Thread: Critique my program please

This is my first post here and I am after some opinions of my program.

For some background info I’m 32yo, 186cm, 92kg and spend Mon-Fri/7:30-5:00 at a desk.

I've been in the gym since I was 15 and had few personal trainers in the early days to help with programs and knowledge. I spent 5 years through the mid-late 90’s modelling in SE Asia so although I was very heavily into dieting and gym I always had to battle to keep my size down. To give you an idea I used to hover around the 77-81kg mark back then.

I’m coming back to the gym after a 2-year lay-off and am wanting to reduce body fat and bulk up a bit more. I’m not wanting to diet too much as it just wouldn’t fit in with my lifestyle but with my metabolism, and as long as I watch heavy food, I’ll be fine. I’m basically having 3 good healthy meals a day (making sure there’s enough protein) and 3 shakes in between meals. Also taking Creatine 30 min before a workout and with pre-bedtime shake.

This is a workout that was given to me many years ago and it always worked very well for me:

MONDAY
Chest & Biceps

Flat Bench
Incline Bench
DB Flys or Pec Deck

BB Curls
Seated alternating DB Curls
Preacher Curls

TUESDAY
Legs

Squats
45 Degree Press
Extensions
Hamstring Curls
Standing & Seated Calf Raise

THURSDAY
Shoulders & Triceps

Military Press
Seated DB Delt Raise
As above but leaning forward
Upright Rows

Dips or close grip bench
Push-down
Lying extension

FRIDAY
Back

Wide Pulldowns or Chins
Reverse close Pulldowns
Seated Rows
Bent over DB Rows

Pretty much 3 heavy sets of between 8-12 reps on each workout should not be more than 45 minutes or so. Abs are alternated every second workout.

So what do you think of the program?

My plan would be to alternate the order or change a few of the exercises every couple of weeks.

Aaron.

Looks good to me :)

Training is always a personal preference thing.

Im on a bit of a mission at the moment so have been madly researching to try and find exactly what I should be doing based on what some of the Pros and their trainers do / recommend...

This is some of the snippets that make sense to me and what I will be trying...

You should try and do the same body part every 5 days. Calves and abs 2 days off in between. eg Calves on Mon then Thurs then Sun...

You should also do 2 compound movements (basic mass building) and 2 shaping movements no matter what level you are at.

Change your compound and shaping exercises every 3 weeks. eg This could mean something as simple as instead of doing bench press with dumbell, do it with a barbell.

No more than 4 sets for each exercise and always try and aim for 12 reps - 12 being failure on the last 2 sets of any exercise. Use rest pause to get them if you have to. But always finish the 12.

Use a training diary and record whether the set / weight was too easy, was hard, or failure, or had to rest pause to get the reps. You want to have the right weight where you fail on the last 2 sets - but only at 12 reps.

The weight you lift is irrelevant. You just increase or decrease to ensure you hit failure at 12 reps. Always however have as your goal to continually increase the weight you can lift for an exercise over time - even if it is only by a few pounds.

Rest in between sets should be limited to around 90 seconds.

Legs should be 15 reps and around 2 - 3 minutes rest.

You should eat every 2.5 hours and try and eat 7-8 times per day. Note that a protein shake after a work out would count as a meal. Whether your goal is mass or weight loss will determine what you eat.

Do a combination of free weights and machine weights. Free weights will hit more muscles at once and give you much better definition and shaping, but machine weights will help you with better form when hitting pre-exhausted muscles and help with mass building. Machine weights are great to really finish off a muscle group you are training.

If you have a partner then really try and increase your focus on the negative part of the rep - ie when you are lowering the weight. Something like take 2 seconds to raise the weight but 4 seconds to lower it.

There is obviously LOTS more that covers diet, supplements, phramaceuticals, recuperation, types of exercises for each body part etc... but the above were a few off the top of my head.

Thanks Angus,

You have some good points there. Most of which I pretty much have in the back of my mind anywhay when I train.

I may be a little low on reps though for some things but I swear by a training diary. You know exacty what you did on every set the week before so you know whether you have to do that extra rep or add that extra kg. Every workout ends up being a tiny step forward.

I have generally done my compund erxercises first and then isolation. On the very odd occasion I might swap this just to scare the body a little bit!

Plus my girlfriend (who has a better 6-pack than me) is a pretty good training partner.

Aaron.

Hi Aaron. I would say at a quick glance that you ned some more hammy work to balance out the quads training and I would drop one of the bicep exercises. again it is a personal choice just my 0.02 pennies.

Thanks NSMSAD,

I tend to do more sets on leg curls (4-5) but do you have any suggestion for another Hamstring exercise for someone who tends to have a bit of a lower back problem? Eg. not 100% sure if I could do straight-leg dead-lifts.

I think the muscle I have problems with is called the Quadratum lumborum and I tend to get into trouble doing things such as 45 leg press if I bring my knees back too much (poor hammy and Glute flexibility I believe).

Aaron.

How about finishing off with a few sets of one legged lying leg curl?
Yer Quad Lumorum Is very deep muscle from memory it think it hooks up with tranverse abdominus? anyway it is a core muscle so abdominal work should help strengthen it.

I can tell you, it's a bugger of a muscle to have problem with.

I know the exact moment I did it 4 years ago and so far neither physio or massage has been able to fix it. I've learnt how to give it a stretch but that also seems to aggravate it a little.

I'm going to get it looked at again over the next few weeks to try and avoid it becoming too much of an issue as I get back into training and the weights start to increase.

It generally tends to fire up doing squats, 45 leg-press and seated rows but at this stage I am keeping the weights well under what I was able to max prior to the lay-off. (Laze-off I should say ). Plus trying to keep up the stretching each night irrespective of whether I have trained or not.

Aaron.

aajenki

You mention that your goals are to reduce bodyfat and bulk up a bit more.

I personally believe there is too much volume being performed by drug free trainers, which eventually leads to overtraining, which in turn leads to injuries. Most if not all injuries can be prevented.

Fat loss:
For any average person I would suggest some sort of aerobic activity at least 3 times a week with heart rate 80% max for at least 20 mins.

Bulking up:
Stick with the basics, once a week each bodypart. Bench press, Shoulder press, Squats, Deadlifts, Dips, Chins, Abdominal work. Extra direct arm work is optional. Any extra unneccessary work eats into recovery ability, limiting growth.

Just my opinion. Should work for beginners and advanced trainers.

Adrian See

Chest looks fine, maybe alternate between flat and incline dumbbell presses each week. Also, try doing some weighted dips (leaning forward, wide grip, head down) sometime. They are another neglected classic that pack on mass.

Drop one of the bicep exercises. 6 sets is plenty, they are a much smaller muscle that your chest for instance.

For legs, drop leg curls and start doing stiff-leg deadlifts. Nothing bulids hamstring mass like these. Do your leg extensions after these if you wish. Calves looks good.

For shoulders, drop one exercise, preferably upright rows. Try 3 sets presses and then a superset of side and bent over raises. Plenty for a small muscle group like the deltoid.

For triceps, close grip OR dips and lying extensions OR pushdowns. 6 sets, that's all that's needed.

Back, seriously, start with deadlifts. I've put on more mass on my back in the last 6 months doing deads than in the previous three years doing anything else.

Deadlifts - 3 sets
Wide Grip Chins - 3 set
Barbell Rows or Seated Row - 3 sets
Dumbbell Shrugs - 3 sets

Perhaps 2 sets of hyperextensions if you wish. If you feel like you need to do more after that, you aint lifting heavy enough.