Help w/ a Good Plan

Bigger Stronger Leaner
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I’m suffering from reading so many different things, that I don’t know wtf is best for me. I keep going to different ‘plans’ about every 2 months or so primarily from boredom.

After reading a lot of different training programs, I honestly don’t know what is best. I don’t want to ‘over-train’ muscle groups by doing too many reps. I basically chose the amount of sets bc typically that is what I like to do. By the 4th set on just about any exercise, I’m pretty burned which I just like to ‘feel’. I chose the amount of reps per exercise, based on different items I have read from multiple spots. I chose the load % for the same reason. Most things that I have read advise lower reps closer to max for building strength and muscle size, over time. Which in the end is the goal.

I know I don’t understand enough to perform drop sets, super sets or items similar. I’m trying to follow a KISS method and just keep with normal sets. The exercises I chose, is based on what I prefer to do in the gym. I understand that some people get more out of this or that. I just want to keep motivated and keep going, so doing exercises I like makes hella more sense for that. There are so many different things that when you’re new-ish, everything you read seems like gospel.

I like comparing things to vehicles. I don’t want to be an 18 wheeler that is huge and has all the power to accomplish anything power based. I know I will never be a Ferrari that is sleek, sexy, and well designed through years and years of experience and meticulous attention to detail. I can be a fabulous resto-mod though; older, rounder, but with refined lines and power.

Below is what I am/was planning on going to. By my math, I’m looking at ~180 reps per muscle group. Should I train the groups with less reps and more frequency; i.e. 2 Chest days with ~180 total reps in those two days? Stick with the Push/Pull?

Workout
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I was doing this before; it was more push/pull centric. When I reached the top of the reps of the exercise, I would add weight. For instance; Bench Press start @ 150, hit 8 reps, go to 160. If I couldn’t get the minimum, lower it.

Prev Workout
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Any and all help is appreciated. Like any map, there are hundreds of routes to take from Point A to Point B, but there has to be an efficient easy way to get there. That is what I believe I am trying to do.

Please, don’t rip me too much, but I can take a good healthy shot or two…

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What are you trying to achieve by lifting all these weights? I was a little confused by your vehicle analogy.

That will help narrow down good ways to train.

You mentioned finding out what work for you. Your current plan has lots of the 4-6 rep range. We could think of that as “heavy, low reps.” Your pervious plan had "heavy, low reps(4-6) plus medium weight reps (8-10) and low weight, high reps (12-15).

Do you feel like you’re doing better with all the heavy, low rep stuff? Was there any part of the mixed rep approach you hated? Like, did you have the sets of 12-15 or something?

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18 Wheeler - Im not looking to squat, deadlift and bench 1k lbs…
Ferrari - My life has not been based around fitness, nor am I going to ever have 6 pk abs…
Resto-Mod - Older. Rounder. Can still have some definition, strength and look good.

Looking to cut body fat, get stronger and add definition to arms, back and chest. Legs are pretty defined, but can always get better.

I haven’t really tried the 80% 1 RM. I haven’t tried it, and based on what I have been reading, lately, looks to be more of what I am after, maybe. My lack of experience and expertise however is where the post comes from. The previous that I was doing was based more around low rep on the main lifts, medium on the supporting groups, and higher reps on the harder smaller to train areas (based on what I was reading at the time.

Does any of that help?

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Hey, I have a lot of training ADD too and program-hop plenty. I think it was @EyeDentist that said that your training should reflect your answer to the question

between waking up tomorrow morning twice as strong but looking the same or looking twice as good but being no stronger, which is your preference?

That’s not to say you can’t have a little of both but what’s the most important?

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Yes bro, that helps a lot! If you want to build muscles, train for muscles. One way to train for that goal is to train the target muscle to failure, or close to it. Then you plan your workout but how many sets you do.

Your old plan was based around heavy/low rep main lifts, medium weight/reps supporting and light weight/high rep on the small stuff. It’s a blended kinda strategy. That’s pretty “normal,” lots of guys do that, and it generally considered “effective.”

Your new plan is nearly all low rep, “heavy” stuff. Going with all low reps, heavy weights is a strategy that some guys use. It can be effective, but it’s not as widely used. It can work, but it doesn’t work for everyone. The guys who train this way do less sets than guys who train lighter. They do less work, but they do it heavier.

Your plan does lots of sets with “heavy” weights. Very few people would be able to do that combination of lots of sets and heavy weights for very long. Nobody trains that way. It’s not a very good idea, so that makes your plan “Bad.”

If you want all your sets to be in the 4-6 reps to failure range, you should do less sets. Like 6 sets total per body part. That way you won’t run yourself into the ground right away. That would be a Low Volume, High Intensity Approach.

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And hit it twice per week (12 work sets per muscle group per week)

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To make it easy to keep things straight I’m to talk in extremes. High volume with low intensity, low volume with high intensity, and a simple mixed plan. And I’m only going to worry about this dude’s 5 session, once a week body part split. That way we can have clear examples of different, district approaches. Messin’ with frequency will make things too complicated. So I’m not going to get sidetracked with a twist a week setup.

