[quote]Scott M wrote:
Come on, what do you even mean he can’t overload the muscle training it once a week. I’m not saying his routine is the best but what is worse here, him starting a routine that he believes in or spending a month trying to figure out from the arguing who knows best?
I don’t know if you’ve checked the scoreboard lately but the amount of big guys on this site(and it’s even more lopsided in the real world) who have gotten big using a split vs full body but I’d do that before I made a strong statement like that. Words like “can’t” are pretty much useless in a bodybuilding discussion when it comes to methods.
When someone who was so screwed up when he came to this site actually shows he is willing to train his entire body now it’s probably for the best not to tell him that he’s still messing up. It can discourage people and cause them to forget to get going.
Sentoguy doesn’t train his body parts once a week, neither do I, but the details don’t matter as long as the guy gets his feet wet and learns to train. [/quote]
Exactly. I’m actually pretty proud of Damner for having listened to the advice that people have given him about the need to work his whole body. When he first came here all he wanted to really work were his “trapz, triceps and abz”. Now here he is working his entire body, using good foundational compound movements (Damner if you’re reading this, I’d still suggest doing deadlifts on your back day, but T-bars are a good exercise too). That’s a huge improvement.
To be honest I’m not arguing with you Misterhamper that full body workouts can be a good starting place for beginners. But at this point I’m just happy that Damner is willing to work his entire body with good muscle building movements. The routine that he has come up with will put muscle on him provided that he uses progressive overload and eats enough to support growth. To suggest that he won’t be able to overload the muscles hitting them only “once per week” isn’t true.
Not only that but take a look at his workout and you’ll realize that in fact he is working most of his muscles more than once per week. His triceps are getting indirect work on Mon, direct work on Weds and indirect work on Fri. His Biceps are getting indirect work on Mon, direct work on Wed, and indirect work on Fri. His chest is getting direct work on Mon and, depending on how he does his dips, either direct or indirect work on Wed. His shoulders are getting indirect work on Mon and Wed and direct work on Fri. His back is getting direct work on Mon and indirect work on Thurs.
Really the only muscles actually working once per week in this current workout are his legs (and if he took my advice to do deadlifts on Mon then even his legs would be getting worked twice per week).
All in all I think it’s a decent beginner’s program. It might not be what I would have a beginner do, but that really doesn’t matter. What matters is that Damner sticks to a fundamentally sound program (like the one he’s devised) put all of his effort into it, learns how to eat for gaining mass (Damner I’d strongly suggest reading Berardi’s articles on eating), and learns as much as he can about his own body, what exercises work well for him and what exercises don’t work so well, and so on.
Really at this point it’s just about “getting his feet wet” as Scott mentioned. You can’t learn how to swim if you don’t jump in the water. All of the dry land swimming instruction in the world won’t help you until you get into the water and start to try to apply that instruction. What Damner needs most at this point is to just get in the water and apply some solid instruction (which CT’s article has given him). Once he’s comfortable/proficient with that, then he can start playing around with new ideas.
Damner,
It’s going to be tempting for you at this point to get swayed by all of the differing viewpoints presented on this website (many of which come from qualified individuals, which makes them all the more tempting). But don’t. All of these viewpoints have their basis in reality and to varying degrees all of them are right. But if you continue to try to chase the “perfect” routine, especially at this point in your training, it’ll only lead to prolonging your journey.
Stick with this routine for at least 6 months. Honestly I’d say stick with this routine until it stops working or you (how long that will take isn’t something that anyone can predict via the internet, or even in person for that matter). Make sure you work on the diet as well as that’s of equal, if not even greater in many cases, importance.
When this routine has run it’s course, then feel free to come back here and either experiment with new concepts, frequencies, exercises, etc… or even to ask opinions on where to go from there. At that point you should be stronger, more familiar with your own body, and more muscular than you are now.
Good luck and good training.