5 day split routine.

[JKDfreak]

Hy everybody.
I don't know if many will be so kind and answer and help me.
I need your help.
I'm training with a friend at home and we have dumbbells and barbells.I've been designing a routine and posted here.But I often get the answer:"Man that's too much,you're overtraining!!!!"though we know how to eat for a bulking routine.
This is what i did for biceps:
Biceps day:

Warm-up:run in place,shadowboxing,light stretching,joint rotations.
3x8 Db concentration curls.
3x8 hammer curls supersetted w/ 3x8 seated Db curls
3x8 Db preacher curls
3x14 Db concentartion curls w/ lighter weights.
Cool down:stretching,joint rotations

Chest:
Warm up:jog in place,shadowboxing,light stretching
3x8 Non-Peak Db flys
3x8 flat Db presses supersetted w/3x8 flat Db flys
3x8 change of contraction Db flat Db flys
3x14 non-peak Db flys w/ lighter weights.
4x20 really slow flat crunches
Cool down:stretching,joint rotations
This lasted 1h10 and I felt my chest burning

Shoudlers:
Warm-up:joint rotations,shadowbox,run in place.
3x8 L-Laterals
3x8 arnold presses supersetted w/ 3x8 front raises
3x8 lying lateral raises
3x14 L-Laterals
3x8 Upright rows
Cool down.

here are my stats:
Age:17
weight:71.8kg = 158.5 pounds
height:1m88 = 6.2 feet
Arm unflexed:27cm = 11 inches goal:15 inches
Arm flexed :30cm = 12 inches
Chest:94cm = 36.6 inches
waist: 81cm = 32.5 inches
wrist: 17cm = 7 inches
forearm: 27cm = 11 inches
quads:55cm = 22 inches
calves:37cm = 15 inches

My goal is nice and defined muscles.With my friend we put emphasis on biceps,chest and triceps + abs.these are the muscles group we really want to improve.
What I'm looking for is someone who could design a bulking 5 day split routine for us,or give examples of his or others routine or at least hints and tips.
This would be very kind!!!!
Thanks
Regards

[ChrisH]

As some others will post as well ... less is more in weight lifting. Overtraining has nothing to do with knowing how many calories to eat. If you eat 1500 or 4000 calories a day, overtraining is overtraining. It looks to me like you are doing way too much. I was in the same boat as you. I have recently cut my workouts way down to the basics pretty much. All you really need is 1 to 2 exercises per muscle group and do about 2 or 3 sets of 6-8 reps or so. Thanks to the help of others in this board, I've learned that, that is enough. You may not feel as though you had much of a workout after only an exercise or two with only 6-8 reps, but as I've noticed lately, it works.

If all you are looking for is just to build nice defined muscles, try doing the basics - bench press, overhead press, bent over lat row, bicept curls, squats, deadlifts and add some ab work in there somewhere. That works every major muscle group from top to bottom. Most of those exercises, minus the curls are compound lifts, which means they work more than just one muscle when performing them. In fact, the deadlift from what I understand, works just about every muscle in the body.

Try doing a full body 3 times a week or a full body split. Example below

Full Body:
Monday - Upper and lower
Wed. - Upper and lower
Fri. - Upper and lower

Split
WEEK ONE:
Monday - Lower
Wed. - Upper
Fri. - Lower
WEEK TWO:
Monday - Upper
Wed.- Lower
Fri.- Upper

... And so on. Keep switching it like that, it will make sure you are training upper and lower evenly and also allow adequate rest periods for both upper and lower body

Of course, I am new myself to weight lifting. That is just my opinion from my limited knowledge I've taken in. Im sure some of the others can give you some further Info.

[JKDfreak]

what i want is to get big,get my muscles bigger.So you think it is enough and works as good as what i did before but without overtraining.
What I need is a workout I can do in 30min to 1 hour.

