I Don’t mean the scandals and the spiffy stuff you see on ads.
I’ve been looking around for people who post their ideas of 4 -12 weeks workouts that show you a simplified repetetive workout that seems to have the best results.
Ignoring diet, and supplements, what is the best plan…
I’ve noticed that in almost eveyr successful workout plan there are the following three excercises:
Hindu or Divebomber Pushups
Pulls up
Some form of Lunges or comibined lunge then pushup then stand up
If you dont know what these are just type it in youtube…
I’m looking for something that I could devote myself to for 3 weeks and see how the results look and decide whether continuing is going to make a difference.
Some people just haven’t got the natural physique to have a large muscled body, but nobody needs big muscles; you just need strong ones. IANAPhysicalInstructor, so I’ll leave it to those who know how best to do that.
Well, most succesful workout plans center around the squat, the bench and the deadlift, with pullups, dips and some form of upright press common additions. Divebombers etc. are a great way to prep a sedentary body for real work, but they quickly become too easy.
Three weeks is too little time to “see how the results look”. Hypertrophy, or muscle growth, becomes visible after roughly three months of consistent, progressive training effort (big individual differences apply here). If sedentary now, you will be appreciably stronger after just three weeks of diligent bodyweight training, though, due to increased neuromuscular efficiency. Soon after that, the divebombers and bodyweight lunges won’t increase your strength or muscle size much at all: you’ll need heavier resistance. This is the most common cause for stalled progress. What you did last week is not enough this week. Here barbells and dumbbells shine, as you can increase the load almost indefinitely, in baby steps.
I was the proverbial pencil neck at age 25: 140 lbs and 5´11". Now at 200 lbs, up three T-shirt sizes and about three times stronger by any measure. I work out at home, with simple equipment.
Regarding the need for big muscles: those chicks at the party don’t know how strong you are, nor do they care about your deadlift 1RM. What they do see is the size of your muscles. In many cases, a body that looks strong is preferable to a body that is one but doesn’t look like it. Few women or men find very large muscles attractive, but I haven’t met one who didn’t think thick forearms, full shoulders and a chiseled chest look good on a guy.
Naturally, the one to shoot for is a well-proportioned, muscled body that is also strong and flexible.
Good advice about the central role of compound moves (as listed). A good way to start is to learn good form from someone who actually knows and to begin with the major compound moves 2-3 sets at 8-15 reps/sets before fatigue about every other day. As you get more into it there is advantage to mixing in higher weight lower volume and more so to just mixing it up (“random periodization”). There are lots of advocates for a variety of techniques (lifting very slowly up and down in perfect form, explosive plyometric lifts, the CrossFit style high intensity rotations, etc.) but what is described is best to start and get some positive results fairly quickly.
btw, I am not a female but my impression is also that men are more likely to think women that women are attracted to big muscles more than they actually are - I have known more women who find big muscles unappealling and prefer the lean muscular (bicyclist/swimmer sort) more attractive than bulk. I’d be curious to get female Doper feedback. (Neither is very realistic for me but I’m married - sometimes even happily so - anyway!)
I’m not exactly interested in large muscles. My interest is to become stronger and faster more efficiently. And yes, looking to increase size a little bit.
My experience is this. Been a competative swimmer for 6-7 years and gave that up 3 year ago. Did all kinds of work outs and set up a regimen for a few months for a year and then i woudl take breaks. I’ve been fluctuating between 165 and 175 for a long time now. The problems is I get stronger, but I tend to lose weight very quickly when I excersize regularly. Muscles come out but I end up looking very thin. Been trying to hit 185-190, but I don’t want to gain mass and and end up looking like a bigger guy but kind of fat. I want to maintain what I have in terms of flexibility and strength, but build without losing.
I’ve heard that protein is important to not lose muscle mass. What else can I do?
By the way thanks for the time span tip. Didn’t consider the fails of a 3 week regimen.
The most effective exercise is the one you do. People get so fixated on the “right” method and then they try to force themselves to do it, can’t stand it, and quit completely. Much, much better to find a routine that you like enough to actually look forward to it (even if it isn’t the “best” way) because then you will stick to it. Later, when you catch yourself thinking “I need a break” or you start looking for reasons to miss, you need to change your routine even if it is working because it will stop working when you stop going.
