I'm new here - Please review my weight training routine

[steve_1251]

Hey guys, I've only just signed up to this site as I really need some advice on my weight training regime.

Sex - Male
Age - 25
Height - 5 foot 8
Weight - 70kg
Weight training - 1 year
Calories - 3000/day
Protein - 140g/day
Diet - well balanced
Supplements - maximuscle progain extreme (44g protein, 500 calories)(taken after weight training), creatine, HMB-1000, ZMA, multi-vitamin, omega 3, ginko biloba.
Weight training routine - train 5 day/per week with a upper/lower body split and rest on Saturday and Sunday (3 sets x 10reps of 7 exercises).

Here is my exact routine

WEEK 1 (3 Sets of everything)

Monday AM - Upper
10x Standard grip dumbbell curls
10x Close grip tricep bench press
10x Dumbbell shrug
10x Underhand grip rear lateral raise
10x Decline bench press
10x Shoulder press
10x Scaption

Tuesday AM – Abs
10tgx Plank
10x Reverse crunch
10x Crunch
10x Punchups
10x Decline situp

Tuesday PM - Lower
10x Barbell squat
10x Barbell bent knee deadlift
10x Calf curls
10x Wide-grip overhead dumbbell squat
10x Single leg standing calf raise
10x Hip raises
10x Dumbbell jump squats

Wednesday AM – Upper
10x Standing zottman curl
10x Static lying triceps extension
10x Flat bench press
10x Lat pulldown
10x Lateral raise
10x Barbell row
10x Barbell shoulder press

Thursday AM - Lower
10x Farmer’s walk on toes
10x Sumo deadlift
10x Calf curls
10x Single arm dumbbell swing
10x Single leg bent knee calf raise
10x Barbell squat
10x Dumbbell jump squat

Thursday PM – Abs
1x Prone cobra
10x Leg lowering drill
10x Wrist to knee crunch
10x Uneven barbell side bends
10x Decline situp

Friday AM – Upper
10x Incline barbell bench press
10x Front raise
10x Hammer curl
10x Dumbbell kickbacks
10x Barbell shoulder press
10x Under lat pulldown
10x Rear lateral raise

Sunday AM – Abs
1x Elevated feet plank
10x V-up
10x Incline reverse crunch
1x T-stabilization
10x Leg lowering drill


WEEK 2 (3 Sets of everything)

Monday AM – Upper
10x Dumbbell preacher curl
10x Standing triceps extension
10x Decline barbell bench press
10x Wide grip lat pulldown
10x Barbell shoulder press
10x Front raise
10x Overhand grip rear lateral raise

Tuesday AM – Abs
10x Bird dog
10x Crunch
10x Leg lowering drill
1x Side plank
10x Punchups

Tuesday PM – Lower
10x Single leg standing dumbbell calf raise
10x Wide-grip overhead dumbbell squat
10x Calf curls
10x Dumbbell lunge
10x Single leg bent knee calf raise
10x Straight leg barbell deadlift
10x Dumbbell jump squats

Wednesday AM - Upper
10x Dumbbell standard curl
10x Close grip tricep bench press
10x Overhead dumbbell shrug
10x Flat bench press
10x Barbell row
10x Lateral raise
10x Scaption

Thursday AM – Lower
10x Dumbbell lunge
10x Calf curls
10x Thigh curls
10x Barbell squat
10x Standing barbell calf raise
10x Sumo deadlift
10x Barbell stepup

Thursday PM – Abs
10x Side plank
10x Reverse crunch
1x Plank
10x Decline situp
10x Uneven barbell side bends

Friday AM - Upper
10x Incline dumbbell bench press
10x Barbell shoulder press
10x Close grip lat pulldown
10x Hammer curls
10x Lateral raise
10x Barbell row
10x Standing triceps extension

Sunday - Abs
1x Prone cobra
10x Side crunch
10x Leg lowering drill
10x Wrist to knee crunch
10x Punchups

This fortnightly routine is then repeated. I add weight to bar once I can perform 3 sets of 10reps of an exercise with perfect form. I have been preformed this for 8 weeks now and I have gained 6kgs in muscle, seen my bench press increase from 25kg to 45kg, my squat increase from 25kg to 35kg, my bicep curl increase from 8.5kg to 11.5kg, my deadlift increase from 30kg to 60kg.

