William think about this, what do you think your triceps will respond best to? a tricep pressdown of probably less than 100lbs or a 240lb benchpress in which your triceps are under tension throughout the all reps? Obviously the benchpress. This is called a compound exercise as it works more than one muscle group and you move more than one joint at the same time. The tricep pressdown you only move your elbows and so you are limited to the amount of weight you can move. An even better example would be the dip in which you lift your whole bodyweight and the triceps are heavily involved, you obviously weigh alot more than 100lbs and so this makes the dip a much better option to build your triceps than your pressdowns. The same applies for your biceps, doing chinups in which you move your whole bodyweight will heavily involve your biceps especially if you use an underhand grip. I did alot of underhand chinups when I first started lifting and they made my biceps blow up like balloons.
I would suggest you join a gym and take a notepad with you, write down everything you do and how you liked them and things like that. That way you can look back and see what you enjoy and what seems to work for you.
Especially as a novice you could make a good weekly routine out of the following:
Legs - Back Squats, Romanian Deadlift
Back - Deadlifts, barbell rows, chin-ups
Chest - Flat Benchpress, Dips
Shoulders - Standing Military Press
Biceps - these are worked in the barbell rows and chin-ups
Triceps - these are worked strongly in the dips and also in the bench and shoulder presses.
Now if you look at those exercises, all of them are
compound exercises like mensioned above, for example the standing military press, you move your shoulder joint and your elbow joint, this means you can lift alot more weight and the potential for growth is much bigger.
Now take a look at a weight lifting program for beginners called the "Madcow 5x5", if you havnt heard of it here is an easy site in which you can make your own 5x5 routine -
5x5 Calculator
Look at the lifts in that routine, squats, flat barbell benchpress, barbell rows, military press, deadlifts, dips, barbell curls, tricep extensions, situps and hypers. Just about all of these are
compound lits.
Where it says "assistance" these are exercises in which you do at the end if you have enough energy left, but make sure you put everything into the main lifts as these will be the ones that will build you muscle and strength.
I would suggest you took away the situps on wednesday and replaced them with a couple of sets of romanian deadlifts, 2 sets 8 reps, then 2 or 3 sets of chinups, either wide overhand grip to hit your back or a shoulder width underhand grip, 2 sets 6-8 reps. These romanian deadlifts will help you get stronger on your squats and your deadlifts, two very important lifts whilst the chinups will help you get stronger on rows and benchpress. I would also suggest on Fridays instead of doing tricep extensions, you did flat benchpress again but with a close width grip, about shoulder width is good and this will heavily work the triceps and help you add more weight to your benchpress and military press, again two very important lifts.
So in all I would take a few days off to recover, join a gym and spend a session doing some warmups then a max effort set of squats, benchpress, rows then go again either the next day or a few days after and try some warmups and max effort sets of standing military press and deadlifts. Write all of your max effort sets down and then enter them into the website mensioned above (
5x5 Calculator) This will give you the weights to use for the next 12 weeks of your 5x5 routine and you should be good to go! Just take a few days off before starting the 5x5 routine and make sure to start eating as much as you can, especially quality meat and complex carbohydrates, some cottage cheese before bed wouldn't go a miss either.
I think thats everything?
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