Gym spec too please!

krooton

krooton

krooton

Caporegime
Joined
9 May 2004
Posts
28,746
Location
Leafy outskirts of London
I've decided that I've ignored the free gym at work for too long, and want to increase my fitness level and bulk up my arms and chest a bit.

Height: 5'11"
Weight: 77kg
Waist: 32"
Chest: 37"
Body type: Ectomorph as far as I can tell

Diet:
08:00 = Bowl of muesli with semi-skimmed milk
10:30 = 1 peanut butter or marmite sandwich, wholegrain bread
13:00 = Pasta/brown rice with veg (sweetcorn and spinach usually) in various forms (bolognese sauce, chilli, curry, etc) with either tuna or soya mince as the protein
15:30 = 2 peanut butter or marmite sandwiches, wholegrain bread
19:30 = Same pasta/rice type thing (I make 2 portions for lunch the next day) or if I can't be bothered, crumbed chicken/fish with chips and steamed veg
22:00 = Bowl of muesli with semi-skimmed milk

A good 3-4 litres of water over the course of the day.

Now I am already pretty lean, and my lower body is pretty much how I want it to be, along with my back for some reason.

What I want to work on is to bulk up my triceps, shoulders and pecs, and regain the six-pack of my youth.

I ALSO want to improve my overall fitness though, so cardio will have to be on the cards.

I'm aiming for 2 days a week, Tues and Thurs, and the gym has the basics:

Treadmills, cross-trainers, rowing machines, bikes, Vertical Chest Press, Pec Deck, Shoulder Press, Lat Pull Down, Leg Press, Leg Curl and Assisted Chin & Dip. Also free weights, but they are forever in use by the uber-bulkers, lol.

I was thinking chest/shoulders/triceps one day, legs/abs the other, but I'm not sure how to integrate the cardio into this as well, should I do the cardio before as a warm-up, or after?

Thanks!
 
I was about to lay in you as I thought you were going to seriously neglect your legs from your comment about just wanting to bulk your upper body. But you saved yourself from eternal hell with the two day upper/lower split.

How many days a week will you be able to go? and how long do you have free? then we can help to devise the best plan for you.

Make sure you train your legs. and train them well. Also do not neglect your back no matter how big or ripped you think it may already be.

I personally prefer to train one group per day, but I have more spare time than a housewife. Combinations like Chest and biceps seems to be popular on here (i prefer to do chest and triceps), Back and shoulders work is another. Muscles that are linked but not both used overly together should be paired.

You should find a sufficient work out will work your biceps well enough. Then you don't need to stand there like a lemon bicep curling for hours. Work your back well, and finish the routine with a few sets of curls to really push your biceps. Freefaller should support me on this. Like him I only spend a small fraction focusing on bicep isolation. He is a bigger testiment to this than me though :p

Compound exercises like deadlifts, squats, hang cleans and powercleans will all be recommended. This will allow you to increase all over bodymass effectivley.

I start to tend with light cardio, no more than 10/20 minutes. But I am looking to improve muscle mass/size and strength as opposed to lean out.

You either build muscle or burn fat, Not both at the same time. You can try but will find your progress is hindered. Use what size you have to your advantage now would be my advice and then cut. Or if your desperate to see your abs, cut first and then build, but i wouldnt advise this, its like taking 1 step foward and 2 steps back.

My two cents, anybody more knowledgable feel free to correct me!

Hope this helps.
 
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get whey protein supplements for the win, you wont be able to eat enough protein no matter how hard you try and you need protein to repair and build muscles.
http://www.myprotein.co.uk/ Impact Whey Protein is alright if you dont want to spend a lot.

but you can get free samples of boditronic if you send your address and the flavour you want to try to [email protected]
i think you can choose upto 2 flavours but maybe just say you were told to send your address to them for free samples and you might get one of each.

you can get a free sample of PHD's whey protein from here just add one to your basket and checkout. https://secure10.secure-server-space.co.uk/solosupplements-co-uk/prodview.asp?idProduct=74
 
In answer to the OP.