I have some questions to ask. Firstly am I overtraining? I never feel sore when I go back to workout the next day (possibly due to the supplements). My bicep gains have been very slow, any suggestions as to why? Do you think this is a good routine or should I introduce a rest day during the week and cut upper body workout day out?

Any help provided would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Steve

 

[steve_1251]

bump

 

[maybe]

wow. All right, well first, this is just ineffective much less overtraining. At your weight and experience and with your goals, there is honestly no reason at all for you to have any days where you work out twice. Also, looking at your core lift numbers, there is really no reason for you to do any kind of isolation at this point. I would encourage you to check out the stronglifts 5x5 routine and start there. There's also no reason for any kind of supplements (maybe a protein shake) at this point either. Squats, Deads, and Bench need to become your bread and butter. If you're used to 3000 calories a day, then that's good too, just try to get it all from whole foods.

Your workout should be three days, four days at the very most:
Monday - Squat, Bench, Barbell Row
Wednesday - Squat, Military Press, Deads
Friday - Squat, Bench, Barbell Row

until you get those lifts up to at least your body weight, there won't be many people on this forum that will suggest anything that varies much from what I've listed here.
Best of luck to you!

 

[Colstreamer]

Agree with maybe except you ought to rotate the programme he outlined so one week A,B,A the following week B,A,B otherwise your deadlifts and overhead press will lag. You could also look into push,pull,legs routines.
Also ditch the maximuscle shakes. They're overpriced crap. Used to be good back in the day. Now all they do is chuck creatine in every shake they make to make up for the rest being shite. Go to myprotein if you're in the uk they're half the price of maximuscle (I thought uk cos you put your weight in metric and height in imperial) or NTBM if you're in the states (I'd like to use it but can't financially justify importing it ATM).


---------------------------------

Nulli secundus - second to none

Honi soit que mal y pense - evil be to him who evil thinks.

People usually fail when they are on the verge of success, so pay as much care to the end as the beginning: Then there will be no failure - Lao Tzu

 

[steve_1251]

Cheers for the responses guys, sounds good. I'm a ectomorph so it's very difficult for me to gain weight, I could only bench press 15kg for 10 reps when I first started working out. So I thought that doing all the above would enable me to get up to a good level quickly and that I could probably get away with overtraining due to weightlifters beginners luck. It's really annoying me how long it is taking to even be able to bench press my body weight! I only want to gain lean muscle, my body fat is currently around 12% (according to one of those trampy calculations) I'd like to get this down to about 8%.

"Maybe" do you have a link to that stronglifts 5x5 routine? I can't seem to find it... By isolation do you mean no dumbbell curls, triceps, lats etc?

Cheers, colstreamer. Yeah I'm from the UK, Northern Ireland to be precise. I went with maximuscle as they seemed to have the best reputation that I could find and are pretty well respected in the UK with loads of big sponsorship deals... although admittedly very expensive! Although I was hoping that you get what you pay for but maybe not... I've tried a few other brands but maximuscle is the only one that doesn't make me gag and feel sick upon drinking a shake. What do you recommend for me from myprotein?

 

[Colstreamer]

Cheers for the responses guys, sounds good. I'm a ectomorph so it's very difficult for me to gain weight, I could only bench press 15kg for 10 reps when I first started working out. So I thought that doing all the above would enable me to get up to a good level quickly and that I could probably get away with overtraining due to weightlifters beginners luck. It's really annoying me how long it is taking to even be able to bench press my body weight! I only want to gain lean muscle, my body fat is currently around 12% (according to one of those trampy calculations) I'd like to get this down to about 8%.

"Maybe" do you have a link to that stronglifts 5x5 routine? I can't seem to find it... By isolation do you mean no dumbbell curls, triceps, lats etc?

Cheers, colstreamer. Yeah I'm from the UK, Northern Ireland to be precise. I went with maximuscle as they seemed to have the best reputation that I could find and are pretty well respected in the UK with loads of big sponsorship deals... although admittedly very expensive! Although I was hoping that you get what you pay for but maybe not... I've tried a few other brands but maximuscle is the only one that doesn't make me gag and feel sick upon drinking a shake. What do you recommend for me from myprotein?

