T Nation

Newbie Training Routine Help Please

Beginners
#1

Hey would anyone be able to comment my current exercise regime and recommend any changes please.

I’ll just start with a little bit of background.
I’m 6’3 so relatively long limbed, weigh around 196lbs and have a body fat index of around 18-19%. Less than a year ago a friend of mine who had been training for a while invited me to the gym and to try out free weights. I did and realised not only did I feel healthier, also happier.

I trained for a good couple months until I pulled a back muscle, to which I was recommended making sure to do wide arm assisted pull ups and such to ensure it did not happen again. To my shame it took me a couple months to get back into gym and about a month ago I started to become a regular again.

I believe my main goal for the next 6 months is to increase in strength and general fitness presently, which will probably shift to reduced my BFI to 15% afterwards.

Current exercise:
1-3 hours dancing
1 hour Free diving (in a swimming pool)
2 sessions in the gym (Tuesday and Thursday). Though I may wish to increase this at a later date to 3x a week currently I often find if I throw myself into things too much I will do so till I burn out and then drop it entirely for extended periods of time, which I really do not want ot happen.

Tuesday (Concentrates mainly on legs)
3/10 Squats. I am currently doing a linear progression to avoid injury by starting too high.
3 /10 Leg Press though having looked on this forum I might change that to 3 - 8 with an increase in weight.
3 /10 Seated Calf exercise (Sorry I am not certain of the proper name)
New Romanian Deadlifts were recommended to me as a good manner to ensure I use the hams. Though I am uncertain whether to do 5/5 or 3/10

Thursday (Since this is also the day I dance, I try to stick ot upper body work)
1/10 Squats I realise this doesn’t really do much at so few sets but I tend to use this to work more on my form.
3/10 Bench press
3/10 Assisted wide arm pull ups.
3/10 Cable Crossover

Ill then generally do small bits depending on how I am feeling, however I wouldn’t mind having a solid idea of what to add.

Current plans for future additions on days outside of gym practice:
One of my friends does a running practice of sprinting for a given distance or period of time, walking, sprinting and then continuing to alternate, so I intend to join him.
Simple early morning press ups as it doesn’t take too much time and can be done before preparing for work.
I keep on reading about dead lifts so I may start to pop into the gym if only for 10 minutes to do them (if I am not doing a full regime is this actually worth it?)

Are there any changes you would recommend for a newbie or are there any major muscle groups I am currently missing or am I simply not doing enough each day? I was also wondering, am I currently working all of my arms?

Thank you for any comments.

#2

I would recommend two things.

First: Become much more specific with your strength and fitness goals.
Second: Invest a little time in understanding what constitutes a good workout routine given the goals you set.

Find a plan that is relatively simple, and focuses on the core exercises. Military Press, Bench Press, Deadlift, and Squats. If you do this you can come a long way fast in the beginning. Perhaps (5-3-1)?

#3

Yeh you are right at the moment I’ve just been kind of cobbling together a work out routine, from what I’ve heard is good. Thank you for your advice I often feel slightly saturated with infomration alot of the time and am never really sure what to follow.

Would you be able to give me an example of what you would mean by strength and fitness goals. (Sorry for sounding like a complete newbie) Previously I was just happy to be actually doing exercise and feeling better for it, but as you have said a goal truely does need to be considered.

I think its time I was actually honest with myself, what I actually want to do currently is feed my ego slightly and actually grow some appreciable muscle. I am in no way skinny but neither am I overweight, so losing weight is not high on my priorities at the moment, neither is concentrating on losing fat (though if that happens then Ill consider it a bonus).
I understand that its important to make sure to ensure a generally overall exercise regime and as such want to form one that falls into the trap and just boost the mirror muscles. So I suppose that is what my main aim is, after I actually have something to work with then I would like to work on strength and losing fat, however I think actually putting something to work with there in the first place, obtaining a good technique and in the mean time improve my knowledge of good and bad practices is my current plan.

Flaoting around on the forums I have just found a regime recommended to another newbie that utalises alot of the exercises you recommended and seems relatively simple. Where you alternate between A and B.
"A
Squat
Bench
DL

B
Squat
Press
Row or Power clean "
At 5-3-1 Performing 3 sets of 10 reps.

Sorry reading round on the website and realised that I may have misunderstood the numbering system. Earlier the numbers I stated were the number of sets to reps, I’ve just realised that the numbers often stated are the eccentric to concentric phase with the transition number.

#4

[quote]Kirintal wrote:
Yeh you are right at the moment I’ve just been kind of cobbling together a work out routine, from what I’ve heard is good. Thank you for your advice I often feel slightly saturated with infomration alot of the time and am never really sure what to follow.

Would you be able to give me an example of what you would mean by strength and fitness goals. (Sorry for sounding like a complete newbie) Previously I was just happy to be actually doing exercise and feeling better for it, but as you have said a goal truely does need to be considered.

I think its time I was actually honest with myself, what I actually want to do currently is feed my ego slightly and actually grow some appreciable muscle. I am in no way skinny but neither am I overweight, so losing weight is not high on my priorities at the moment, neither is concentrating on losing fat (though if that happens then Ill consider it a bonus).
I understand that its important to make sure to ensure a generally overall exercise regime and as such want to form one that falls into the trap and just boost the mirror muscles. So I suppose that is what my main aim is, after I actually have something to work with then I would like to work on strength and losing fat, however I think actually putting something to work with there in the first place, obtaining a good technique and in the mean time improve my knowledge of good and bad practices is my current plan.

Flaoting around on the forums I have just found a regime recommended to another newbie that utalises alot of the exercises you recommended and seems relatively simple. Where you alternate between A and B.
"A
Squat
Bench
DL

B
Squat
Press
Row or Power clean "
At 5-3-1 Performing 3 sets of 10 reps.

Sorry reading round on the website and realised that I may have misunderstood the numbering system. Earlier the numbers I stated were the number of sets to reps, I’ve just realised that the numbers often stated are the eccentric to concentric phase with the transition number.

[/quote]

Sounds like you just want to look nice and “athletic” …can’t go wrong with joe defrancos westside for skinny bastards… I’ll vouch its effectiveness. Get’s you in the gym 4 times a week upper/lower body split (superior to the last routine you posted “Starting strength I’m guessing?”

http://www.defrancostraining.com/articles.html

Yet if you’re serious about putting on mass…come to the dark side :slight_smile: Bodybuilding forum is waiting.

#5

Thank you very much. Ill give it a check out and begin to learn what each of the exercises are and which ones my local gym actually has the apparatus for. The problem being my local gym is a student gym and as such while relatively well equipped generally sticks to the basics. So I may have to give some thought as to how and where to start improvising.

On terms of the dark side I may turn in a couple months time, but I feel like I should try to stick with one solid thing for a while first, while swatting up fully on what exercises does what, how, how to do each thing without being stupid and damaging myself etc first :slight_smile:

On a side note, after much lurking around it seems going only twice a week is inadvisable and as such Ive started MWF. I think Ill keep this up for two weeks to get myself into the momentum of it before even attempting to head in four times a week. :slight_smile:

Have a great day all.