Good routine?

[Soccerfreak]

Hello, I'm 5'3 female, I weigh about 122 lbs. For a pic: http://oi51.tinypic.com/2d0x3e0.jpg

I gained some decent muscle since last Christmas, went up from about 105 lbs. Before pic:

http://imagecdn.bodybuilding.com/im...esspic/19WtPIDOlLvdIBuQ0vn49RnkRna8Kt794.jpeg

Anyway! So I did gain some decent fat and since I don't wanna cut for now. I'm doing a body recomposition, eating an av.g of 1700 clean calories and I was wondering if this is be a good routine for me. Since my goal is ultimately to lose fat and gain muscle slowly, I decided to periodize my routine, basically I'm including heavy lifts/low reps (5x5) to my typical hypertrophy program. (3x10) I'm off from soccer but I'll do some low intensity cardio on Sat, and HIT training plus plyometrics on Tue/thur.

My workout routine:
http://i52.tinypic.com/30tlyqo.png


What do you guys think of my routine? Do you think I need a larger span before switching or this is a good cycling program? Is the cardio good enough?

PS: Just incase this is important, I'm eating 1700 calories, LOTS of protein, fair amount of fat and fairly low carbs. (avg. of 110 g per day). Taking multi vitamin, B complex, Creatine, BCAA's, L Glutamine and Whey.

 

[jennifer778]

Hello, I'm 5'3 female, I weigh about 122 lbs. For a pic: http://oi51.tinypic.com/2d0x3e0.jpg

I gained some decent muscle since last Christmas, went up from about 105 lbs. Before pic:

http://imagecdn.bodybuilding.com/im...esspic/19WtPIDOlLvdIBuQ0vn49RnkRna8Kt794.jpeg

Anyway! So I did gain some decent fat and since I don't wanna cut for now. I'm doing a body recomposition, eating an av.g of 1700 clean calories and I was wondering if this is be a good routine for me. Since my goal is ultimately to lose fat and gain muscle slowly, I decided to periodize my routine, basically I'm including heavy lifts/low reps (5x5) to my typical hypertrophy program. (3x10) I'm off from soccer but I'll do some low intensity cardio on Sat, and HIT training plus plyometrics on Tue/thur.

My workout routine:
http://i52.tinypic.com/30tlyqo.png


What do you guys think of my routine? Do you think I need a larger span before switching or this is a good cycling program? Is the cardio good enough?

PS: Just incase this is important, I'm eating 1700 calories, LOTS of protein, fair amount of fat and fairly low carbs. (avg. of 110 g per day). Taking multi vitamin, B complex, Creatine, BCAA's, L Glutamine and Whey.

Hi and welcome to EF!! I'm fairly new to the boards but there are tons of great ladies and gents on here who will be more than helpful and give you great advice. I suggest you takin this same thread over to the women's section.
We have a great 'family' over there. Look forward to talking to you and good luck!!

Jen

 

[Soccerfreak]

Hi and welcome to EF!! I'm fairly new to the boards but there are tons of great ladies and gents on here who will be more than helpful and give you great advice. I suggest you takin this same thread over to the women's section.
We have a great 'family' over there. Look forward to talking to you and good luck!!

Jen

Yeey... Thanks! I'll copy/paste and post it over there. ;-)

 

[stevesmi]

welcome to the board. looking good.

you will find many different workout strategies you can experiment with on here. many guys like doing 3 or 4 day split.. while females and endurance athletes do lighter weight circuit training.

I think your strategy is fine, it seems to be working well for you. taking wednesday off then working the same muscle groups is an interesting strategy, i think that is why you have had such excellent arm results over working those muscles tues/thur then leaving them for a few days.

 

[Backtobasicks]

Progress is good, nice work! Keep it up

 

[_cato_]

Any specific goals as far as body parts or strength gains on certain lifts or anything like that?

One thing that stands out is that you are doing roughly twice as much weight training for your arms as your entire lower body. That's not ideal for recomp goals, neither is it ideal from a sport perspective or anything else you mentioned. You also don't have any lower rep leg work, which would probably be the most beneficial from a sport standpoint.

I'd recommend cutting your arm work a bit and doing some variation of squat and some variation of deadlift on each leg day. So for example 5x5 back squat and 3x10 RDL on one day and 5x3 front squat and 5x5 deadlift on the other day or something along those lines.

If you're asking whether it's ok to start cycling in different rep ranges after doing the same thing since last December, then yes that's fine. If you're asking something else, I'm not sure what you mean by "Do you think I need a larger span before switching or this is a good cycling program?".

Cardio wise, you'll probably be more than fine with 2 HIIT sessions and a low intensity steady state each week.

 

[Soccerfreak]

Wow, thank you for welcoming and for being so nice!! I know I worked really hard to transform myself into this bigger frame while somehow maintaining my pants size. :-D I did gain fat though! that's why I'm recomposition now/trying to add muscle and lose fat at the same time.

