Effective routine to increase strength

dirtychinchilla

dirtychinchilla

dirtychinchilla

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Evening all,

So I'm 6ft and 95kg so about a two stone overweight. In the last year I went from 108kg to 84kg but since returning home from university have, evidently, put 11kg back on.

Now I'm looking to lose weight so I joined a gym this weekend and plan on swimming twice a week. I'm a good strong swimmer and find this the easiest way to do any cardio as I've always hated running. I'm also absolutely hopeless at running, although have found it easier since losing weight, and am hoping to being by running 1 mile and see if I can step it up gradually.

I'll be doing my best to eat healthily and well now, but I'm not great at it, like carbs too much! Hopefully this exercise will help offset some of this.

Additionally, which is where I would like you sport fellow's advice, I want to begin to develop more muscle. I'd say that at the moment I'm not weak, but definitely desire to be stronger and show more obvious muscle (some being hidden under the fat!).

So, I'm wondering whether you guys could suggest a routine I could do twice a week (hopefully) which will help me put on muscle mass. I know I could just go to the gym and lift weights but it's not necessarily constructive if I don't have a plan. I have no particular shape or size that I'm aiming for, but I've currently got strong legs (after carrying 17st around for years) so I'd be focusing more on my upper body.

Apologies for the long winded post...I'll try to get some pics up some time soon!

Cheers,
dirtychinchilla
 
I've just been having a look at stronglifts as I've seen it recommended a few times. Is it really worth it? I'm a bit confused about what's going on though - do you just use the app and do what it says?
 
If you're only going to be doing weights twice a week then a good routine would be a push/pull routine, or a semi full body workout each session. Then alternate it so have a Workout A and a workout B and alternate them week on week perhaps.

By push / pull, I mean you do an exercise and do the antagonist on the same session.

By full body I mean you select exercises which exercise each body part.

It also comes down to how long you want to spend in the gym, even with 2 sessions a week 90mins is the most you'll need - even down to 60-70mins if you crank up the intensity.

A typical push pull workout:

upper:

Bench / BOR
Dips / Chins
OHP / Deadlifts

Lower:

Squats / RDLs
Walking Lunges / Single Leg RDLs
Squats / Deadlifts

That pretty much covers all the main lifts.

Full body:

Day 1:

Squats
Bench
BORs
OHP

Day 2:

Deadlifts
Dips
Chins
Walking lunges / bulgarian split squats


For size, the general rule is volume (i.e. lots of volume = growth, with focussing on the eccentric (lowering/negative) phase of the lift) - without training to fatigue, but at around your 8RM for a good 4 sets at least (excluding warm up). With the last set being as many reps as possible - though that can be mitigated with an immediate dropset of 50% of your 8RM of as many reps as possible.

For strength / power. More sets of lower reps (no more than 6 really) is generally preferred at around 70-90% of your 1RM. Concentrating on explosive concentric movements. With a caveat that the lowering phase is good for motor control/stability work and should not be ignored.


Ultimately the important exercises to squeeze in are as follows:

Squats
Deadlifts
Bench
OHP
Chins

Core work: Roll outs, landmines, planks, swiss ball stir pots, pallof press, 6dragonflags.

Mobility: Don't ignore it - you can do this at home. Get yourself a foam roller, and a hockey ball or trigger ball, and just roll the hell out of your muscles, joints, tendons. It hurts, but in the long run it'll improve blood flow, flexibility, and minimise DOMS too.

Other exercises to be done are single leg / single limb exercises - such as dumbell, and kettle bell work, as well as single leg/limb loading exercises such as walking lunges, alternating DB presses, DB presses and rows.

For a good metabolic workout things like olympic lifts and plyometrics and complexes are good. So powercleans, snatches (DB single arm are great), DB push press, box jumps, sand bag work, are also good - these won't necessarily help strength, but will help with conditioning.
 
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Revend said:
To increase strength it is important to do some workouts. Running is the best way to get strength and fitness. We can increase stamina easily with running. So in my opinion add some running i your workout program because it works. Anyway all routines are effective. Thank you all.
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Running for strength?
All routines are effective?
 
Revend said:
To increase strength it is important to do some workouts. Running is the best way to get strength and fitness. We can increase stamina easily with running. So in my opinion add some running i your workout program because it works. Anyway all routines are effective. Thank you all.
Click to expand...

Erm.....
 
first off i wouldnt really call 6ft and 95kg over weight.

im personaly 6' 3" depending on how much sleep ive had lol, and i always feel my heathleist at around 16.8 stone


If your looking for strength training i would recommend a 5x5 routine. Like the following, obviously change things to suit yourself

Monday
Squat
OH Press
Skull Crushers
Dips weighted
Lat Pulldown
Bicep Curls
Calf raises
Ab exercise


Cycle mid week give your engine a good tune.


Friday
Deadlift
BB Bench Press
Incline Bench
BB Row
CG Chins
Shrugs
Ab exercise
Bicep Curls

Mind you through i tend to put a little weight on when doing a 5x5 routine, remember 5x5 is to do 5 sets of 5 reps at the heaviest weight that you can complete the set at. Then add a little every other week.

once you get use to the work load of this you can always add in some core exercises that you need.
 
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Freefaller said:
Full body:

Day 1:

Squats
Bench
BORs
OHP

Day 2:

Deadlifts
Dips
Chins
Walking lunges / bulgarian split squats
Click to expand...

You know it really does come down to something as simple as this.
The more logs I read from high level strength athletes the more I notice the small variation in exercises that they do. They do the right things and they do them hard. They then see consistent gains in either strength or size.
 
Morba said:
You know it really does come down to something as simple as this.
The more logs I read from high level strength athletes the more I notice the small variation in exercises that they do. They do the right things and they do them hard. They then see consistent gains in either strength or size.
Click to expand...

Don't destroy their Maximuscle-fuelled dreamz! :eek:
 
mrthingyx said:
:(

That would make me even more than 2 stone overweight... :confused:
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I wouldn't worry to much what the scales say... even though you are the same weight or are heavier you'll notice your body fat will be coming down. Muscel weighs more than fat.

Someone please correc me if I'm wrong
 
Zaf said:
I wouldn't worry to much what the scales say... even though you are the same weight or are heavier you'll notice your body fat will be coming down. Muscel weighs more than fat.

Someone please correc me if I'm wrong
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You are wrong.
 
Zaf said:
Atleast correct me then rather than just saying No :p
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1kg of muscle weighs the same as 1kg of fat ;)

muscle is more dense than fat though, so if you had an square of fat the same size as a square of muscle, the muscle would weigh more.

That might be what you meant, but the way people say it is so very wrong :P
 
Morba said:
1kg of muscle weighs the same as 1kg of fat ;)

muscle is more dense than fat though, so if you had an square of fat the same size as a square of muscle, the muscle would weigh more.

That might be what you meant, but the way people say it is so very wrong :P
Click to expand...

Thats what I said lol :p
 
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