I second @The_Mighty_Stu. With where you are currently, progressive overload is a good way to go. Just make sure you feel the muscle that supposed to be doing the work…otherwise, you’re probably ego lifting with weight that is too heavy.
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Just one more question regarding this template, do you feel this the best thing for me at this time, given my current physique, I have never done a “once every seven days” type split, clearly have never done anything other than fullbody work up until this point, and just want to make sure this is enough for me to advance my physique, I heavily respect yours, and all the others who have tremendously helped me in this thread’s opinion, and just want to be sure. Thanks! I actually did the back and abs day from the 4 day split today and it felt awesome!
I think it’s a good call to pick up this template! [quote=“pitbull97, post:62, topic:222296”]
and just want to make sure this is enough for me to advance my physique
[/quote]
It absolutely is. The vast majority of BBers do a once-per-week split. When I started getting in bodybuilding style training, I stuck to this template for almost a full year! Also, keep in mind a lot of muscles indirectly get hit twice. Your biceps get activated during back, triceps and shoulders during chest, etc. Focus on a solid MMC and connecting with the muscle. IMO, the way you train will have a greatest affect on your physique. As you mentioned earlier, don’t overthink or over complicate things. The thing that will most improve your physique is consistently training properly over time, developing a good MMC and nailing your nutrition. Make sure to keep us updated in your log and post any questions along the way!
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This!
I also throw in certain body parts on different days - I do shoulders first, and throw in triceps work as a bonus - triceps I officially do on chest day so they get indirect work on shoulders, and direct on shoulders, then again on their regular day.
To make it painfully obvious, because I’m not being clear, I do:
SHOULDERS
BACK AND BIS
OFF
CHEST AND TRIS
LEGS
OFF
OFF
I add tris on shoulder day, and bis on legs day, just because they are lagging. I’m not sure that’s a good idea, but it’s what I do.
So is that something you believe I should do as well? And if so, what does that additional work look like? For now I think I will just stick to the template as prescribed above, but my arms definitely lag so could be effective.
Hate to be evasive, but I think it depends on you, what we like to call “auto-regulation,” lol. That means that if you are recovering fine, not suffering DOMS, gaining quality LBM, then you could probably add in the extra exercises.
But, if you’re not, then don’t. I’d go a few weeks without to begin and see how things go. I only work out for about an hour, am in a caloric deficit, and am 53 years old, so what works for me might not work for you. You just have to figure it out.
Also, I’m a bit of a tard when it comes to this, so take my opinions with a grain of salt. I think this
is a good plan!
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Definitely will do! As far as my nutrition goes, anything in particular I should look into, or is simply hitting my maintenance macros right now good enough?
Yes definitely, good question! I think the most ideal thing would be for you to just eat at maintenance calories and macros, and let your body grow. I could be wrong, but I get the impression that you feel like doing things simplistically, either training or nutrition, won’t provide ultimately awesome results. I understand that for sure, and as you train longer and gain experience, your outlooks will change on all sorts of things. IMO, I think the most simplistic approaches provide the best, most consistent results, in both training and nutrition, for pretty much any level of lifter. The only time you really have to get nitty gritty with ridiculous nutrition details is a contest prep, which you will do one day, but don’t need to worry about right now.
You can absolutely put on LBM at maintenance with hard training. If you really find your maintenance well and are not gaining any scale weight after a few weeks, try adding in another ~100 cals a day from carbs and see how that goes for you, slow and steady. Truthfully I think the best thing for you now would be to take a simplistic K-I-S-S like approach for at least a year, train hard and consistently with the Clay Hyght template, eat consistently without trying to do any over complicated “bulking” or “cutting” or whatever, let time pass and observe carefully, you’ll do very well.
For nutrition, an ideal breakdown I think is:
Protein - 1g per pound
Fat - 25-30% of overall cals
Carbs - Fill the rest
If you want to do a “high carb” day on a big muscle group like legs, give it a go, it’ll only help you grow. Definitely keep posting any questions you have along the way and keep us updated! But, try not to get caught up in “analysis paralysis.” You’ve got a good training template and nutrition outline, and a great work ethic. No doubt you’ll develop a great physique, give it time and just keep at it!
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Thank you very much! This makes everything so much less daunting, time to get to work!!
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I agree with @robstein. It takes far fewer calories to gain MUSCLE mass than people typically think. Rob’s advice is good, it’s exactly what I would offer. Start with your maintenance calories and train hard. If you feel tired a lot or are just constantly hungry, or are not recovering properly, slowly add calories to your day (100 at a time is a good starting point).
