I am helping out a buddy to get started - tell me what you think.

A buddy of mine is wanting to add 10lbs to his frame, and asked me about a sloid lifting routine. Aside from fucking around in the weight room in college, he has never been any sort of a consisent lifter, though he is an athlete.

I had another part that focused on Nurtition, but this is the workout part - anything that I missed badly or that you would change, let me know. I can change the routine for him after 8 weeks (like not doing squats and deads in the same workout), but I wanted to get him rolling, especially on form and tecnique.

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Exercise:

Focus on basic compound movements. If you are only able to get to the gym twice a week, you have to maximize your time and do a full body workout each time, working all muscles 2x/week. Forget the hockey workout and forget anything you might see in Men's Fitness. If you focus on these basic exercises, you will get bigger and stronger very quickly.

This is an excellent site that lists all exercises by muscle group. http://exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html

2 sets of 12 reps for all of the below:

1. Squats (thighs, glutes, calves, back, abs)
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadriceps/BBSquat.html
This is the single best mass exercise in existence. You have to do it in the rack, with an olympic bar. No machines. you cannot substitute the leg press. You have to do squats, and you have to go deep.

2. Bench Press (chest, shoulders, triceps)
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/PectoralSternal/BBBenchPress.html

3. Deadlifts (hamstrings, calves, back and upper body stabilizers)
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/ErectorSpinae/BBDeadlift.html

4. Cable Front pulldown machine (unless you can do 12 reps of body weight chins - I can't. Works back and biceps)
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/LatissimusDorsi/CBFrontPulldown.html

5. Shoulder Press (shoulders, traps, triceps)
http://exrx.net/WeightExercises/DeltoidAnterior/BBShoulderPress.html

6. Dips (triceps, shoulders, chest)
http://exrx.net/WeightExercises/Triceps/WtTriDip.html

That's it. These six moves will work every muscle in the body. Determine the proper weight (the 12th rep should be difficult to complete but not failure), then increase the weight each week by about 5lbs for each exercise. Twice a week for 8 weeks, and you will get stronger. There are other moves and plenty of variations, but don't worry about that until later. This gives you an overall base of strength and will give you something to build on going forward. There are no machines (except the cable pulldown). Machines limit range of motion and take away your body's ability to use important stabilizer muscles like the obliques, intercostals, and spinae erectors, not to mention rob you of learning good form. Free weights are the way to go.

That is the basics, but I could go on and on.

Here are a few places that you may want to look at. These are all very good sites with a lot of info and a no BS approach.

http://www.trygve.com/mfw_faq.html

http://www.stumptuous.com/weights.html

http://www.fitnwell.net/index.htm

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What do you think?


Bluesman

Sounds very solid to me. I would say until he learns his form, the set and rep range is ok. But try adding weight and sets and lowering reps after he knows his form. IMO

Steve The Bluesman said:

What do you think?Bluesman

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Not bad. Not bad at all. Two thoughts.

First, Drop the pulldowns and do the pullups. If you can't get 12, get what you can. He'll be far better off working on pullups than sticking with pulldowns. The truth is that the carryover from pulldowns to pullups just isn't as good as people often think it is.

Second, bench, dips and shoulder press is a LOT for the chest and shoulder girdle, and his rotators will suffer for it. Personally, I would drop bench and stick to dips and presses (I'm an o-lifter, and haven't done a bench press since the '90's). Alternatively, bench on Day 1 and do dips and presses on Day 2.

Just my $.04.

mpc

"Think of Tiger Woods out there hitting a bucket of balls. He's not swinging the 5-iron to get stronger -- he's swinging it to hone the groove. Hone the groove."

If it were me I'd try to get him to make it three days rather than two. Whenever I've worked only two days a week it's always only been good enough for maintenance or deloading.

If he can bump it to three then drop the reps slightly and have a day with the emphasis slightly more on chest, then back and then legs.

Id say drop the dips and get this guy doing some BB rows.

id drop the dips and if hes only going twice a week, id do more than 2x12. maybe 3x10 or 4x10

JL_204 said:

Id say drop the dips and get this guy doing some BB rows.

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wisdom . gotta balance the presses with the pulls.

I'm with shep. As proposed that's a ton of shoulder strain, esp. for the unitiated. Standing overhead press trumps bench as a total body stimulator (kinda like Jenna Jameson vs. Danica Patrick- both hot but one's the clear choice ). Stick w/ dips, chins and overhead for now, then down the line add rows and bench when not doing the whole routine in one sitting.

Danica I hope?

Jim Ouini said:

Danica I hope?

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ummm.... no