In my opinion, if you do sets of 4-6 reps, you don’t get to do 12 sets per week. If you do 4-6’s, you only get to do 6 sets per week. If the intensity is high, the volume must be low. This is a low volume approach. 6 sets of 6 reps. That could easily be 3 lifts x 2 sets each.

Some guys would do well on this high intensity, low volume approach. But a lot of guys like get worn out or injured training that way for long.

If you want to do 12 sets, the weights must be lower and the reps will be higher. So you do more sets in the workout. 3 sets of 12 on 4 lifts would be OK. 12 sets of 12 for the workout. This would represent a high volume approach. It might work great for some guys,but lots of dudes would get bored, burned out or get overuse injuries from that kind of setup.

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You might want to add your a type 2 diabetic … like you mentioned in another post.

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I only left it out, because my background info has it in there… I wasn’t trying to leave anything out on purpose if that makes sense…

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Ok to make sure that I am understanding… you mean going from this:

Chest Example
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To this:

Chest Example 2
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In your opinion, would this be a good approach? How long should I keep it going before messing with it to introduce some sort of ‘confusion’ (or is that bs that you don’t need to do)? Appreciate all the input!

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Given those, I’d take stronger…

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Having read your intro, which was very candid, you obviously realise you have bigger issues to address. I think you are sweating the small stuff here when your real focus should be significant lifestyle change. Get under 200 lbs then you can think about building muscle.

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I have made significant changes, granted there is always room for improvement, but I also enjoy working out. I don’t understand why you would ever tell anyone not to build muscle. The benefits of adding lean muscle and losing fat is win/win no matter where anyone is at on their journey…but thank you for your opinion.

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Yes I was aware of that… but not everyone is going to take the additional time and actually click on your pic .
Since knowing so would dictate the advice some might choose to give.

In @JamesBrawn007 defense thats not what he’s implying at all. I can’t speak for him … but worried about secondary things like having definition in your arms and such should take a back seat over general health.

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I promise I wasn’t being a smart ass to your comment or anything… I hope you didn’t take it that way… Im a long-time lurker on the site before ever registering or anything. I wasn’t aware if people filled that info or what have you, or referred back to it… Ok. I didn’t understand what he was implying, just sincerely thought he meant it the way it read.

In all honesty, I haven’t been under 200 since I was in 9th grade, in my family and build type, its almost genetically impossible.

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I’m not trying to jump in just to be insulting, but this is a terrible attitude. Your expectations will drive your results. This is one of the things sports (used to) teach us: the team that wins the close games is usually the team that thinks they deserve to win that game.

Genetics determines your floor and your ceiling, or your starting point and your ultimate potential, if you prefer, but there is an extraordinary gap in between the two that’s all up to us as the individual.

EDIT: I just wanted to reiterate, I’m not saying you have a bad attitude or you’re finding excuses; I was just making a general comment about that one sentence. I think if you want to be, say, 175 lbs and you just start doing the things 175 lbs people do, you’ll be surprised where you end up.

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Would I love to be 185 and shredded, of course. Is it a reality, probably not. Does that mean that it is impossible? No. Is that my personal goal weight? No. If I was between 200 and 210, that is where I would desire to be, and my goal. When I get to that goal, maybe my next will be lower.

I don’t take it as an insult at all brother!

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You don’t need to feel like you need to apologize to me.
I’m just pointing out things that I feel might be beneficial to you in the long term.

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Word. Best of luck.

I hear you on the next goal being lower. I think most of us are unpleasantly surprised by what our weight ends up needing to be to hit the aesthetic/ athletic goals we want!

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My comment was likely a little curt so I understand why you may have misinterpreted what I said. But you’re right, there is no reason not to concentrate on building muscle. In fact, there is some good evidence that overweight men are much more likely to be able to build muscle and lose fat at the same time. For example, I recently cited a study by Jeff Volek, who ran an experiment using resistance training in both low fat versus low carb (keto) groups of overweight men to see what happened regarding body composition. Both groups indeed lost fat but the low carb group lost almost 2% more body fat than the low fat group. The interesting point for me here was some of the individual responses to the keto protocol. One subject lost 20 lbs of fat and gained 9lbs lean mass. Another lost 19lbs fat and gained 12 lbs lean mass. The greatest fat loss was 30 lbs, and this person gained 9lbs of muscle during the 12 week programme.

What I take from this is that, while it is the resistance training that is building the muscle, it is the nutritional side that is setting up the environment to allow that to take place, e.g. improved insulin sensitivity, lower rates of inflammation, etc. What you have described about yourself is clear evidence of metabolic disease, e.g. type 2 diabetes, not to mention TRT. Any form of exercise is going to positively impact on these but until you commit to the nutrition part you are putting a band aid over a gaping wound.