[Alex(AJ)]

Originally posted by JKDfreak
what i want is to get big,get my muscles bigger.So you think it is enough and works as good as what i did before but without overtraining.
What I need is a workout I can do in 30min to 1 hour.

all with 4-6reps

m-chest
2set flat bench w/ chains
1set pause press w/ chains
2set incline db perss
2set floor press w/ chains
2set leaning-forward dips

t-back
2set bent-over bb rows
2set chins
2set wide-grip pullups
2set 1-arm db rows
1set lat pulldown s-set 1set cable row

w-legs/shoulders
2set box squat w/ chains
2set front squat w/chains
2set deadlift
2set stiff-leg deadlift
2set military press
2set bent-over laterals

r-tricep
1set partial close-grip bench (aka board press)
2set flat close-grip w/ chains
1set incline close-grip w/ chains
2set jm press
2set dips
2set floor press w/chains

f-bicep
2set bb curl
2set db curl
2set hammer curl
1-2set 1-arm preacher

[Lemur-X]

I'm new to it as well, but have had success with a triple split, and all of my workouts have me spent in 20 minutes. 30 minutes tops.

I work 3 sets of 5-7, until muscle failure, and have seen great results in just over a month.

EX : Upper / Chest / Tricep day.

Flies. Either DB, or machine.

Bench press.

Military / shoulder press.

Arm extensions or skull crushers.

I pretty much circuit the sets. I.E. Flies, bench, flies, bench, flies, bench. Then onto the press and triceps. I try to rest as little as possible between sets. I essentially wait until I can lift my stack with good form, which is usually between 20 seconds to 40 seconds.

I've noticed good lean gains in all areas worked, and a loss of body fat, and KNOW I had a good workout. I feel exhausted, but good for the rest of the day. Can barely take off my shirt in the locker room. Can barely turn my steering wheel on the way to work after the gym. The next few days, I know it's working because my body is screaming for calories as it heals itself.

--Steve

[ChrisH]

As far as whether the basics --> bench press, overhead press, deadlift, squat, bent over lat row and bicept curls are enough to get bigger --> YES. Those are compound exercises. Most anyway. They work more than just one muscle at a time, while concentrating on a specific muscle. They work pretty much every main muscle you can ask for --> shoulders, chest, upper/mid back, lower back, arms, quads, hamstrings, etc. You want those exercises in your routine if you really want some good size gains. If you want to add something extra to it, then do it at your will. But ... limit your sets and # of exercises to some extent. There is no reason to perform 5 exercises all of 3 sets with 8 reps on just one muscle group. Try more like 2 exercises of 2 or 3 sets with reps around 6-8. Split up each body part into a seperate day or do it all on one day. If you want to limit time to 30mins to 1hr, than you need to split it up, giving each muscle group their own day. Try not to work out more than 4 to 5 days in a row and if you do 4 days, try to add a break in there. Instead of Mon-Thurs, do Mon-Tues, off Wed, then return and do Fri-Sat, than off for sunday, start again Monday and on ....

[JKDfreak]

Thanks for the advices!!!!!
Isn't the workout which Alex kindly wrote down too much????
It looked a lot like mine but as Chrish said it its' too much.there are for example 5 exercises for one body part.

My thoughts are I should do 3 exercises for 1 body part.
For example my shoulder workout:
3x 10/8/6 BB military press
3x8 lateral raise s-set w/ front raise
3x15/14/12 BB/Db military press

or

3x8 BB military press s-et w/ lateral raise s-set w/ fronta raises.

Which one is OK?? Is it too much or not enough???
I incorporated a basic exercise + 2 isolation exerises.
I'll follow this scheme for each body part but pleases comment this example.

[Alex(AJ)]

Originally posted by JKDfreak
Thanks for the advices!!!!!
Isn't the workout which Alex kindly wrote down too much????

too much. wait...wait......lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol

it takes about 35-38minutes to do, with a 3minute rest between sets.

easy to throw in more exercises when you're only doing 1-2sets with high intensity. count up the volume; that's between 8-10sets total.

[ChrisH]

It is not too much if you are only doing 1 to 2 sets. You were doing 3, 4 and 5 sets it appeared. I would throw the basics I mentioned first and then add from there the other exercises you want to do. Limit the sets to about 1 or 2.

