Newbie routine

[Eilig]

Hi everyone, I joined the forum a while ago but didn't start lifting weights until beginning of March this year.

When I started I hit the gym 3 times per week but I have recently stepped up my game and I try to work out every day but usually I end up with 6 days per week. I feel motivated, dedicated and healthy like never before. My goal is to do 15 to 20 sets every time and be done in 45 - 60 minutes. Any longer than that I run out of steam. I feel better "pump" when I do fewer exercises but more sets, hence the "unorthodox" 5 sets per exercise. Furthermore, I prioritize my arms and therefore train biceps/triceps twice per week but they always get at least 48 hours of rest.

Starting stats:

32 years
5'10
175 lbs
22.6% BF

Day 1
5x10 Bench press
5x10 Butterfly
5xFail Dips (currently 8-10 per set, will be adding weights soon)
5x10 Lying EZ-Bar curl

Day 2
5x10 Dumbbell or Military Shoulder Press
5x10 Front Two-Dumbbell Raise
5x10 Lateral Two-Dumbbell Raise

Day 3
5x10 Pull-ups Wide Grip (using weights to assist)
5x10 V-Bar Pulldown
5x10 EZ-Bar Preacher Curl
5x10 EZ-Bar Curl (inverted grip)

Day 4
5x10 Leg extension
5x10 Calf Raises
5x10 Seated Leg Curl
5x10 Leg Press

Day 5
5xFail Dips
5x10 Lying EZ-Bar curl
5x10 EZ-Bar Preacher Curl
5x10 EZ-Bar Curl (inverted grip)

Day 6
5x10 Crunches
5x10 Knee Raise On Parallel Bars
5x10 Butt-Ups

Day 7
Rest or Abs

Miscellaneous: I do no cardio except soccer maybe once per month. Adding more rest days to my schedule is counter productive as it brings me out of sync and I truly enjoy hitting the gym.

Goal: put on more mass and strength and eventually reach 175lbs at 10% BF

I appreciate any feedback.

 

[_cato_]

I wouldn't recommend working out that many days a week. Most people see good results with 3-4 days a week.

You don't have any row movement in your back day. You should also probably add squats and or deadlifts in there as well. Even for a bodypart split, generally you have too many isolation movements, such as leg extensions or butterflies (both of which I wouldn't bother with), and not enough compound movements.

If you're relatively new to lifting, its better to do more compound movements and get more bang for your buck instead of spinning your wheels with alot of isolation stuff.

 

[Unit 2005]

Unless you have been training a long time and have plenty of chemical assitance, this routine will not do much for you my friend. You need to carefully plan a split, not just pick exercises and random days, throw it all together and call it a split. Your exercise choice is way off also, not having a go at you now and really, i do want to help. Let me explain - Muscles grow by overloading, a term that basically means that one week you lift "X" amount of weight, the next you add a little bit more....this process signals your body to adapt to the new stress that it is being asked to deal with. The problem with your exercies chioces is that they are 90% isolation movements, which have their place, but compund lifts recruit the most fibres and ultimately allow us to use the most weight on and grow from. Take in point leg day, you have no squat. The single best exercise you can do for muscle growth, back no deads or rows....and so on. Try this routine. Its pefect for someone of your training experience and will give you all the stimulus you need int he gym. Remember, the biggest part of the puzzle is diet. Hope this helps:

Problem 1 = shoulders the day after chest.
Problem 2 = Upper body 3 days in a row.
Problems 3 = 6/7 day splits will only work if you are using a LARGE amount of steroids, HGH ect. Basically you cannot have a job if you waan train like this as you will need so much good food and rest that it would consume 90% of your time!

You mention your arms are your weak point? cool, mine are too. I hit them on their own day too. Twice a week on their own is a bit much, remember tris get hit hard with chest as do Bis with back.


Monday - Chest/Shoulders

Incline bench press 4 sets of 12,10,8,6 reps
Flat bench press 4 sets of 12,10,8,6 reps
Weighted Dips 4 sets of 12,10,10,8 (+ do one more set of bodyweight dips to failure)
Lateral DB raises 4 sets of 10,10,10,15
Seated Machine Shoulder press 5 sets of 12,10,10,8,15


Tuesday - Legs & Abs

Squats 4 sets of 12,10,8,6
Front squats 4 sets of 12,10,10,8
Leg press 4 sets of 12,10,10,25
Laying leg curls 4 sets of 12,10,10,8
Romanian deadlifts 4 sets of 12,10,10,15
Calf raises 4 sets of 25 reps
3 ab exercises 3 sets of 15-30 reps each.

Wednesday - Rest day

Thursday - Back

Deadlifts 4 sets of 8,8,6,4
Bent over barbell rows 4 sets of 12,10,8,8
Chins 4 sets of 8-10 (if you cant reach that many - do lat pulldowns)
DB shrugs 4 sets of 12,10,10,15
Reverse pec dec fly (or bent over laterals) 4 sets of 12 reps

Friday Arms & light legs

Leg extensions supersetted with leg curls 5 sets of 10 reps each. Immediatly after finishing a superset, do 10 bodyweight squats....nice and deep, work on your form as squatting is the one exercise that will add the most muscle to your body.

Close grips Bench press 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Overhead EZ bar extensions 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Pushdowns 3 sets of 10-12 reps, 1 set of 30-50 reps
Barbell Curls 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Seated DB curls 3 sets of 8-10 reps
DB hammer curls 3 sets of 10-12 reps, 1 set of 30-50 reps.


Saturday & Sunday - Rest days

your arms will blow doing this routine. Good luck.

 

[Unit 2005]

Just read you struggling with dips to hit 8-10 reps. You wont be strong enough to do weighted dips just yet, use a dipping machine and adjust the assistance so that you are getting the required reps (when i said a bodyweight set, i was thinking around 25-50 reps...so bare that in mind with weight selection.) if you gym has no dipping machine, do decline bench pressess.

 

[Eilig]

Thank you for the feedback, I will change my training schedule accordingly and add all the basic exercises (Squats, Dead, Bench, Rows, Military, Dips, Chins) and do less isolation. However, the Tuesday you suggested with 27 sets, especially legs, does not work for me. I run out of steam after 20 sets and even more so when I train legs as that completely drains me of energy.

I have my own business and work from home so I am very flexible with food and training schedule.

With dips I hit 8-10 if I have trained chest before, if not, like yesterday when I train arms alone I usually hit 15 reps. A dipping machine is available in the gym.

 

[Unit 2005]

The legs have 4 muscle groups - Quads, Glutes, Hams and Calf. You walk around on the all day, run on them etc...they Need way more stimulus than chest or back. That leg routine is fine, 3 exercises for the largest bodybuilding muscle group (quads) is not much bro! 2 for hams and 1 for calves????? Leg training is the hardest day but the most rewarding, i split it up so you could pump them twice a week. Believe me, leg training will make the biggest impact to your bodybuilding development. People want to compete, then find out they are 1-5 years behind on their leg work. Get it done!