All guys want a "six pack abz" and "big guns" and "powerful chest"... however it won't happen just by doing a million crunches, thousands of curls it just won't.

To improve your body composition you need to exercise ALL of your body. A hard workout for a few months will NOT turn you into Arnie.

It seems you eat a fairly rounded diet, a few more veggies and fruit wouldnt' do any harm though ;)

Now for training. There are some classical splits out there, push-pull movememnts i.e. you work the antagonists of every muscle group i.e. bench press vs bent over rows, leg extensions versus ham curls etc... biceps vs triceps etc..

The other classic is a 3day split: chest/bis (don't do tris as you partially work them doing chest anyway they are synergetically linked), legs/tris, shoulder/back. That's a really classic split that works well.

And of course there's an upper and lower split as you talked about.

Carido is easy to integrate, typically what a lot of people do is a 15min high intensity warm up. 30-40mins weights, then a 20min low intensity "warm down". On a 3-day split I'd do cardio alone 2x a week. I currently play 80mins of rugby on a sat and on a Wed I will go for a run/swim/row for 40-50mins. So it's only 2x cardio session, but I train a minimum of 4x a week and cycle to the gym, so whilst I don't do a great deal of cardio I'm fitter than the average bear.

If you can only hit the gym twice a week, do upper/lower both times... i.e. chest and back, and legs. Shoulders, arms, legs. When I say legs, it doesn't mean I expect you to squat 200kg each session. Do a couple of exercises, each time, but focusing on the other body parts with big compound movements.

Bench, deadlifts, powercleans, squats are all phenomenal exercises. Don't negate, wide grip chins (and narrow grip too), and dips. Pretty much all back work outs will hit the bis to a certain extent, and to get big arms you need big tris, make no mistake, bis are only a small part of it, they add more of an aesthetic value rather than anything else.

For bigger upper body you need big shoulders and a big back, pecs amount to a bit, but not as significant amount of shape as the shoulders and back.

Back exercises such as BORs, chins, single armed rows, cable rows and pull downs are all important.

Shoulders, standing shoulder press, arnies, raises, raises, raises, military press, bent over lateral raises all good.

Bench, flat is more for strength certainly true for BB, DBs seem to help develop size better IMO. For "pump" flies and certainly incline flies help there, keep away from the pec deck, incline DBs and decline DBs, or BB if you like, dips are invaluable, and cable cross overs work well too.

Legs, squats, RDL, SLDL, Deadlifts (though these can be done on back days), leg extensions, step ups, split squats, calf raises to name a few.

A selection of the above will sort you out if you include some of the big compounds.

Don't worry, you will not turn into arnie. Doind a nice 5x5 or 3x8 rep set for a few months mixed up will certainly help develop a bit of size. You will no doubt become hungrier just make sure you don't eat crap.

And rest lots! Sleep well.
 
Thanks guys!

I can only manage 2 days a week, and whey protein et al is not an option as I am really, really skint at the moment (hence why the free gym is so appealing).

So light cardio warm-up, then chest/back/legs (Tues) and shoulders/arms/legs (Thurs) and then the cardio warm-down.

A weekly tennis session will be entering my diary fairly soon, so that will help with extra cardio I guess.

Where would I slot in ab stuff though? I had a lovely six-pack a few years back when I was dancing for hours on end in clubs, but those days are pretty long gone, haha!

Also, what time should I leave between my big mid-day meal (pasta and tuna today) carbing and the actual work out? 2 hours beforehand, 3?

Thanks again!
 
Everyone's different, I can't eat within an hour of training, if I do it'll be a banana or somethign light. A big meal I'd leave a good 3hrs but that's me. :)

As for ab work, you can just do them at home why do them at the gym? Besides all those compounds I gave you will hammer them. Core strength is an important part of those lifts.

What makes "abs" look big or defined is low bodyfat, of course some hypertrophy of the abdominal wall will help enhance them, but you don't need to do 1000 crunches a day. Do some core work at home, like planks, side planks, russian twists and even some crunches, but don't become obssessed by them. Heck my squat/leg session alone has left me with sore abs today!

