Critique my workout

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hey guys, am thinking of joining a gym soon and I’ve come up with a training program. I would be most appreciative if any of our SDMB gymrats could take a look and maybe give me a little feedback. My goals are to lose fat and firm up a little bit. Cheers.

MONDAY:

Push ups to failure
15 dumbbell leg squats
Pull ups to failure
30 stomach crunches

Two minutes rest between exercises, and as many circuits as I can manage in 30 mins. Over time, I aim to increase this to 45 mins, and drop the rests down to 1 minute. That will take time though. I’m a total beginner. After the resistance training, I intend to do 30 mins of cardio.

WEDNESDAY:

3x10 Shoulder presses
3x10 bicep curls
3 sets of tricep dips to failure
3x15 dumbbell shrugs

2 mins rest between sets. Again, 30 mins cardio afterwards.

FRIDAY

4x10 bench press
4x10 dumbbell squats
4x5 deadlifts (lower reps 'cos I want to go particularly heavy on these)
4x20 calf raises
4x10 dumbbell clean 'n press

30 mins cardio. This one is probably my toughest workout, so I might not do this cardio session for the first few weeks. I’ll see how it goes.

Saturday - Same as Wednesday.

DIET:

I’m crap at sticking to diets. I’m going to keep this a little loose. My target is 2200 calories a day. No junk food, lots of vegetables, some fruit (not a big fan of fruit, but I’ll try to wolf down an apple and a banana a day), lean meat for dinner, and plenty of water.

When I start, I’m only going to be working out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I’ll bring the Saturday workout in after a few months once I’ve built up some stamina.

So, what do you reckon?

2

Nobody? After 244 views?

3

I’ll bite.

Looks reasonable, but a bit unbalanced (far more upper body than ab and legs, more chest and little back).

At a minimum, I’d recommend:
more abs/core:

  • planks
  • leg raises (incline board if you have access to one)
  • crunches on exercise ball
  • If your gym has cable machines of some sort: chops
  • Russian twists (I think that’s what they’re called): sitting on your butt, legs up (body in a “V”), then twisting with a medicine ball - touching the medicine ball on each side.

more back:

  • rows (bar and dumb bells), sitting, bent-over, one arm/both arm
  • reverse flys
  • lat pulldowns

more legs:

  • leg press
  • hamstring curls
  • jump onto boxes
  • lunges (in place/across the room, with/without weight)

You’ll also want to mix things up a bit. Instead of doing bench press all the time, do some chest press (dumbbells), etc… You want to keep changing the exercises you do for each muscle group.

4

That’s great feedback. Thanks cormac262!

I’ll add some lat pulldowns and some planks into Wednesday & Saturday’s workouts, and I’ll be sure to do Monday’s crunches on an exercise ball. Also, I’ll add some hamstring curls to Friday’s workout, and alternate squats/lunges & bench press/chest press on a weekly basis.

5

Why is this better than Starting Strength?

6

I agree with cormac’s assessments, basically more legs, core, and back.

I see you’re putting in pulldowns, so that’s good. You should also consider some form of rows so you get good work on the rhomboids as well.

You need more core. You’ll get some lower back from squat movements and deadlifts; I still like isolating it but you can judge depending on how you feel you’re getting incidentally. You should defintely consider something for obliques as well, like he suggests with chops or the like. Don’t forget lower abs either, jackknives, leg lifts, etc.

For legs, you have the complex movements covered, but if you’re going to do any isolations, you should do them in legs because the muscles are so much larger, so consider some leg extensions and leg curls.

7

Your goal is to lose weight, so you have to understand that you will physically lose the weight by exhaling. Sure, some will be lost to heat and water, but the heat’s not that much and the water will and should be replaced. So to roughly gauge when you’re losing weight, you have to be breathing hard.

That said, you want to spend the entire gym time doing things that make you exhale. I therefore recommend spreading out your 30 minutes of cardio into six 5-minute blocks. Use that as your upper-body rest period.

If your goal were to build muscle or maintain cardiac health, I’d tell you differently, but since you want to lose weight, an elevated heart rate and respiratory rate is the way to go.

