Critique My Program

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

I’ll give you a little history and bio. I’ve played soccer my entire life. I was always incredibly skinny and farly weak, but not even that fit looking. I didn’t have visible abs, I was just skinny. I started training in Mixed Martial Arts (militech fighting systems) about 2 years ago. It’s been off and on because of some severe injuries.

Through that training and very unorganized lifting I managed to put on considerable muscle. I now weigh about 175lbs at 6 feet. I know that is still skinny, but it’s been a large gain for me, and I’ve put on considerable strength. I can now bench 185 for reps, squat 225 for reps, and I pulled a 385 lb deadlift. I understand how incredibly unbalanced those numbers are. My squat numbers grow slowly, and my deadlift goes up quickly.

I’m hoping to concentrate more on lifting for a while and less on fight training. I have my diet keyed in and have been working with this plan for a few weeks already with good success. Each excersise is 4-5 sets with a rep range of 8-12, usually pyramiding in weight.

Monday+Thursday- Chest/Back
-flat bench press
-wide grip chins
-incline bench press
-bent over bb rows
-dumbell pullovers
-seated cable rows
-t-bar row
(I superset each chest excersise with the following back excersise, excluding t-bar rows, which I perform at the end by itself concenrating on form)

Tuesday+Friday- Shoulders/Upper Arms
-clean and press
-db front raises
-db side raises
-reverse pec deck
-barbell shrugs
-barbell curls
-db curls
-weighted dips
-cable tricep extensions

Wednesday+Saturday- Legs/Lower Back
-deadlift (Wed. I target legs, Sat. I target lower back with different deadlifts)
-squat
-leg press (only on saturday)
-leg extensions
-leg curls
-back hyperextensions

Sunday- Rest

I often have problems with my right shoulder, but that’s a fighting injury, not lifting. Im mostly trying to put on some size, improve strength for fighting and look better naked. Please give me some input I respect a lot of the opinions here, and apologize for this being so poorly put together.

2

Hi

imho, it’s way too much volume. If you want to lift 6 days/week, try to limit yourself to <50 reps per muscle group per training session. (i.e. 2 exercises with 8x3, 5x5 or 3x8 set x reps)

If you really need such a high volume to grow (everyone reacts different) and had good results thus far, I’d rather do a 5 part split and hit each body part directly once per week.

3

I’ve tried a 5-day split before. It didn’t seem like I was really working any given muscle enough, it allowed for way too much recovery time, and I didnt see much as far as strength increases. I also wonder if that’s really the best way to work out considering I’m going to be training to fight again in the near future.

I seem to recover very quickly. I remember when I was younger I might go heavy with squats and be tired for a week, but I think after high volume training in other things my body adapts pretty quickly.

Days of three-a-day college soccer pracices and then making it to the gym for an hour of jiu jitsu really got my body craving physical work. As it stands now, lifting hard once a day isn’t enough, I often bike, ultimate frisbee, soccer, or whatever else I can find to do. I’ve been worried about over training before, but I love being active.

4

[quote]forkknifespoon wrote:
I’ll give you a little history and bio. I’ve played soccer my entire life. I was always incredibly skinny and farly weak, but not even that fit looking. I didn’t have visible abs, I was just skinny. I started training in Mixed Martial Arts (militech fighting systems) about 2 years ago. It’s been off and on because of some severe injuries.

Through that training and very unorganized lifting I managed to put on considerable muscle. I now weigh about 175lbs at 6 feet. I know that is still skinny, but it’s been a large gain for me, and I’ve put on considerable strength. I can now bench 185 for reps, squat 225 for reps, and I pulled a 385 lb deadlift. I understand how incredibly unbalanced those numbers are. My squat numbers grow slowly, and my deadlift goes up quickly.

I’m hoping to concentrate more on lifting for a while and less on fight training. I have my diet keyed in and have been working with this plan for a few weeks already with good success. Each excersise is 4-5 sets with a rep range of 8-12, usually pyramiding in weight.

Monday+Thursday- Chest/Back
-flat bench press
-wide grip chins
-incline bench press
-bent over bb rows
-dumbell pullovers
-seated cable rows
-t-bar row
(I superset each chest excersise with the following back excersise, excluding t-bar rows, which I perform at the end by itself concenrating on form)

Tuesday+Friday- Shoulders/Upper Arms
-clean and press
-db front raises
-db side raises
-reverse pec deck
-barbell shrugs
-barbell curls
-db curls
-weighted dips
-cable tricep extensions

Wednesday+Saturday- Legs/Lower Back
-deadlift (Wed. I target legs, Sat. I target lower back with different deadlifts)
-squat
-leg press (only on saturday)
-leg extensions
-leg curls
-back hyperextensions

Sunday- Rest

I often have problems with my right shoulder, but that’s a fighting injury, not lifting. Im mostly trying to put on some size, improve strength for fighting and look better naked. Please give me some input I respect a lot of the opinions here, and apologize for this being so poorly put together.
[/quote]
Yes the volume is pretty high, but if your body can handle it then see how that goes. Your exercise selection sucks though. So does your set/rep scheme. You need more variety, and 4-5 sets of every exercise is way too much. Stay off the machines, I wouldnt do DLs and squats on the same day, minimize the isolation exercises, and more generally move to a full-body routine. Keep reading, learning, and experimenting. I also dont see any single leg exercises, nor pre-hab work.