a bit of advice on my training. I have trained in the past and not had the best results but have trained 3 days per week consistantly since the start of february. I have mainly been doing 5 sets of 5 for a full body routine using my weight set at home and have increased my strength quite a lot but have slowed down in the past couple of weeks. Ive been taking an extra 500 kcals per day since feb, as in the past i didnt eat any extra than normal whilst weight training and used to wonder why i didnt put any weight on, doh. Since then i have put on about 5 pounds in those couple of months but still look like a streak of p*ss being 6’0 and just over 160 pounds. This week I have started a new routine which is a lower/upper body split doing 5 sets for each body part and also a superset for each body part aswell. I did the first upper body workout on sunday and i swear after the supersets my arms swelled up like too balloons (well maybe the size of sparrows kneecaps anyway). I just did the lowerbody workout tonight and my legs are like jelly. I would like to know if this seems a good plan or is it just plain turd.
[quote]mofoshamrock wrote:
Hows it goin everyone, this is my first post on T-Nation. Ive been following these pages for a few months now, and decided to ask for a bit of advice on my training. I have trained in the past and not had the best results but have trained 3 days per week consistantly since the start of february. I have mainly been doing 5 sets of 5 for a full body routine using my weight set at home and have increased my strength quite a lot but have slowed down in the past couple of weeks. Ive been taking an extra 500 kcals per day since feb, as in the past i didnt eat any extra than normal whilst weight training and used to wonder why i didnt put any weight on, doh. Since then i have put on about 5 pounds in those couple of months but still look like a streak of p*ss being 6’0 and just over 160 pounds. This week I have started a new routine which is a lower/upper body split doing 5 sets for each body part and also a superset for each body part aswell. I did the first upper body workout on sunday and i swear after the supersets my arms swelled up like too balloons (well maybe the size of sparrows kneecaps anyway). I just did the lowerbody workout tonight and my legs are like jelly. I would like to know if this seems a good plan or is it just plain turd.[/quote]
5x5 is excellent for hypertrophy but alot of people on this site have had good luck with varying rep schemes(ala Chad Waterbury) and I think this is a good way to go untill you learn how to train yourself.Some decent rep schemes are 8x3,5x5 3x10-12 2x15 4x6 ect ect…
Btw if your not gaining weight don’t be afriad to up your calories. Just keep in mostly clean(but it doesn’t have to be always) and keep an eye on how much bodyfat your gaining and adjust.
Thanks mate i think ive been a bit worried about having too many calories in the past but im trying to overcome that at the moment
Does any body thimk that supersets are good for muscle bulding. The style I have tried is eg for chest, bench press followed directly by pectoral flyes.
When in doubt, always go for pussy. Oh, you werent talking about that?
[quote]mofoshamrock wrote:
Thanks mate i think ive been a bit worried about having too many calories in the past but im trying to overcome that at the moment[/quote]
Well, at 6’0 and 160 there is no need to worry about too many extra calories. Read Massive eating and all its parts/versions by John Berardi.
You said you made a 5lb gain, which is good. More or less, you’ll make progress on any program with a surplus of calories. In your case, a big surplus.
…that, and we’re just glad you didnt ask about a 6 pack.
I agree with the above. Most people in your situation dont have as much a training problem as they do an eating (not enough) problem. The super set I would suggest would be a never ending drop set of each fork and spoon curls to the mouth and see where that gets you with solid training.
I find that Berardi’s suggestion of just trying to get 40g of protein at each meal (while eating about six meals a day) is better than just shooting for a daily total of protein. It has helped me a lot, because I started to realize that meals such as breakfast or my morning and afternoon snacks were too low on protein and/or calories.
Personally, I have gained twenty pounds in the last 3.5 months by lifting heavy and eating six or seven high protein and high calorie (yet healthy) meals a day. I know your pain, bro, because I used to be about 160lbs at 6’, but now I’m 195 and damn determined to hit at least 210 by the end of August. It really is possible to do, but you have to realize that it’s probably your diet holding you back in most cases rather than your training program.
Get the book Scrawny To Brawny. Its good to get you started. It really shines in the nutrition department.
Thanks forthe input peeps. Gunna do me best to keep the food and protein intake as high as possible.
35 pounds is an impressive gain, il have to eat none stop for that kind of improvement.
My goal for now is about 10 pounds of muscle over the next 10 weeks if i can.