Here's a link to stringlifts website. It details the 5x5 programme. If you have any questions about it there are LOADS of threads on it here in the weightlifting section and in the logs section. Or you can PM me if you can't find the answers you're looking for.

You can get a 5kg bag from myprotein for 53 quid just over a tenner per kilo, much better value than maximuscle's £30-40 per kg!

If you get a shaker they mix better


---------------------------------

Nulli secundus - second to none

Honi soit que mal y pense - evil be to him who evil thinks.

People usually fail when they are on the verge of success, so pay as much care to the end as the beginning: Then there will be no failure - Lao Tzu

 

[steve_1251]

Read all about the 5x5 routine there. It's sounds ridiculous that you can get gains in all muscles from doing such a light routine but I trust you guys. I'm going to start it on monday! I was wondering if you had to keep doing the same exercises every week? I mean could you do flat bench press one week and incline the next? And what exercise does it mean by deadlift? Is that bent-knee deadlift, straight-leg deadlift, sumo deadlift etc? It didn't mention any of that in the pdf file.

 

[Colstreamer]

Read all about the 5x5 routine there. It's sounds ridiculous that you can get gains in all muscles from doing such a light routine but I trust you guys. I'm going to start it on monday! I was wondering if you had to keep doing the same exercises every week? I mean could you do flat bench press one week and incline the next? And what exercise does it mean by deadlift? Is that bent-knee deadlift, straight-leg deadlift, sumo deadlift etc? It didn't mention any of that in the pdf file.

The thing with this program is, you increase the weight by 5lbs (2.5kg ish) each workout, 5kg for deadlift so it keeps up with the squat weight, you wanna use a light starting weight so you dont stall out too soon. It may seem a light workout but squats 3 times a week can get pretty tough as the numbers go up.

The deadlift is your bog standard bent leg deadlift, if you wanna set your feet a bit wider I don't see why not but keep the flat bench bro, remember you're increasing weight each workout, if you start alternating exercises you won't be able to maintain that steady increase. The whole idea is to work on form while the weights are light and the weight will come with time. After 12 weeks you ought to add about 45kg to your starting upper body weights and 90kg to your squat and deadlift assuming you dont stall out at all.


---------------------------------

Nulli secundus - second to none

Honi soit que mal y pense - evil be to him who evil thinks.

People usually fail when they are on the verge of success, so pay as much care to the end as the beginning: Then there will be no failure - Lao Tzu

 

[steve_1251]

I don't understand the start of this routine at all. I understand that its important that use good form but I've read books and seen videos on how to do each of these exercises with perform form. Surely it's a waste of time lifting a weight for 5x5 that is >20kg lighter than the weight I can currently lift for 3x10. This won't build any strength/muscle at all because I am already that strong, actually stronger! It says you'll be gaining strength every workout as evidenced by the fact that you're able to add 2.5kg to the bar. But that's not true because I could already lift the weight that I will be lifting in week 6 in week 1 with relative ease. In fact I'm just delaying the process... the gains in strength will only begin around week 6 (depending on how much you lowered your starting weight by) when I start lifting weights that actually challenge my strength. So I'm not sure I want to spend 6 weeks working out only to slightly improve my form while staying at the same strength. I think I just going to start the 5x5 exercises at a weight that I can do those exercises for 3x10. But maybe I am missing something... would this be a big mistake?

 

[ramnares]

There are quite a number of EF users who will testify to the effectiveness of the 5 X 5 routine. You don't have to start at a weight that is considerably lighter than one you're using right now, you can modify the weight to suit yourself. The point is to follow the routines that are laid out. Like the posters said, adding 5 lbs each time may sound light but will add up very quickly. There are quite a few forums with guys that have stalled and needed to deload and reset, so just because it sounds light now doesn't necessarily mean it's a mistake. Also, it's a bit worrying that you say that you aren't concerned about perfecting your form. On all the main lifts if your form is off you'll end up either plateauing or worst, hurting yourself. Give the routine a chance and put the work in.