Workout and Nutrition Help

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Hey everyone.

This post might be kind of long, but I will be grateful to those of you who read and respond to it. I’m 17 years old and have been working out for 3 years. I only started training wisely and eating enough since I found T-Nation last summer. My height is 5 10 and my weight is 215 pounds. My lifts are; bench- 290, Squat- 260ish, Deadlift- 325
As far as cardio goes, I punish my punching bag for an hour a few times a week.

This is my new routine.

-Sunday-
Bench press 5x5 superset with barbell rows 5x5
Ez bar curl 5x3
Squats 8x3

-Tuesday-
Pullups 6x4
Clean and press 5x3
Romanian deadlifts 5x5
Lunges 4x8

-Thursday-
Wide grip dips 5x8 superset with chinups 5x5
Squats 5x10
Good mornings5x8 superset with ez bar curls 4x10

Even though I’ve been lifting for a few years I still consider myself sort of a beginner which is why I’m posting this.

     I just finished a trial week with this routine. I felt minimal soreness. So I was wondering if this is because my recovery is good or if there is too little volume in these workouts. There are no regular deadlifts in this routine because my deadlifting strength far exceeds my squat strength and I figured it would be wise to focus on squats. I don't think I'm big enough yet to have specific physique goals so I'm gonna concentrate on building up my major lifts for now. I don't do any abs work because I'm unconcerned about getting a six pack. But are ab exercises worth doing to aid other areas? None of the sets are to failure. Starting next week instead of increasing weight I'm going to decrease my rest periods.

Now here is part 2 of my post; nutrition.

I’ve recently took the time to read a lot of the nutrition articles here at T-Nation and I’ve decided to clean up my diet. I eat more than enough good food but it seems my diet lacks variation. Aside from dinner, I tend to stick with the same foods, day after day. I could easily stand to lose 10-15 pounds of fat. But my concern now is getting bigger and stronger. Fuck abs.

Here is a sample day of what I’ll be eating.

7 00 am- Bowl of oatmeal with protein powder.

I take 3 sandwiches and 2-3 apples or oranges to school. The sandwiches have meat and lettuce. Real meat like pork,chicken or turkey. No lucheon meat. I’ll usually have one every couple hours or so.

4 00 pm- 3 or 4 eggs with 4 slices of bacon. Also a Side of veggies. Probably carrots and broccoli with dip.

I workout at 5 00 pm

Around 6 30 pm- This is when I gorge. Usually I’ll eat a large plate of potatoes, meat and a veggie stirfry. Seconds is a given.

An hour or so later I’ll have another meal, usually leftovers from dinner.

Listed above Is a standard amount of food for me. I’m not asking for an in depth analysis or anything like that. I was just wondering if it is enough food for someone of my size to put on muscle. For supplements I take protein powder and creatine. I also just bought a thing of salmon oil.

I plan on using this routine for the next 3-4 months or until it stops being effective. In April I plan on a cutting phase to shed my fat. I’m sure I’ll post again just before that to get my next plan checked over.

Thanks a bunch. Stay strong.

2

If your not concerned about the abs, just keep eating. For your age you are not doing to bad on nutrition. Add deadlifts to your routine, overtime this will help your squat. Deadlifts will also thicken up the back to help support the weight for squats.

3

This may be a bit scattered because you have alot going on up there, but let me offer some small bits of advice.

1–Workout looks pretty good. However, I would start your days with legs, not dips and benches. Some iso work is fine, but I would never use them before squats or for much else for that matter. Save them for the end of the workout unless you are intentiionally working them on some day.

2–I see you have a couple of days for curls but not much for tri’s. If you’re going to do arm work, except for the mirror, focusing on tri’s is better.
It is 2/3 of your arm. I know you have some dips in there, but my guess is they focus on the chest, obviously you get some carry over, but as for pure iso work, look at throwing some in as opposed to all the curls.

3–Your volume may be a tad off. With so much focus on the under 5 reps for the big lifts, you could be asking for some trouble. It’s not a bad idea when doing total body type workouts to really vary your rep scheme. Don’t be afraid to do 10-15 reps to offset the loads sometimes. Pretty good though.

4–I would do clean and presses first on that day. Pullups are great, but I would still put them after cleans.

5–you don’t have to stop doing deads just because your numbers are skewed. Put the focus on squats fine.

So, overall not bad, but let’s tweak a couple of things.

Your diet is ok. Not great I’m sure you’d agree. Your pre and post nutrition could be fine-tuned. Maybe clean up and have some type of shake instead of bacon and dip. Have those nutrients ready for your body to use when they need them. The post workout gorge with another meal later is also not ideal. Bulking is one thing, but why pack on unneccessary pounds. A quick workout shake will be more effective than a gorge. Have a real solid meal after that. No reason to eat another full meal 1 hour after a big meal. Smaller protein/fat type meals will better serve you.

It’s always hard to guess total overall cals on ‘sandwhiches’ but I think you’re taking in enough. I would try to get more cals for breakfast if possible. Good time to throw down as many as possible. Especially for a young growing guy. Don’t forget a pre-bed meal of some king. It looks like you expend quite a bit of energy, it takes alot of cals to overcome this.

4

Thanks for the replys fellas.
Michael, where do you think it would be best to add deadlifts in my routine.

Sasquatch, I’ll take your advice on the diet stuff. You recommended I add some tri work. I was thinking on Sunday adding a 4x12 behind back dips. Then on Thursday adding a 4x12 of close grip bench presses. Do you think this would be adequate.

5

When doing dips, let you body go into a natural position. Don’t lean fwd to hit your chest or straight up and down to hit your tris. This will allow you to hit both chest and tris hard. I read some thing like this in Brawn. I believe it does work and I can handle more weight and do more reps this way.