Any specific goals as far as body parts or strength gains on certain lifts or anything like that?

One thing that stands out is that you are doing roughly twice as much weight training for your arms as your entire lower body. That's not ideal for recomp goals, neither is it ideal from a sport perspective or anything else you mentioned. You also don't have any lower rep leg work, which would probably be the most beneficial from a sport standpoint.

I'd recommend cutting your arm work a bit and doing some variation of squat and some variation of deadlift on each leg day. So for example 5x5 back squat and 3x10 RDL on one day and 5x3 front squat and 5x5 deadlift on the other day or something along those lines.

If you're asking whether it's ok to start cycling in different rep ranges after doing the same thing since last December, then yes that's fine. If you're asking something else, I'm not sure what you mean by "Do you think I need a larger span before switching or this is a good cycling program?".

Cardio wise, you'll probably be more than fine with 2 HIIT sessions and a low intensity steady state each week.

My first two sessions of the week are towards high reps/lower load and the second two sessions are mainly 5x5. I was asking whether the cycle between these two programs is too narrow? I know many athletes/bodybuilders who do one type and it lasts for 4 or 8 week so that's what I was asking about. But yes it wasn't until December where I stopped isolation workouts and started heavy and that's when I started gaining!

You know, you're right about lower body. My problem is that I've never done lower body myself cause I train with my soccer teammates. Every week is different than the previous so there is really no routine. We do tons of drills, sprints and plyometrics along with squats, deadlifts and lunges, so it's kinda like an old fashioned program. Now soccer is over and I'm on my own. Do you think I should do more types of workouts? Or simply increase my volume? I can incorporate lower body over the week like I do with upper--probably do some on Saturdays as well. Thank you so much for the feedback and for your help.

PS: I DEF. want to work on my back! My chin ups are pathetic and yet I can bench 135 lbs. I'm genetically destined to have big/strong triceps and chest over back so I guess so I want to balance that out..?


Again thank you all for the feedback and the answers!

 

[Soccerfreak]

welcome to the board. looking good.

you will find many different workout strategies you can experiment with on here. many guys like doing 3 or 4 day split.. while females and endurance athletes do lighter weight circuit training.

I think your strategy is fine, it seems to be working well for you. taking wednesday off then working the same muscle groups is an interesting strategy, i think that is why you have had such excellent arm results over working those muscles tues/thur then leaving them for a few days.

Taking a day off in the middle of the week is a must for me. I go to school and work as well so the second half of the week I'm already burned out haha!

 

[_cato_]

My first two sessions of the week are towards high reps/lower load and the second two sessions are mainly 5x5. I was asking whether the cycle between these two programs is too narrow? I know many athletes/bodybuilders who do one type and it lasts for 4 or 8 week so that's what I was asking about. But yes it wasn't until December where I stopped isolation workouts and started heavy and that's when I started gaining!

Ah I see. Yes it is fine to do it that way. Technically that would be conjugate periodization (ie working on training more than one thing at a time) vs more traditional block or linear periodization where you might do 8 weeks of 3x10, 8 weeks of 3x3, etc

You know, you're right about lower body. My problem is that I've never done lower body myself cause I train with my soccer teammates. Every week is different than the previous so there is really no routine. We do tons of drills, sprints and plyometrics along with squats, deadlifts and lunges, so it's kinda like an old fashioned program. Now soccer is over and I'm on my own. Do you think I should do more types of workouts? Or simply increase my volume? I can incorporate lower body over the week like I do with upper--probably do some on Saturdays as well. Thank you so much for the feedback and for your help.

I think the lower body lifts, particular variations on the three you listed above tend to be the best from a fat burning and overall muscle building perspective. Getting your leg limit strength up will make you faster on the field as well. If you wanted to go with a traditional bodybuilder type routine for a "leg day," you'd probably want something like 5 exercises in there, split up between quads, hams, glutes, calves. One good idea for you might be putting one squat variation and one deadlift variation, one single leg lift variation, and one calf lift variation in each lower body workout. Since you hit it twice a week, you can have one day focused on glute/hamstring and one more focused on quad. So, just a suggestion, but what I would do on my arm/leg day if I were you would probably be something like:

Leg/Arm D1:

Legs:

Squat 5x5
Romanian Deadlift (or stiff legged or good morning or pullthroughs) 3x8-10
Walking DB Lunges 3x8-10 each leg
Standing Calf Raise 4x6-8

Leg/Arm D2:

Leg:

Front Squat 5x3
Deadlift 5x5
Bulgarian Split Squats 3x8-10 each leg
Sitting Calf Raise 3x8-10

For arms, maybe cut your exercises to four total? two of each?

PS: I DEF. want to work on my back! My chin ups are pathetic and yet I can bench 135 lbs. I'm genetically destined to have big/strong triceps and chest over back so I guess so I want to balance that out..?

You can do back first before chest on the upper body day if you want to focus on it. Maybe add in another exercise like some sort of pull down or dumbell row also, depending on your energy level when doing these workouts.