8

Personally, I’d skip the cardio and lift more weights. If you’re taking in less calories than you’re expending, the weight should come off (everybody’s body is different). The overall theory is also that muscle burns faster, the more muscle you have, the more calories it takes. Keeping the same caloric intake while increasing muscle mass will reduce physical weight. Or so the theory goes.

I still love my push/pull days workout routine and have been using this since a beginner Here are my full routines. Once you discover your 1RM (one rep max), fill in the rest of the numbers for each exercise. These hit all the major muscle groups. **If you’re unsure how to properly do any of these, ask a trainer for help as form is so much more important than weight. **

Monday
80% 1RM
Back and Bis
300 Squats 3 x 8 x 240
300 Deadlifts 3 x 8 x 240
165 Leg Curls 3 x 8 x 132
500 Calf Raises 3 x 8 x 400
260 Seated Rows 3 x 8 x 208
150 Lat Pull Downs 3 x 8 x 120
200 Shrugs 3 x 8 x 160
95 Crumple Bar Curls 3 x 8 x 76
40 Incline Dumbbell Curls 3 x 8 x 32

Tuesday
65% 1RM
Chest and Tris
220 Flat Bench Press 3 x 12 x 143
220 Incline Bench Press 3 x 12 x 143
285 Machines Flyes 3 x 12 x 185.25
180 Military Press 3 x 12 x 117
40 Lateral Raises 3 x 12 x 26
250 Reverse Flyes 3 x 12 x 162.5
190 Pushdown 3 x 12 x 123.5
100 Lying French Press 3 x 12 x 65
50 Kickbacks 3 x 12 x 32.5
Abs 3 x 12 x 0

Thursday
65% 1RM
Back and Bis
300 Squats 3 x 12 x 195
300 Deadlifts 3 x 12 x 195
165 Leg Curls 3 x 12 x 107.25
500 Calf Raises 3 x 12 x 325
260 Seated Rows 3 x 12 x 169
150 Lat Pull Downs 3 x 12 x 97.5
200 Shrugs 3 x 12 x 130
95 Crumple Bar Curls 3 x 12 x 61.75
40 Incline Dumbbell Curls 3 x 12 x 26
Friday
80% 1RM
Chest and Tris
220 Flat Bench Press 3 x 8 x 176
220 Incline Bench Press 3 x 8 x 176
285 Machines Flyes 3 x 8 x 228
180 Military Press 3 x 8 x 144
40 Lateral Raises 3 x 8 x 32
250 Reverse Flyes 3 x 8 x 200
190 Pushdown 3 x 8 x 152
100 Lying French Press 3 x 8 x 80
50 Kickbacks 3 x 8 x 40
Abs 3 x 8 x 0
I do that for 8 weeks take a week off and then do this for two weeks:

Superset workout

Sunday-Chest
4 sets of each:
Flat bench 8135 then Flyes 825
Dips 870 then Pullovers 840
Incline Dumbbell press 835 then decline pushups 8body
1 set of each:
Cable crossovers arms at 90 degrees 860 palms neutral 860 palms up 860 palms down
Arms at 45 degrees 860 lifts

Monday-Back
4 sets of each:
Lat pulldowns 8120 then seated rows 8120
Deadlifts 8130 then hyperextensions 825(plate)
Shrugs 8120 then reverse flyes 8130
1 set of each:
Assisted pullups 8

Tuesday-Arms
4 sets of each:
Hail caesars 825 then concentration curls 830
Push downs 880 then twisting curls 830
21s65 then French press65
Wednesday-Legs
4 sets of each:
Squats 8135 then Calf raises 8285
Leg extensions 8110 then leg curls 8110
Lunges 8100 then side lunges 8100
Hack and stiff leg deadlift

Thursday-Shoulders
4 sets of each:
Military Press 880 then lateral raises 825
Front raise 825 then Arnold presses 825
Internal rotator cuff 8*30 then external rotator cuff

(Ego note: the numbers below are from a post from last year, I haven’t plateaued, just lazy to type in new ones)