Change My Routine

well my routine seemed pretty good when i first started, but than i found myself working muscles on the wrong day because some lifts involve other muscles. here is my current work out.

i work out 5-6 days a week and i alternate days
day 1: bicep, tricep, and shoulders
day 2: chest, back and legs
day 3: bicep, tricep and shoulders
and so on…

how should i tweek this?
im up to any suggestions! if working only one main muscle group a day i would be down for it!

i dont have a decent picture right now, but i will try and get one

You cannot be serious. This is by far one of the worst routines ever.

  1. Your legs are the strongest muscles in your body yet you combine them with other groups? Legs get their own day, maybe 2, per week.

  2. Your day 2 involves probably 80% of your body’s muscle mass, day 1 involves probably 20%. Fix this.

  3. Do Rippetoe’s or something like it.

What I do:

1 - Legs
2 - Horizontal push/pull
3 - Short abs/HIIT (OFF DAY)
4 - Legs
5 - Vertical push/pull
6 - Fight conditioning
7 - OFF DAY

is my work out realy that bad?

Not trying to get down on you. Most of us here started off on a bad foot, myself included. Don’t second guess your routine; it sucks. Just focus more of your effort on your bigger muscles (makes sense, right?) Big arms on weak legs means nothing, you will look like a fool. Treat your legs and back like the monsters they are and make them strong. Arm work is great but remember, arms are ancillary … we stand on our legs all day.

[quote]lifelongbread wrote:
is my work out realy that bad?[/quote]

yes

so what muscle groups should i group together for different days?
chest and triceps
legs and back
shoulders and biceps?

[quote]lifelongbread wrote:
is my work out realy that bad?[/quote]

Yes!!!, you’ve devoted half your time to what essentially makes up like 20% of your muscle. Then the other day to the 80% of your muscle. There is no way that can be effective.

Haha no your workout wasn’t THAT bad. It’s definitely not great, but you came up with it on your own for your own reasons so it definitely has merit. njrusmc is just a dumbass.

If somehow Arnold were born decades later and he was young and ready to bodybuild and came on tnation and said “this is the routine i’m doing and this is my diet. I came up with it myself, what do you guys think?”, people like njrusmc (160lbs of sheer knowledge!) would tell him it’s horrible and he’s a moron and he should start doing “Rippetoes” hahaha

Before ANYONE can give you any responsible advice, lifelongbreed, we need a lot more information from you.

well i work out for 5 days a week too … atleast kindoff …
so here’s my split
you can try it out if u and others think its fair enough…

MONday : Chest
Tuesday : Shoulders / Triceps
Wednesday: off
Thursday: LEgs
Friday: BAck/ BIceps
Saturday: Abs/ Forearm/ HIIT
Sunday: off

[quote]mr popular wrote:
Haha no your workout wasn’t THAT bad. It’s definitely not great, but you came up with it on your own for your own reasons so it definitely has merit. njrusmc is just a dumbass.

If somehow Arnold were born decades later and he was young and ready to bodybuild and came on tnation and said “this is the routine i’m doing and this is my diet. I came up with it myself, what do you guys think?”, people like njrusmc (160lbs of sheer knowledge!) would tell him it’s horrible and he’s a moron and he should start doing “Rippetoes” hahaha

Before ANYONE can give you any responsible advice, lifelongbreed, we need a lot more information from you.[/quote]

well, he does everything, but very disporportionately. This is what I did and I ended up with shoulder problems that took weeks to go away, might at well have him train smart from teh get-go

I just came off of Rippetoes and had great results. It’s an excellent program because its basic (not to be mistaken with easy). My results are slowing down after a few months on it so I am going to try this one next:

http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=460458

It keeps things simple, includes all the major movements, and has a different rep/set scheme from Rippetoes. Check it out if you want.

Good Luck!

[quote]zephead4747 wrote:
well, he does everything, but very disporportionately. This is what I did and I ended up with shoulder problems that took weeks to go away, might at well have him train smart from teh get-go[/quote]

You already know I’m not saying anything contrary to this, zep.

[quote]mr popular wrote:
Haha no your workout wasn’t THAT bad. It’s definitely not great, but you came up with it on your own for your own reasons so it definitely has merit. njrusmc is just a dumbass.

If somehow Arnold were born decades later and he was young and ready to bodybuild and came on tnation and said “this is the routine i’m doing and this is my diet. I came up with it myself, what do you guys think?”, people like njrusmc (160lbs of sheer knowledge!) would tell him it’s horrible and he’s a moron and he should start doing “Rippetoes” hahaha

Before ANYONE can give you any responsible advice, lifelongbreed, we need a lot more information from you.[/quote]

ok what information do you need about me?

Height, weight, training experience, exact training goals and what progress you’ve made towards them so far, and probably general diet information, as well as a more complete outline of what you’re currently doing in the gym and why you’re doing it.

We need to know WHAT you want to achieve, and exactly what you’ve been doing to try and achieve this, in order to change your approach and offer help.

