Constructive Criticism

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

I’m just getting back in the gym again. I’m 20yrs old, 6’0", 179lbs. I’m basing my routine around Flex mag’s brute strength program. It’s a six month program which changes reps, sets, exercises and techniques every month. Also evaluating my 1RM each month for each of the core exercises, then doing my sets with 75% of that 1RM. I’ve noticed considerable strength gains in the last month and put on about 18lbs. My goals are simply to get as big and as strong as I can in the next six months, with hopes of dubling my strength in the core exercises. My routine for this month is like this:

Mon. push workout
bench press 5/10-12
dips 3/10-12
lying tri. ext. 3/10-12
inc. dumb. press 3/10-12
flat dumb. press 3/10-12
shoulder press 3/10-12
upright rows 3/10-12
inc. crunches 3/20

Tues.lower-body workout
squats 5/10-12
leg press 3/10-12
leg ext 3/10-12
leg curls 3/10-12
stand. calf raise 2/20
seat. calf raise 2/20
wrist curls 4/12-15

Wed. OFF

Thurs. pull workout
deadlifts 5/10-12
chins 2/max
barbell rows 5/10-12
pulldowns 3/10-12
barbell curls 3/10-12
preacher curls 3/10-12
inc. crunches 3/20

Fri. push assist/delts
bench press 6/10 wave
dumb. flye’s 3/10-12
seat. dumb press 3/10-12
dumb. front raise 3/10-12
dumb. side raise 3/10-12
inc. rear raise 3/10-12
bar. shrugs 3/10-12
dumb. shrugs 3/10-12
wrist curls 4/12-15

Sat. OFF
Sun. OFF

My diet is somthing like this:

9:00
2 bowls of cereal
orange juice

10:00
2 eggs
3pieces of bacon
bowl of oatmeal
protein drink

11:00-1:00
at the gym creatine drink
10g. creatine/75g. carbs
plenty of water

2:00
2 PB&J’s
proyien drink

4:30
fish or steak
potatoes
green veggies

6:30
snack i.e.
tostitoes & salsa

9:45
2 grilled cheese
veggies
protein drink

I also just ordered Viraloid to help boost test. levels. I hope you guys have some helpfull input on things I’m doing right and wrong. Thanks.

2

Welcome to T-Nation. You will notice that your goal is to double the strength in your core exercises. (Which hopefully are Squat, Bench, Deadlift). Look at your program. You are doing probably 5 times the volume in assistance exercises than you are doing with the core lifts. How is that going to help you improve your core lifts… not 5-10lbs, but DOUBLE what they are? You need to focus much more on the core lifts. I would reccommend you scrap this program and try out “Total Body Training” by Chad Waterbury, which you can find in the Articles section.

Also, I don’t know what you’ve been reading about nutrition… what you’ve got there is a good start, but you need to do some more reading. Anything that mixes Fat and Carbs is going to be not a very good choice. So the bacon + oatmeal… peanut butter + bread… just to name a couple. Try to keep it to P+F or P+C, but not both.

Go also into the article section and start reading everything by Dr. John Berardi. That will get you to a good start.

Also why do you feel you need a test booster? You’re 20 years old! You have all the test you need for growth, aside from if you have some kind of deficiency or disorder.

3

RIT is right on the money.

Gotta add… when you run out of Berardi articles on T-Nation go to John Berardi and read all the articles there too.

Before you max out your supplement list start with the basics and go up. It doesn’t make sense to be worrying about a test. booster when your post-workout nutrition is sub-par. After refining your diet add supplements in this order.

  1. Surge
  2. Low-Carb Grow!
  3. ZMA (more for the good sleep then the debatable strength increases)

Welcome to T-Nation

Tri-Dub

4

You might also want to take a look at “The Anti-Bodybuilding Hypertrophy Program” by Chad Waterbury, I’ve been on it for a few weeks and I must say I like it a whole lot.

5

If you like split training-I don’t but it works for some, I would stick with 2 big main exercises per workout and hit one Heavy for a 3-5 rep max every other week. Also would split legs between squatting/Arching. I would not recommend leg extensions. They caused me knee pain for years, squats dont.

Here’s a sample 4 way split

Day 1)
Bench, Shoulder press
1 for a 3-5 rep max the other for 3x6-8

+pick 2 Dumbell presses, laterals, dips, tricep extensions. 2 x 6-12

Day 2)
Squat, Lunge

+Seated or standing calf raises

Day 3) Chin, Row

+Incline curls, rear delts or pullovers, pick 2

Day 4) Dead, straightleg dead or goodmorning

+Reverse hyper, leg curl, glute ham, And definitely abs here.

2 main lifts. 6 sets of 3-5 of one (alternate which one is first), 3 x 6-8 of the other. Pick 2 assistance or at most 3, 2-3 sets. I would say no more that 6 TOTAL assistance sets here and rotate exercises.

I think the diet is OK, except you are going 11 1/2 hours without eating. Also, 2 eggs and 3 pieces of bacon is not that much protein. Get a protein shake down first or mix it with your milk for cereal.

There is no consensus about mixing fat and carbs or not. Fat actually slows carb entry into the bloodstream (a good thing) because it keeps blood sugar stable.

6

How many bowls of cereal!!??

Cut that to 1 bowl porridge with protein powder in it.

NO bread.

7

also, i would disagree with mertdawg. The aim is to keep insulin response as short as possible with the greatest sensativity as possible. energy doesn’t leak like a time release pill from the stoumach.

Keep the carbs and fats seperate. This way, even though like mertdawg said, there is no concencus, you are likely to avoid any crap.

8

[quote]miniross wrote:
also, i would disagree with mertdawg. The aim is to keep insulin response as short as possible with the greatest sensativity as possible. energy doesn’t leak like a time release pill from the stoumach.

Keep the carbs and fats seperate. This way, even though like mertdawg said, there is no concencus, you are likely to avoid any crap.[/quote]

I am interested. I understand the Protein+Carb postworkout, but I never got the Protein+Fat (no carbs) throughout the day IF your goal is to gain muscle. Are we on a different page here. Do you think that outside of the Workout Window you need to eat Protein+Fat with virtually no carbs? I have seen something like this from Berardi or Dan John, but never saw an original article outlining the purpose. If you know which article it was from, let me know so I can read it.

If, for example, you knew you couldn’t eat again for 5 hours, what would you eat? For mass I would think Protein, Low GI carbs AND Fat in almost equal calorie proportions.

Ideally, you could probably take Surge all day long if you drank 1 every hour, plus a longer lasting meal before bed.

9

If you drank Surge all day long your system would downregulate insulin receptors and you would lose the whole KICK from Surge. Check out John Berardi’s Massive Eating and Massive Eating Reloaded as this is where he first proposed the P+F P+C.

[Moderator’s note: Here’s the links to Berardi’s articles:

Massive Eating Part 1:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=460331

Massive Eating Part 2:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=460327

Massive Eating Reloaded Part 1:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459429

Massive Eating Reloaded Part 2:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459431

Hope that helps!]