Thanks again for working with me on this. I'd sign up for your personal training if you live in Nashville. The PTs at my gym are a joke, most of them are in what I would consider worse shape than me.
I appreciate the acknowledgement. In truth, I've seen some pretty crappy looking trainers (physically) who know their stuff beyond belief. That said, the training industry is in shambles. It's making money, yea.... but it's not giving it's paying customers what they deserve. Most trainers are boobs.
I've reviewed the plan and have made a few changes for my own enjoyment, and I also have a couple questions.
Okay.
Workout A:
Flat BB Bench (3x8)
Cable Row (3x8)
Cable Pulldown (2x12)
DB Overhead press (shoulder press right?) (2x12)
At the end:
1 Bicep (does this have to be the same each time?) (3x8-10)
1 Tricep (same each time?) (3x8-10)
2 Abs (2x30)
Yes, DB Overhead Press is shoulder press. Do these standing.
No, the bicep exercise does not have to be the same each time. Really arm work isn't all that important while dieting for most people. I personally rotate my arm exercises from workout to workout.
I would keep it to 2 sets for biceps and 2 sets for triceps. I'd stick with the 12-15 rep range.
What are you planning on doing for abs? My suggestion would be to rotate movements; flexion, extension, rotation, stabilization.
Flexion, think crunches
Extension, think hyper extensions or good mornings
Rotation, think russian twists
Stabilization, think planks
And you don't always have to be doing such high reps. People get caught up in doing high reps to 'feel the burn' and 'tone the abz!11' but in truth you're better off mixing the intensities. High reps is fine some of the time. Other times you should focus on some heavier work. Weight your crunches, for example, so you're limited to 10 reps or something like that.
The Lunges and the Deadlifts will be too hard on the knee.
Romanian deadlifts have little to no knee flexion... are you aware of this?
How about:
Cable Flies or Fly machine (3x10)
DB shoulder (side and front) (3x8)
Pic of what I'm talking about:
No, I wouldn't add those movements.
Workout B:
Leg Press (3x8)
Leg Curl (2x12)
Incline DB Bench (2x12)
Decline chest Hammerstrenth (3x8)
High Row Hammerstrength (2x12)
Pullups (3x8)
If you can do leg presses and leg curls, you can certainly do romanian deadlifts.
Why do you like using machines?
At the end:
1 Bicep (can vary what type of bicep?)
1 Tricep (same question?)
2 Abs (same question?)
See above.
Questions:
Why 2x12 on some and 3x8 on others? I have normally just stuck to the 'ol standard of 3x10. Sometimes doing 10,8,6 instead and increasing the weight each time.
Do you have a reason why you stuck with the old 3x10 or did you just read it someplace and buy into the concept?
Varying your loading parameters has been shown empirically and through research to be your best bet for muscle maintenance or growth. Most of my workouts actually consist of a heavy and a light component, which is what I was shooting for with the outline I presented in the workout above.
The first day was heavy horizontal pushing and pulling for the upper body and light vertical pushing and pulling.
The second day was heavy vertical pushing and pulling and light horizontal.
You switched that.
My heavy in my workouts personally is 1-6 reps per set. My light is 8-15 reps, just to give you some perspective.
There isn't a right or wrong.
To boot, there are different types of muscular development. It's certainly not an either/or, on/off switch but do some research on myofibrillar vs. sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. This isn't the sole reason for for the varying rep ranges but it's one of them.
Do you recommend, on the 2x12 and 3x8, increasing the weight each time or doing one weight that I can struggle to do 3 sets with?
That's a good question.
I suggest picking a weight and sticking with it across the rep range.
Here's an important bit of advice: You should never be struggling to the point where you fail. Failure, as in, you don't or barely complete the last rep (this isn't really failure but close enough) is not your goal. Failing does not mean you are working the muscles good. It's not a muscular phenomenon. It's a neurological phenomenon. So don't chase this.
Each set you should leave 1-2 reps in the 'tank.'
I'd start conservatively and work your way up by adding weight 'to the bar' when you can at each successive workout. Blasting your muscles isn't what leads to positive adaptation. Progressively overloading them over a long period of time is.
For example, if for a particular exercise you are supposed to do 3 sets of 8 and today's training looks like this:
Today:
100 lbs x 8
100 lbs x 8
100 lbs x7
The next workout you would not adjust the weight. Shoot for the same weight until you can complete all sets for all prescribed reps.
Follow me?
You should read this a couple of times. I can't stress the two points about failure and starting conservatively enough. They're important.
At the end when I do one bicep, can I swap this up each workout between different bicep exercises? Same goes for tricep and Ab.
See above.
And I can tell that you're over-thinking this a bit; looking for a bunch of rigid rules and guidelines... and I'm sort of feeding you with answers which doesn't help the situation. You need to understand the basics and learn to apply them to your situation.
This is important b/c no workout is good or bad, right or wrong on its own merit. A workout is either proper or not in the context of what someone is using it for. That same workout I listed above would not be appropriate or optimal for the next person who is slightly different than you in either physique, goals, etc.
To add, that same workout won't work for you forever. At that point you're going to have to understand how to adjust it according to your ever-changing needs, goals, body, etc.
So don't see this as a set of rigid rules. See this as an art form based on logical application of foundational principles associated to weight training. If you haven't, I highly suggest reading through some of the stickies. You can pick and choose some of the more applicable ones in the 'words of wisdom' thread.