Ok as for the 2 day split here are a selection of exercises (don't do them all in 1 session!!):

chest/back/leg

chest: incline db, incline flies, decline BB/DB, flat bench bb/DB, flat flies, cable cross overs, wide grip dips, pull overs, cable flies.

back: wide grip chins, BORs, t-bar rows, narrow grip chins, vertical rows, pull downs, single arm cable rows, bent over DB rows, powercleans

legs: deadlifts, SLDLs, RDLs, step ups, split squats, leg extensions, leg curls, lunges, squats, front squats, leg press, calf raises

shoulder/arm/legs:

shoulder: side raises, front raises, side lateral raises, rear-delt raises, shrugs (BB and DB), military press, standing shoulder press, push press, hang clean to push press (HC2PP), seated DB press, cable raises (front and side), arnies.

Arm: preacher curls, hammer curls, zotmann curls, close grip pronated pull ups, BB curls, pyramid sets, cable curls.
triceps: pull downs, narrow grip dips, single arm extension, rope pull downs, french press, skull crushers, close grip bench press, over head extensions

Legs: see previous examples.

don't worry about whey - you seriously won't need it.
 
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re

krooton said:
Thanks guys!

I can only manage 2 days a week, and whey protein et al is not an option as I am really, really skint at the moment (hence why the free gym is so appealing).

So light cardio warm-up, then chest/back/legs (Tues) and shoulders/arms/legs (Thurs) and then the cardio warm-down.

A weekly tennis session will be entering my diary fairly soon, so that will help with extra cardio I guess.

Where would I slot in ab stuff though? I had a lovely six-pack a few years back when I was dancing for hours on end in clubs, but those days are pretty long gone, haha!

Also, what time should I leave between my big mid-day meal (pasta and tuna today) carbing and the actual work out? 2 hours beforehand, 3?

Thanks again!
Click to expand...

2 days a week is not enough to build mass.....you really want to be doing at least 3 days,possibly 4...2 body parts perday

this is what i do

monday shoulders, traps, triceps
tuesday back (sometimes i do triceps afterback depending how tired i am on the monday)
wednesday day off
thursday legs and biceps
friday chest

sometimes i mix it up,some times i have my day off on a friday and sometimes on a wednesday...but i have been training for 10 years now and this program works for me and a lot of other people i know....

three golden rules
Big feed
Big workout
Big rest

follow these 3 and you cannot fail:)
 
how many of those exercises should a beginner be looking to do with each work out? say they're doing 3x8 or 5x5 of each exercise, should they be doing 4 or 5 ish for each area?

Also, this might seem like a completely stupid question, but if you're doing a 3-day split like chest/bis, legs/tris, shoulder/back - would it be like

Mon: chest/bis
Tue: legs/tris
Wed: shoulders/back
Thu: rest
Fri: chest/bis
Sat: shoulders/back
Sun: legs/tris
Mon: rest
etc.

or should you be resting every other day anyway?
 
thevet said:
2 days a week is not enough to build mass.....you really want to be doing at least 3 days,possibly 4...2 body parts perday
Click to expand...

Well I can't, but then I'm also not looking to bulk up loads, I can't afford enough protein intake for that any way, just a bit more meat on my bones.

Sadly, I thought waiting til late this evening would mean an empty gym, but it was heaving :(

So all I could manage was 30 minutes of cardio, and boy did it make me realise how unfit I am! I think I'll need to cardio properly for a while to get myself in shape again first, I was severely out of breath and even for a headache for a while after the 30 minutes... perhaps trying to keep pace with a 30 minute dance mix from 140bpm-146bpm was a bit ambitious :o
 
2 days should be ok as long as the intensity and volume is right. Sure it won't suit my style of training or my goals, but it'll certainly help a little. Aim for a good hour of very hard work and effort.

Mix up 3x8 or 5x5 sets picking 3 exercises per body part for each split to start with. If it doesn't hurt enough increase it! :D
 
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