Hi, i’m a long timer reader of tmag and of the forums but this is my first post. I’ve finally decided to take the plunge and begin lifting weights seriously. I’m a newbie so please be gentle My main goal for the next couple of weeks is to shed a few pounds of fat before i bulk up. I currently weigh 174 at about 19%bf, i’d like to get down to about 10-12% and i’m following Berardi’s Don’t Diet. Thank you.
Monday
back/bis/traps
midgrip pulldowns 3x 10-8
cable rows 2x 10-8
one arm rows 2x 10-8
seated good mornings 3x 10-8
barbell curls 3x 10-8
preacher curls 2X 10-8
shrugs 3x 10-8
Wednesday
chest/tri/hams/abs
flat db press 4x 10-8
incline fly 3x 10-8
dips 3x 10-8
skull crushers 2x 10-8
russian dl 3x 10-8
incline weighted situps 3x 10-8
hanging hip raises 3x 10-8
Fridays
legs/shoulders
Squats 4x 10-8
lunges 3x 10-8
db presses 3x 10-8
side laters 3x 10-8
rear laterals 3x 10-8
Don’t do shoulders on leg day. The blood will be in your legs, which will decrease the blood in the shoulders. I don’t know a lot of people that do direct shoulder work anyways, as the shoulders get pummeled on virtually every workout. If you want direct shoulder work, do front and side raises on chest day, and face pulls or rear laterals on back day.
Do hams with legs. Add the Russian dl’s to your leg day. Also, add a few sets of leg presses or leg extensions to bring the volume up.
You only have 7 sets for chest, but 13 for back. If I were you, I would do either db or barbell flat bench, the do db or barbell inclines, then incline flyes/pushup superset. Week 1, do barbell flat bench, then db incline bench. Week 2, do db flat bench, then barbell incline. Switch it up weekly.
Do Shrugs after your good mornings, then followed by biceps. Instead of cable rows, try bent over rows or deadlifts. If you do deadlifts, you shouldn’t need shrugs. Bigger muscles first, homeskillet.
Try decline skullcrushers, but go over your head instead of at your head. As Staley puts it “creates a unique and severe stress to the triceps”
Abs on Back day and Leg day instead of just Chest day. This increases workload, and spreads it out so you can recover. Plus, back and leg day are ab stressors anyways.
You chose a good diet and a lot of people have had good results with it. If you aren’t getting good results after a month or so, I would look into t-dawg 2.0 or some other diet.
For cardio, I would do intervals on training days and steady-state cardio on off days. The intervals keep your basal metabolic rate increase for longer periods, causing more energy expenditure over time. The slow, steady-state cardio will provide blood to the worked muscles, which promotes healing and decreases necessary rest times.
I wrote a different long response, and it got eaten. I’m upset by that.
You seem to have a good grip on what y ou should be doing. I would however focus on compound lifts, rather than isolation exercises. I.E. instead of doing incline flies for your chest - which is a one joint movement - I would do Incline Bench press, which is a multi-joint movement. Why would I do that? 1) Increased caloric expenditure, 2) Greater damage induced, which will force your body to consume more calories post-workout to repair the muscle, 3) it integrates various muscles synergistically - this will only help you in the future for strength purposes.
Back/Bis/Traps: Why do 2 types of rows? Stick to one type and 4 sets for it.
I recommend you increase the volume for your biceps - do 9 sets instead, and consider reverse BB curls to hit your brachioradialis.
Chest/tris/hams/abs: Consider substituting Flies for incline Bench Press. I would also increase the number of sets for tris to 9.
I would include some Oblique work along with your abs for improved core strength - important for Power movements.
3 sets Hammies/week isnt going to cut it.
“Also, add a few sets of leg presses or leg extensions to bring the volume up.” - JWright
I respectfully disagree. Why? Because he already has 7 sets devoted to Quads, and only 3 sets devoted to Hamstring. Adding further Quad work is bound to overdevelop his quads while leaving his Hammies untended to. Your hammies are among the biggest muscle groups in your body - make sure you devote enough work to them as such. The poster dedicates 5 sets to his biceps (which is still too little in my opinion), which are among the smaller muscles, and a mere 3 sets to his hamstrings. It doesnt make much sense.