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Just as an update for my diet, I downloaded an app called fitgenie developed essentially by eric helms to setup and help me track my macros. Plugged in all the info and set it for maintenance, so diet is 2500 cals, 150g of protein, 320 carbs and 70g of fat. The app adjust your macros weekly based on weigh-ins and your goals, just figured I’d update with that!
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So I figured I’d ask now with Friday’s leg day coming around awfully quick. So last Friday I squatted as per the template, went through the workout fine, great mmc, all in all, a killer leg workout, however. The next day, and still continuing the day I write this, I have had this intense pain in my knee. My knee feels almost wobbly, or even on the cusp of locking up. Walking up stairs causes the most pain, even though walking in general still hurts as well. When I sit for too long it gets painful as well. Finally, there is sometimes a clicking associated with bending my knee. Granted, it was most painful the day after and has since gotten better, but the pain is still there. Wondering what my leg day should look like Friday given this?
I encountered this same thing once upon a time. I’m not a doctor, nor did I see one for this, and I’m not an expert on the matter but here’s my theory:
If you watch people that are new to squatting try a heavy (for them) weight, you’ll notice that one of their knees tends to collapse inwards. For me, it was always my left knee. This occurs, I believe, because the leg muscles are stronger than the joints and tendons (stabilizers) at this moment in time. Meaning, one can move the weight with ones glutes and quads, but ones hips and/or knees can’t yet stabilize the weight throughout the range of motion.
How to fix it? When this happened to me, I was lifting in my basement…I had a barbell and multi-rack…so the only leg exercises I could do were lunges, squats, romanian deadlifts and an improvised barbell hip thrust. I personally took time off legs. But for you, here’s my recommendation:
Focus on leg extensions, leg curls, lunges and leg press for a while. I used body weight walking lunges as a warm-up on leg day for a couple months. I used the upstairs track and would just do the entire lap (roughly 120 steps/60 reps per leg). For leg press, I would keep the weight lighter and super set wide-stance with narrow-stance to feel the pump and burn.
The more important part is the squats. I would take one week off squatting (to let the knee recover). I would keep the weight light and work on depth and explosiveness rather than the amount of weight I’m using. This will help strengthen the stabilizing stuffs (joints, flexors, etc). Personally, I found pause-squats to be very helpful. They taught me how to reach depth, and they strengthened my stabilizers through the required position-holding. I always like a 5 second pause. 5 second pause-squats force the weight to be lighter, but don’t make you look like a pussy in the gym…win-win. 
The very last thing I did was to increase my fish oil intake and/or my nut butter intake. Those good fats go to cushion your joints. You don’t need to increase these levels forever, but increasing the good fats will help your joints recover a bit quicker (in my experience).
Hope this was somewhat helpful.
Yes since I have been training more bodybuilding style I switched from a more comfortable low bar squat, with more emphasis on sitting back, to a more bodybuilder-esque squat, with a high bar placement and more break in the knees. Given this, though, I am working in the 6-12 rep range and was really controlling the eccentric so I could focus on utilizing my quads more. However, the pain is there so clearly something was being done wrong.
Given that I am using the bodybuilding program template from clay hyght, the 4-day template, what would my leg day look like? Typically it was squats, followed by leg extensions then sldl’s and finished with lying leg curls, then some calf work. Should I just replace the squats with the leg press or put the 5-second pause squats you were talking about in this week, because come Friday that will be a full week off from squatting.
As far as diet, I am currently at 2300 calories with about 65g of fat. Is that enough fat? Funny thing is when trying to eat at “maintenance” with the new training style I’ve actually lost 4 pounds haha.
Regardless, this was really helpful and really appreciate it!
Hmm…Here’s a couple of ideas:
My first idea would be to simply change the order of your exercises for a week or two until the knee recovers. Something like:
- Leg Extensions
- Lying Leg Curls
- Squats (if warmup sets bother your knee, move over to leg press)
- Romanian Deads / Stiff-legged Deads
- Calf work
That order would ensure that your knee joint is really warmed up before squatting. That order will also cause your squat numbers to go down slightly because of the already-expended energy of the first two exercises.
My other thought would be to keep your template the same but replace back squats with front squats as a change. Most people always need to go lighter on front squats, which will help with joint recovery without changing the order of your exercises. So:
- Front Squats
- Leg Extensions
- Stiff-Leg/Romanian Deads
- Leg Curls
- Calf work
RE: Nutrition → 65g of fat seems about right. My macros are higher (2900 calories with 100-110 being fat). With MY ratios, you should be eating 79/80g of fat. But, that’s fairly negligible. The other concept is that I know my body likes fat and uses it rather than retains it…meaning my numbers are usually higher than others in regards to fat. So, again, I would think that 65g is good enough. That being said, adding in an extra serving of fat every day wouldn’t be a bad thing just to help your joints for a few days.
