Judge My Program

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

18 years old, I started the gym this time last year and have gained around 30 pounds, mostly muscle because I naturally had a lean body, I’m 6 foot and 175 pounds. Messed around with different routines a lot because I never found or made one I liked. Only recently made this upper lower/cardio split because I’m training for the armed forces and I like it but wanted to try and improve it so I came here for advice. My routine is as follows.

Upper body - Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
All exercises done for 4 sets of around 6 heavy reps except pull-ups and pressups which are as many sets as possible to failure.

Overhead barbell press
Pull-ups
Incline dumbbell press superset with dumbbell rows
Lateral raises
Cable rows
Dips superset with push-ups

Lower body - Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Focusing on strength and mostly cardio.

Deadlifts (4 sets of 6 heavy reps)
HIIT (sprints, elliptical or doing sets on the prowler loaded with 50kg.)

Trying to go for an aesthetic, yet strong and functional body due to the demand of being in the military. Diet is okay, eating plenty of protein and carbs but I don’t prep meals much or focus on the food being good quality although it mostly is just because of my preference in food. I don’t focus too much on building huge legs because I’m your typical gym bro who likes to skip leg day but never cardio. As long as I can run for miles and have a good upper body I don’t mind what my legs look like.

Anybody got anything to add or change about my plan? Would love some advice from advanced lifters :slight_smile:

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What branch? What’s your MOS?

Your plan looks terrible to me, but what do I know…

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Royal Marines. Im a brit, not American bud and would just like advice on my program, a bit more in depth than it looks terrible

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Sure, go to articles → workouts and pick one of those. Delete yours.

At the very least read this:

Here are a couple that I think fit your goals:

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[quote=“harry101best, post:1, topic:223362”]
I’m your typical gym bro who likes to skip leg day[/quote]
You do know that those are the guys we openly mock because they’re short-sighted tools with no concept of hard work or big picture-thinking, right?

Skipping leg day makes training easy. It’s not even about building “big legs”. It’s about challenging yourself with difficult exercises. It’s hard to push yourself to hit depth on a squat instead of taking the easy road by shaving it high. It’s hard to front squat when the bar is deep up against your throat. No heavy overhead press or cable row is going to compare to that.

Your entire approach to training, from your outlook to your goals to your plan, is fucked from the get-go.

Train like this or this. Eat like this or this.

EDIT: Didn’t mean to overfocus on the training. So…

That explains why it took you a year to improve from emaciated to just skinny. Paying more attention to your nutrition will be directly responsible for better results. I can all but guarantee you’re not actually “eating plenty of protein” on a daily basis, and that’s going to make to unnecessarily difficult to see results.

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Training for selection?
Chris gave you good advice but also ask some questions in the combat forum.
Generally speaking you need a ton of rucking and less days in the gym, say 4 max

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LMAO I like how you say things as it is

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For cardio I would say run as often as you can. Focus on the big lifts first. Once you have them down add in accessory work.

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I’m thinking you had better use 5/3/1 (2 or 3 days per week versions) and make sure to dial down volume and focus on the required conditioning. Also the others are correct that is an awful program. I won’t say leg day is my favorite but you’ll be surprised what becoming a good squatter can do for you…