Hello, I've been a member here for a while and this would be the first official post. I see there is a lot of you with some serious knowledge, so I figured you could help me out.
I just finished TAP, and am looking for a routine to follow that up with, so I took some time and out this one together. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
It's an upper / lower split with two routines for each, so it adds some variety... Ends up being like Upper 1, Lower 1, Upper 2, Lower 2
Upper 1 DB Incline Press
DB Incline Curl
DB Row
Tricep Extension
Upper 2
DB Flyes
Bent over Row
Lateral Raise
Dips
Lower 1
Squat
Deadlift
Calf Raise
Lunge
Lower 2
Leg Extension
Romanian Deadlift
Split Squat
Calf Raise
Regaurdless of your goals I think you need to change alot around. First and foremost your two leg sessions, I reccomend doing squats on one day deads on the other and focus more on these two lifts than any others. Additionally elimenate most if not all isolation exercises such as flys and curls. And make sure you are keeping the amount of press and row volume equal. If i may: Mon- Legs 1 Squat Romanian Calve raise Core work Tues-upper 1 Incline barbell press Bent over barbell row flat dumbell press seated cable rows scull crushers(optional) wed-rest thurs-lower2 Deadlifts single leg leg press (this is usually enough to make me wanan puke) core fri-upper 2 Military press pull ups lateral raise or upright row chins barbell curl(optional) I hope this helps at all.
Goal is to minimize bodyfat (I think that's about as common as it gets). I am not going after power lifting or anything, but functional strength and body compostition changes (10% or lower bf)
I have been trying to bulk for the past month and a bit, so i'm currently at 175lbs. And I am 5'11" tall. My plan is to stabilize the weight at 170lbs.
Concerning training, I have about a year and a half of lifting and fitness under my belt, and having started at 207lbs and a 38 waist it's been a long road to get to this point.
I work out at home, and prefer to use free weights to machines.
Generally, I incorporate interval training on the in-between days as well. What I would like to do is have my workouts hover around the half hour mark as well. I can post a current pic later on today, and maybe get some opinons on body composition too?
Thanks again for the help, i'm looking forward to spending more time on these forums, seems like there is a lot of informed and knowledgable people on here.
After hearing your goals i would suggest staying heavy and the big lifts, not for powerlifting purposes but to maintain strength and muscle while cutting and in addition the bigger the lift and the heavier the more calories you will burn while telling your body to hold on to muscle. Doing curls while trying to get cut will just give you sore biceps, doing heavy squats on the other hand will boost your overall strength and developement while helping you burn fat by burning tons of calories.
Lower 2:
Deadlift
single leg leg press * Is there a free weight alternative to this I could use?
Abs
What about cardio though? I usually do intervals in-between days.. so it might work out something like:
Mon - upper 1
Tue - HIIT
Wed - Lower 1
Thu - HIIT
Fri - Upper 2
Sat - HIIT
Sun - rest
then following week would be:
mon - lower 2
tue - HIIT
wed - upper 1 and so on.
Do you think the mon - upper , tue - lower, rest, upper, lower would work better for my goals?
My suggestion would be 3 full body workouts a week using compound movements and mixing up reps each day for that week. I would then add 3 days of HIIT, doing 90 second walks, followed by 30 second sprints. The split will be too much with 3 days of cardio added to it. You can see it doesn't really fit well into your week when you have 7 workouts to complete and 7 days to do them in.
Mon:Full Body 4 sets of 6
Tues: HIIT 30 sec sprint, 90 second walk
Wed:Full Body 3 sets of 8
Thur: HIIT 30 sec sprint, 90 sec walk
Fri: Full Body 6 sets of 4
Sat: HIIT 30 sec sprint, 90 sec walk
Sun: Rest Day
Newlife's is a good suggestion too, if you can handle six compound movements in one day, plus ab and calf work. I find myself pretty spent after 3c and 1i.
Another alternative if you only wish to do 3/wk is still an A/B, push/pull split, but spread over a two week period:
Week 1:
Day 1: push @ 3x8
Day 2: hiit, rest or flex/stretching
Day 3: pull @ 8x3
Day 4: same as day 2
Day 5: push @ 4x6
Day 6: same as day 2
Day 7: rest (always give a day of complete rest.
Week 2:
Day 1: pull @ 3x8
Day 2: hiit, rest or flex/stretch
Day 3: push @ 8x3
Day 4: same as day 2
Day 5: pull @ 4x6
Day 6: save as day 2
Day 7: rest.
or something along those lines. Over a two week period it averages out to twice a week frequency.
Using Newlife and Cynic's suggestions combined would work out well for me time wise I think. A couple quick questions though... would using the atagonistic approach work in this case?
I like the A/B alternating workouts idea, and it seems like the routine Cynic put together a couple posts above would work as a full body workout?
I'll definitely do HIIT on the in-between days.
And, for exercise selection, again based on what you guys suggested earlier, this would work:
A:
Squat
Bench Press
Bent over row
Abs ( 3X10 circuit routine - incline reverse crunch, regular crunch, woodchopper)
B:
Deadlift
Military Press
Calf raises
Pull-ups
Another question would be if having deadlifts and pull ups in one day would be too much for the back?
I really appreciate your guys' help and i apologize for the million questions. This'll be the last one!
No to the deadlift and pull-up thing. Deadlifts work the posterior chain (erector spinae, glutes, hams), the pull-ups (pronated grip) works the lats and traps. You're biggest consideration will be your grip strength.
Good. It'll be easy to swap exercises out when you know the plane of movement of the different exrcises. A point of contention is the dip. Some consider it a horizontal push, some a vertical.
But if it's a vertical, should it work muscle similar to the shoulder press? That's where it starts to get deeper in the contention. I consider it a horizontal push, especially if you lean hard into it.
I'd even go as far to say that you don't necessarily NEED to do HIIT in between. Your "training" days are already pretty demanding on the CNS and now you're going to throw in HIIT, which is just as demanding (if not more). You are going to fry. Maybe toss in 1-2 days of HIIT (depending on how you feel).
For fat loss, I am a firm believer that diet should take care of that aspect. I am definitely a proponent of HIIT, especially from a conditioning/fat loss standpoint, but in the grand scheme of things, if getting "leaner" is one of your goals, I don't think you have to overdo it with all those HIIT sessions. Get the diet dialed in and make the fantastic changes that the others here have suggested and I think you will be well on your way.
Self-Made routine - critique please
:p 
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