Progressing Advice

Hello everyone, I’m new. My routine is basically every 2-3 days I do this:

  1. 3 sets of 50 pushups (one with my index finger and thumb making a triangle in the middle, one with my arms close to my sides, and one with my arms far apart)
  2. 1 set of 100 crunches, 2 sets 30 sets of 30 done towards each leg, then 100 full situps.
  3. 3 sets of 4 rep 35 lb dumbell bicep curls.
  4. 3 sets of 25 squats with the dumbells.
  5. 100 cav lifts while working in 3 sets of 15 rep shrugs with the 35 lb. weights.
  6. 1 set of 25 burpees, followed by 2 sets of 15 burpees to finish off in addition to some grips.

Often I replace 1) with dumbell exercises for my triceps, and chest.

The routine typically takes about 2 hours to complete, and I will often have to rest a bit between them.

I’m 25, weigh about 130lb. and 5’6". I am basically trying to increase my general strength and endurance. I don’t really care about creating large muscles, as I don’t want to impede my movement.

I have a few problems. First, I feel like I’m stuck at 35 lbs. I’ve been at it for at least 2-3 months, and still don’t find them light. Secondly, I feel like my arms are much stronger than the center of my body, so I have trouble lifting and balancing things with the rest of my body. I’ve only been doing the burpees a short while (I used to do a set of 200 jumping jacks), and I hope to get better results with them.

I don’t pay much attention to my diet really. I generally eat a few times a day, and probably too much bread and rice and meat for my own good. Also, I drink a lot of soda. I’ll try to regulate this a bit, but I would be bored if I ate tuna every day.

Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.

You would probably have to add well over 100 pounds to your body before large muscles would begin to impede movement. Get this thought out of your head. Even if you wanted to build muscles large enough to impede movement, you probably couldn’t.

Instead of screwing around with some half-assed routine, why not pick a training program from T-Nation that fits your goals. They have posted effective routines for just about everything.

Then all you’ll have to do is learn to eat and you’ll be on your way to making real progress.