[quote]mr popular wrote:
Height, weight, training experience, exact training goals and what progress you’ve made towards them so far, and probably general diet information, as well as a more complete outline of what you’re currently doing in the gym and why you’re doing it.

We need to know WHAT you want to achieve, and exactly what you’ve been doing to try and achieve this, in order to change your approach and offer help.[/quote]

im 5 foot 8 or 9
im 165 pounds
i have been serious about working out about a month before summer started.
my goals are to strong, big (not super huge, but slightly intimidating), toned and just overall healthier.
my diet includes as much protein as i can find around the house. my mom doesnt want me to get the protein powder stuff cause she believes i dont work hard and long enough to require them. i usually have 3 eggs for breakfast, a turkey sandwich and apples with peanut butter for lunch, and dinner is what ever my mom makes and i have a couple peanut butter(extra peanut butter) and jelly sandwichs for snakes here and there.

i usually spend about 45 min-1 hour in the gym.
chest: db press, db fly, a couple hammer strength machines, bench press, incline, decline and flat
back: hammer strength machines(they are some sort of row machines: high, mid and low) and dead lifts
biceps:many different kinds of curls (low weights many reps)
tricep: dips and cable extension machine
shoulders: i do various stuff with the dbs dont know the names. i saw some guy in the gym do them so i asked about it.
legs: squats, deadlifts, and some calf workout thing

i think thats about it
if you need any more info ask

Okay right off the bat your diet is going to be the biggest thing holding you back. I’m sure you don’t need any protein powders or supplements yet…

You are going to want to bump up your meal frequency to eating every 2-3 hours. That’s going to mean between 6 and 8 protein-centered meals every day.

In order to gain muscle you need to steadily gain bodyweight, and most people want to aim at gaining around 3-5lbs of bodyweight each month until they reach their goal (do you have a more specific idea of what yours might be yet? 200lbs? 215lbs?).
Increasing meal frequency allows you to get in more calories and nutrients, and it keeps your body in a physiological environment primed for growth, rather than having large gaps between meals which isn’t ideal for recovering and building bigger muscles.

As far as your workout you will probably want to start working with more basic exercises and training with more focus and simplicity.

The most traditional and basic of the bodybuilding exercises are:

Barbell Flat Bench Press
Back Squat
Deadlift
Barbell Curl
Military Press
Pullup
Barbell Row
and Dips

These are the exercises you want to center a routine around. There is a place for cables and machines in some routines, but most beginners are usually better off avoiding them in favor of training with the freeweight barbell exercises, and then having one or two secondary exercises for each muscle group (or zero, depending on the routine).

If I were going to recommend a routine to you it would be a pretty typical pull/push/legs type deal. Here is an example of what that might look like:

Pull-
Deadlift 3 sets of 5-8 reps
Barbell Rows 3x6-10
Pullups 3xfailure or as many sets it takes to reach 50 total reps.
Barbell Curl 3x6-10
Dumbell Curl 3x8-12

Push-
Bench Press 3x5-8
Incline DB bench 3x8-12
Military Press 3x6-10
DB Lateral Raise 3x8-12
Close-grip Bench Press 3x6-10
Lying tricep extension 3x8-12

Legs-
Back Squat 3x5-8
Leg Press Machine 3x8-12
Lying Leg curl 3x6-10
Leg Extension 3x8-12
Standing Calf Raise (either on a block using a smith machine, on a standing calf machine, or using the leg press machine) 5x8-15

Not at all set in stone, and it’s just one idea of countless ways you could go about this. Some people here will recommend fullbody workouts 3x a week, others would have you split up your bodyparts even further than this and train w/ more frequency.

The best thing to do is to start with something that has you working hard on the basic exercises so you can figure out your own recovery abilities, because that is whats going to determine how you train more than anything else.

The above program is decent, I used something like it for a few years but stalled fast with the incredible amount of isolation it involved.

My biggest gripe is with the aforementioned “Leg” routine. Squats, which are great. Followed by 4 machine isolation exercises. Keep the calf raises but ditch the other 3 in favor of some lunges, good-mornings, or other exercises that require free weights. No sense in using machines at your training age.

Like I said, it’s just a sample program. But I would strongly suggest having leg curls in even if you switch out the leg press or leg extension for some sort of freeweight exercise – if you choose to do a layout like that one.

And njrusmc… what do you mean by “stalled fast with the incredible amount of isolation”? I’m not following you here.

[quote]mr popular wrote:
Like I said, it’s just a sample program. But I would strongly suggest having leg curls in even if you switch out the leg press or leg extension for some sort of freeweight exercise – if you choose to do a layout like that one.

And njrusmc… what do you mean by “stalled fast with the incredible amount of isolation”? I’m not following you here.[/quote]

I do:

squats
glute hams
leg press
calves

on squat day, I’ve never felt my hammys like I do after GHRs.

That’s nice, zep. haha