23 Year Old Male. Critique Welcome. Looking to Improve

Folks,

I have been training 2 years seriously, gained 2 stone (12kg).

I did full body for a year, then a upper/lower and now i am on a body part split. Would like to know if i have weaknesses to address and how to improve overall.

Thanks

read stickies post reqired pics…

if it’s all about ice and gems, i wonder where does your soul go when your life should end

Back


Legs

Current Workout Plan:

5 Days a week.

Day 1 - Flat Dumbell Bench (4x6), Incline Bench (3x8), Weighted Dips (3x8), Flat Flyes (3x8), Cable Crossovers (3x8)

Day 2 - Squats (4x6), Standing Calf Raise (10x15), Leg Press (3x8), Barbell Lunges (3x8)

DAY OFF

Day 3 - Weighted Pullups (4x6), Single Arm Rows (3x8), Dumbell Rows (3x8), Shrugs (3x12), Bicep Curls (3x8), Seated Cable Rows (3x8)

Day 4 - Dumbell Shoulder Press (4x6), Laterals (3x8), Upright Rows (3x8), Bent Laterals (3x8), Incline Dumbell Bench (3x8)

Day 5 - Deadlifts (4x6), Standing Calf Raise (10x15), Cable Pulldowns (3x8), Weighted Pullups (Maxing to failure)

DAY OFF

I do core training every night at home.

Anywhere I can improve? I feel as though there is space on deadlift day for some other exercise. Do you think I am missing something for legs/back which I could fit in there?

Any other comments are appreciated.

[quote]johnangus wrote:

I do core training every night at home.

[/quote]

Stop that. Its overtraining.

training your back twice in three days probably isn’t a great idea either

[quote]Standard Donkey wrote:
training your back twice in three days probably isn’t a great idea either[/quote]

Your split seems unusual. Is there a purpose to having a chest day where you include incline bench, then also including incline bench on what appears to be your shoulder day? Perhaps you feel your upper chest is very far behind the rest of you, and you need to train it twice a week?

You should just cut it down to one back day, meaning you’d have 4 days on, 3 days off per week.

  1. More volume in everyting and maybe the lats (although you do 2X a week frquency on lats the volume still isn’t too high. Maybe just right IMO, but it might be better to jam this intensity into one day…
    1B) Reduce ab volume to twice a week for 20 minutes each time MAX.
  2. Eat more. A good amount of mass will do you well and the only way to do that is get a little fat - then later you can easily cut with some intervals.
  3. You need direct arm work.
  4. Experiment with different rep ranges, mostly low reps, but also add some higher rep stuff to what you’re doing for legs. You do 6-8 reps on everything but calves… Try the 3-4 rep range for a while too for some lifts. Also add some 20-30 rep sets for leg presses which can be accomplished in drop/strip sets (after going heavy in the workout of course… don’t tire yourself out before heavy stuff… in other words do something like this on leg day:

4B) Also add rep variety to shoulders - A) try 3-6 reps try push presses, snatches (go light at first to get the form) B) also try adding (in the same workout!) supersets: 12-15 reps of side laterals supersetted before and or after seated shoulder press.

Yeah my chest overall is lagging behind. In the early days it did not grow as well as my back or arms so I throw in that incline twice a week.

The pulldowns I speak of on deadlift day are not lat pulldowns, its straight arm pulldowns using a pulley cable. As for the pullups on deadlift day, i don’t do more than 5 reps, and keep adding 5kg each set until i can’t do it. Can usually get to 35kg strapped. I don’t feel as though it is enough volume to say i am training upper back twice a week.

I also want to make sure I still do deadlifts, and I find it hard to fit in anywhere else.

Also better mention that sometimes I’ll take a day off after back, so there are 3 days between back day and deadlift day…

Any other suggestions?

Thanks

Thanks BPTiger - appreciate your comments.

You think I should add more volume? I am wary of doing that at the moment because I am putting everything into gaining strength. I tend to do a strength gaining 4 weeks, then 8 weeks high reps hypertrophy like 10x10 or some other variety.

[quote]johnangus wrote:
Thanks BPTiger - appreciate your comments.

You think I should add more volume? I am wary of doing that at the moment because I am putting everything into gaining strength. I tend to do a strength gaining 4 weeks, then 8 weeks high reps hypertrophy like 10x10 or some other variety.

[/quote]

About volume, IMO yes, but I didn’t realize this was a strength training block. 4 weeks strength 8 weeks hypertrophy sounds perfectly reasonable. However, if what you rdescribed is your strength phase, your reps are still too high IMO. Lower the reps to 3 to 6 for about 90% (the % doesn’t matter really, just make it the majority of your working sets are in that range) of your sets, and while you won’t feel a pump, you’ll get progressively stronger at a much faster rate, which will carry over well into your next hypertrophy phase. Lower reps and ramping the weight the way I described is much better for strength. Then in the hypertrophy phase, you can continue with the way I described above.

And while I think you can hadle much higher volume I cannot speak to your individual recovery ability. What I provided was just an example. Remember to listen to your body as well as take a deload period every so often.

Just my .02 Hope this helps you!

Best,
BT

I’d recommend getting a new photographer. The one you have has a had time centering you in the picture.

your legs are extremely sub par, and your pics are at the beach… wtf

Yeah a legit front shot would be nice, and your legs need some help.Heavy weights lots of supersets/drop sets.

Post some less facebook-profile-esque pics and maybe somebody will actually help you out.

God damn black and white and insanely obscured picture angles… What the fuck…