Ok cool, I think I will give the first option a go this week as I like the idea of using the first two exercises to warm-up my knee joint, hopefully, the increased blood flow will allow my knee to feel better. Also, like you mentioned, doing those two exercises first will force me to use a lighter weight which will be beneficial for allowing the knee to recover as well.
As for the fat, I’ll add in an extra serving to hopefully help my knee recover.
Thank you as always!
Don’t mind the lack of abs, I only had three seconds to pose so I was midway into my flex.
Anyway, three weeks on the template and this is what we got so far. I am down to 155 pounds, lost roughly 5-6 pounds since starting this style of training. Calories have been consistent at 2300, with 150g of protein, 290g of carbs and 60g of fat.
I realized that my goal physique is purely aesthetic. That of broad shoulders, with a developed and profound upper chest, delts that aid in that wide look and tight midsection.
I recently posted in Eyedentist’s thread about how he trains and he had a section talking about training for pure aesthetics and this look. After discussing with him he stated that in his eyes aesthetics focuses on the delts, the upper chest, and abs. He was then kind enough to actually take the time to write out what a program, focusing on said aesthetics would look like. Thinking about running that as that is my main goal to develop that width to taper look. Otherwise, I a just plugging along with the training.
Edit: Link to thread with program post, scroll to the last few posts and it is there.
Edit2: @IronAndMetal @robstein I obviously do not want to get into a perpetual state of program hopping but am merely wondering given my goals what would be more beneficial, if I am overthinking it again just tell me to shut up haha
I think your motivation and drive is outstanding, and given your age, I have no doubt you’ll achieve a great physique with time. TIME is what you need, there is no substitute for it. Just my thoughts, I really think you should stop over thinking things (yes you are over complicating things) get on a bodybuilding split, which by the way is a program based in achieving the ultimate aesthetic look, and train and eat and recover properly for a long time, think years. I think you should really focus on bringing up and developing ALL body parts equally. You know what you’ll get with bodybuilding training over a few years? Wide shoulders, a thick chest and a v taper, along with a thick back and solid wheels. Do not ignore your legs! After you’ve been training for a while, you can start worrying about tweaking muscle groups.
Consistency of training, nutrition and recovery, and TIME is the prescription. IMO you haven’t been training long enough to warrant such a specific program, or to know where your weaknesses are or what really needs to be focused on. Train everything bodybuilding style, you’ll end up with a great physique, very aesthetic, and over time can worry about tweaking frequency of certain muscle groups as needed.
The program @EyeDentist laid out is a great program no doubt, and he’s achieved an outstanding physique with those training methodologies. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it eventually, or that training specifically for a physique compeition or look doesn’t have its place. I think a program like that geared towards physique training would be warranted eventually, and you’d do well with it eventually, after you’ve established a more solid foundation.
I cannot stress enough that you just need a basic program, time, and consistency, again just my thoughts. Hope this helps!
Why do I have this problem? Ahhh yea I figured I was overcomplicating it. I don’t understand why I keep digging. But thank you for keeping my head straight, you guys really are a amazing, I come here, pester about a different program and you guys are still supportive.
I just love reading about this stuff and then next thing you know I’m switching it up again.
Anyways, like you said, I really just need to give the template/program time. I have only been training on it for 3 weeks and to be honest I love it. I am developing solid mmc with muscle groups I’ve never felt properly worked before, specifically my lats.
My priority right now needs to be that overall size like you mentioned.
I am committing to just keeping my head down and training hard, eating right and not questioning every little thing.
Thank you again! You’ve helped immensely once again.
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I’ve been mad busy with work the past few days getting ready for a software installment for a casino in Vegas…but I’ll just say that I agree with @robstein. The one thing I’ll emphasize (outside of “Just grind for a while and add strength and size”), is this:
Don’t ignore your legs. I understand your goal is physique, so they’ll be covered by board shorts, but having stronger legs will increase your other lifts. The stronger your legs, the more stabilization you have during things like rows or bench presses, etc. I think many of my lifts have increased due to leg strength…and the more you can bench press for reps, the more your pecs will be assaulted, which will lead to more gains. Plus, if you have bigger legs, it creates the X-frame concept…which helps your waist look smaller…if you ever decide to cross into bodybuilding, or are in your underwear or naked or … makin’ the sweet sweet love.
Keep the motivation and keep the drive. I would only change the routine if you absolutely hate it/you have no motivation to continue that particular routine. Otherwise, keep on the grind and you’ll see results. It’s definitely a game of blood, sweat, and years.
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