Of course Mana JO’s point is cogent: exercise can only work if do it. But still different sorts of programs do accomplish different goals.
If I’ve got it right you are not looking to have a bodybuilder’s body but you want to gain some bulk as you perceive yourself as too skinny when you exercise regularly. Most competitive swimmers I have known have put in miles and miles in the pool and on top of their natural long narrow body builds have maximally developed their long slow twitch fibers much more than the fast twitch muscle fibers; probably many are more naturally slow twitch predominant people and don’t build mass easily.
You need to find a way to keep those slow twitch fibers you likely already have in numbers maximized and to build the bulk of the fast twitch fibers too. Yes that means heavy resistance work which generally means weights. Not losing flexibility means good form and not doing weights only.
Your op had put diet off the discussion but you really must consider it. It isn’t just that “protein is important”: the timing matters too. Yes, you want at least 1 to 1.8 gm of protein/kg body weight/day but more so that you want to time your protein intake to match your body’s anabolic demands. That means having a high protein snack within the hour window after a major work-out (like turkey and cheese on whole wheat, or even a sport nutrition bar with at least 14 if not 20gm or more of protein in it). Before hand have something carbs based to fuel your work-out.
Do 500 pullups every other day. 500 push-ups on the other days. Wake up in the mornings and run 2-3 miles hard. And get a bench do that. And get a punching bag and beat the crap outta that every other day for an hour or so. That’s what I do works pretty well.
As true as this is, for a goal like building muscle quickly, there are really only a few ways that work, and if you want to do that, you’d best learn to like them. The stripped 5x5 is a great way to start out, and will definitely meet the OP’s needs, provided that he eats to support the muscle growth.
Diet is the main factor. I’ve put on muscle quickly with no workouts at all, and seen big jumps in strength (again with no effort). And I’m a (small) woman. 6 months of eating right, and all of a sudden I can squat more than my body weight.
If you lose weight when you are working out, you’re not eating anywhere close to enough. If you tend to be lean, you need to eat a lot of food to increase strength and gain muscle weight. Moderate protein (because there is only so much your body can utilize) - I eat a gram per pound of my body weight, high fat, low carb will build your muscles, fuel your workouts, and keep your body fat low.
Everyone seems to be giving you little snippets of information, some of which are contradicting each other. This is a 12-week workout program that I’ve found was very effective at building strength and muscle mass. I know a bunch of guys who play professional rugby and this is roughly their training program as well. I haven’t found any exercises more effective than these ones.
Day 1 - Chest, Shoulders, Back and Abs
Bench press. Targets the chest. 4 reps on as heavy a weight as you can do, for 4 sets. 2-3 minute break between each set. Get someone to spot you. If you’re on your own, you can do it on the Smith machine instead.
Dumbbell row. Targets the upper back. Do 4 reps on as heavy a weight as you can, for 4 sets, with a 2 minute break in between sets.
Shoulder press. Targets the shoulders. Do 4 reps, for 4 sets, with a 2-3 minute break between sets.
Upright row. Targets upper back and shoulders. Do 4 reps, for 4 sets, with a 2 minute break between sets.
Weighted press ups. Targets the chest. I use a 45-pound weight, and I do 10 reps for 4 sets with a 1 minute break between sets. But if you’d rather do your Hindu or divebomber push ups, do them instead.
Wide grip pull ups. With a wide grip, pull ups target your upper back. Start with body weight pull ups, but when they get a bit easy put a weight belt on and tie a weight to it. 4 sets, as many reps as you can do, 2 minute breaks.
Day 2 - Arms and legs
Deadlifts. Targets loads of stuff: particularly the glutes, but also hamstrings, quads, lower back and upper back. Do 4 reps for 4 sets, with a good 3 minute break between sets. You can load up a lot of weight on this one: roughly 1.5 times body weight once you’re used to it. But make sure you get the technique right: don’t round your back, at all.
Squats. Targets the quadriceps. With a barbell like in that video it’s a brilliant exercise. Personally I don’t like putting the bar across my upper back like that, so I do it by holding two dumbbells and squatting down with them. 4 reps, 4 sets, 3 minute break.