A bigger focus should be placed on the Hamstrings, not the Quads. Instead of leg extensions or leg presses- mainly Quad movements - I would add the beast of all hamstring exercises…the Glute/Ham raise. It’ll burn like no other. Increasing the # sets for deadlifts is a god option as well. At the very least do leg curls instead of leg extensions.
Also, I disagree about substituting rows for deadlifts. 1) Deadlifts are still mainly a Hammie exercise to be reserved for Ham day. 2) Deadlifts will not target the Lats (the biggest stand-alone muscle in your body) nearly as effectively as rows/pullups do. While I favor Pullups, I think he should at least keep his rows and not trade them for something which will work mostly his hams and spinal extensors.
I would recommend Ab work every other day.
As for Cardio, it should be reserved exclusively for non-weightlifting days. Why? Hypocaloric diets will be catabolic enough. There’s no need to add another catabolic agent at the end of your workout when muscle is being broken down. Instead, stretch, have your PWS, go home and relax. The next day do your cardio.
Read it again, I said to do 2 forms of cardio - sprints on training days to increase the bmr and steady state for recovery on non-training days to increase recovery.
Full deadlifts will work your hamstrings yes, but the top of the movement is a back killer. A lot of times, I do an exercise CT calls “the eliminator”. It’s a dead with explosion off the floor, up to a full shrug and calf raise - hold for 2 secs.
Diesel is correct on the deadlift thing. I would do them AND rows. You can do partial deads - set the pins about 1 inch below knee height and pull like a normal dead. This will hit your back tremendously and allow you to do significantly greater amounts of weight, causing more back hypertrophy.
Squats are mainly a posterior chain exercise anyways, so adding leg presses will work the hamstrings too. They don’t have to be mainly quad dominant exercises. Position your feet at the top of the foot plate and bring your knees to your chest. You’ll feel the stretch in your hams. Personally, when I do leg presses, I don’t feel it so much in my quads.
Jim - you’re right. One of my college roommates who is now an officer in the Marines LOVED to do shoulders. Him and his training buddy would split up shoulders into the 3 main heads and train them on separate days. 3 days dedicated to shoulders? This is in addition to doing a split of like chest, back, arms and legs. They would add shoulders to those workouts. He went on spring break and I’ll be damned if his shoulders didn’t come back absolutely huge from that week off. He was seriously overtraining.
The point I was trying to make is that shoulders get hit in all of your workouts. If they feel tired, don’t train them on their own day, just add a few sets into your other workouts because they’re already getting worked.
It was just a comment. I wasn’t exactly disagreeing, particularly for a newbie. It was good that you addressed the posterior delts in your suggestions since they tend to get overlooked and lag.
Shoulders three days a week is crazy. I probably wouldn’t have said anything, except that I’m in week 2 of OVT and the shoulder day is hard to ignore. Never done that much shoulder-specific work in one day before and my ears were practically ringing after.
My last attempt to respond went to the cyber netherlands i guess. Anyway, JWright, I wasn’t really disagreeing with you – particularly since it was advice to newbie. I liked that you suggest some posterior deltoid sets. If I were a newbie again though, I’d probably just start with one of the off-the-shelf programs rather than design something myself.
Three shoulder days is crazy.
I only commented because I’m in week 2 of OVT and the shoulder day is hard to ignore. I don’t think I’d ever done that many shoulder-specific reps on one day before. My ears were practically ringing by the time I was finished.
Man, I keep valiantly trying to post replies here but they keep going nowhere. And now I’m starting to forget what they even said…
I think the gist was that I wasn’t disagreeing with your suggestions, especially for newbies. I wouldn’t have even made a comment if I hadn’t been in week 2 of OVT and feeling that shoulder day big time. Three shoulder days? That’s craziness.
that looks much better manny. I would do incline flyes on chest day too, because they isolate the chest nicely and can give you a good pump right after incline db’s.
Whetu, i’m already doing 5 sets of squats and lunges, both work the hams heavily and i’m doing another 3 sets of romanian dls and legcurls and on back day i’m doing regular deadlifts, wouldn’t i be overtraining my hams if add even more ham work?
My main goal for the next couple of weeks is to shed a few pounds of fat before i bulk up. I currently weigh 174 at about 19%bf, i’d like to get down to about 10-12% and i’m following Berardi’s Don’t Diet. Thank you.