Hamstring raises. Targets the hamstrings. Looks easy but it burns…
3rd day is a day off. Those are just ideas though: studies show the best way to work out is to vary the routine a bit. So if you want to build strength, the best way to do it is to vary how heavy the weight is between 80% and 100% of your one-rep maximum. So one day you might do a really heavy weight that you can only lift once, the next day you might do a lighter weight that you can lift 6 times. Switch up the exercises too: instead of pull ups, you can do the pull down machine to target the back for instance. You might want to lower the rest periods as well: I’ve set them all as 2-3 minutes there, but if you find that makes your workout too long, you can reduce the breaks to 1 minute on some of the easier exercises. Or you can sacrifice some of the “doubled-up” exercises: eg. only do 1 bicep and 1 tricep exercise instead of 2 of each.
In terms of diet, try and get a lot of protein (try and aim for 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight, so about 170g for you). I find chicken is the best way to do that, it has huge amounts of protein with no fat and hardly any carbs. Get a lot of fruit and vegetables, and keep doing aerobic work as well as the weights to stay lean.
It was, I admit, a bit counterintuitive to me that the recommendations for hypertrophy and for strength are different. My initial thoughts were that maximal cross sectional area (“CSA” in the guideline) would correlate well with maximal peak strength, but such is not the case (although I am still not quite clear as to why).
In any case the bottom line is pretty much as already discussed by several posters above with one point that deserves some emphasis: in addition to the undulating periodization with a focus on heavy weigh low rep core compound moves emphasized so far, the guideline also advises a supplemental set of light weight high rep of the same exercises to maximize hypertrophy, and of explosive moves at high velocity to maximize power - especially power that translates to athletic performance and activities of daily living. Muscular endurance is another beast.
BTW, a gram of protein/lb is on the high side. Going much higher than 1.8g/kg body weight (2.2lb) is unlikely to be helpful.
I find that a bit surprising as well, although it becomes more intuitive when you think that boxers tend to make huge strength gains without getting heavier or adding much muscle mass, while bodybuilders can make enormous muscle mass gains without proportionate increases in strength. How does that article recommend strength and muscle mass programs differ? Does it recommend higher reps for muscle mass? I think it’s recommending “drop sets” but I wasn’t sure, and I think it’s recommending shorter rest periods. I’m trying to work out if I’m striking the right balance in the program I laid out above…
There was a thread a while back where a guy posted some progress pics on him bulking up and then for hoots a magazine pic of a guy with a very lean “swimmer’s physique” and was absolutely stunned when almost every woman chose the swimmer, or said the OP looked best relatively early in the photo series.
I can’t seem to find the thread, I remember infamous “picture 11” though.
I think you qualify as needing the advanced hypertrophy training advice. For that the following statement applies:
Not drop sets (although those always made sense to me), more a last set at light weight high volume after the other 2 or 3 - the idea is that that set maximizes the GH and testosterone response to training. And again, adding in some explosive fast sets if the goal is power, especially power that translates into athletic performance.
I won’t go much into theory or complicated stuff, I’ll just give you specifics. Starting Strength is the name of a program that’s well known and highly recommended by many. It’s proven to work very well and there’s lots of experience behind it. You can find out all about it by googling.
Basically, you have a “day A” and “day B” that you alternate between with a day rest in between, and two days rest after the 3rd one in a week. It takes about an hour to do each day, 3 days a week. Day A is squats, bench press, and deadlift. Day B is squats, overhead press, and power clean. You do each exercise with 3 sets of 5 reps (with exception of deadlift and power clean), and you increase the weight each day (for the first few weeks or so it’s 10lb for squats, 20lb for deadlift, and 5lb for the others). Don’t throw in any other exercises for at least a while. It’s also critical that you eat enough to gain weight and muscle for good results. Diet is a big part of any strength training.
This is a very effective program for a novice. Many people will suggest other programs that are more complicated but it’s unneeded and likely a hindrance for a novice. I’ve been on the program myself for a little over a month now and have gotten great results (gained something like 8lb of mostly muscle, increased my 3x5 squat from 105lb to 210lb as an example). This novice program should last 3-9 months.