PS - Your example looks pretty good. It is good to make your foundation first (the basics) and add around that, just like building a house :-D. Adding a couple more isolation exercises is not a bad thing or overtraining. What I see as overtraining is doing 5 sets of exercises that work the exact same muscle. EX - doing 5 sets of standing curls, 5sets of concentration, 5 sets of hammar curls, etc., all on the same day. Doing the overhead press, then a lateral raise, than a front raise is not overtraining for the shoulders as long as you limit your sets to around 2. I hope you see where I am coming from.

[JKDfreak]

I only did 3 sets per exercises,but I see your point.It is better to do 2 sets per exercises and more exercises,than 3-4 ets per exercises and less exercises,right??
So w/ 2 sets per exercises how many exercises can i do?

[ChrisH]

I am new to weight lifting and thus my advice may not be 100%. Everybody has different opinions. Everyone who follows their own opinion I'm sure has success, otherwise they wouldn't be stating it as their opinion. The questions you should ask are...

1) How long were you doing the routine before? i.e - 1month, 2months

2) Did you/have you seen results?

When it comes to a muscle group, 2 to 3 exercises per muscle group should be enough. EX - Shoulders---> doing overhead press, front and lateral raises should be enough. Doing about 2 sets, at the most 3 of each will be enough.

For arms, doing a dumbbell curl and then a barbell curl should simply be enough. Do the same, 2, at the most, 3 sets of each. When doing bent over lat rows, that also works biceps. There is no need in my opinion to do 5 exercises that work the biceps in one sitting. Adding another arm exercise working the tri's does not count toward biceps. So I am not saying limit your arm exercises to just the above. Just limit the exercises per muscle.

I just got done a bit ago reading some answers to some questions asked to the fitness trainer of the Houston Texans football team. He stated as I did as well and many other in this board will state, that less is more to an extent. Doing 1 set of one rep of one exercise per muscle group is probably the absolute least, but I see no way that better than doing more. But, when you do 5 exercises per muscle, with 4 sets each, that is too much. Better to do the in between--> 2 or 3 exercises per muscle group and then 2 at the most 3 sets.

[Desperato]

If you are trying to build bulk, you want to make sure you are doing all the big compound lifts, such as Deadlifts, benchpress, squats, military press and the like... with low volume (2 sets of 4-6) and very high intensity. Don't forget to warm up.

As for a program, Alex's program looked great. It was low volume, and missed nothing. A lot of compound lifts, and some isolated lifts to fill it out. Notice there was no 'superseting' You need all your strenght when you train this way as you MUST use high intensity (heavy + good form).

Your original program looked like something from a muscle magazine, usually meaning that you need to be taking steroids at the same time.. for the natural bodybuilder, that is too much volume..

Also, you mentioned your upper arms are the same size as your forarms?? is that an error or do you really look like popeye?

[JKDfreak]

I have been doing this routine for 1 month and I 've seen incredible results.My chest definitely improved and my biceps peak higher.
No there is not mistake.i measured mi forearm at the highest point,a little below the elbow.
I don't take steroids,but a protein shake every morning and evening.I eat good focusing on eating the right amount of protein for my type of workout and body.
I just worry about my routine cuz it seems that I'm overtraining but I don't feel like this.
Thanks for the advices,it helped me a lot,I'll try this out,taking Alex workout as an example.
Thanks
Regards

[Alex(AJ)]

Originally posted by JKDfreak
I only did 3 sets per exercises,but I see your point.It is better to do 2 sets per exercises and more exercises,than 3-4 ets per exercises and less exercises,right??
So w/ 2 sets per exercises how many exercises can i do?

you want to do low volume, high intensity, which means about 7-10sets depending on body part (obviously more sets for larger group, less for smaller group (like biceps))

you can do, say, 3sets of 3exercises but, imho, there's 2 problems

1) there's no hypertrophy benefit(it's been proven) between doing 2 vs 3sets for each exercise (as long as you're giving it all ya got and going heavy, not like 12reps)....infact, there's almost a negative because next lift you do you can't use as heavy a weight because u did that 3rd set

2)it's frickin boring- you want to hit the muscle from different angles/lifts.......3sets restricts what you can do. 1-2sets lets you do different types of lifts/angles (e.g., flat bench, pause press, db press, dips) and gives your body something different to do...remember, body doesn't like to be kept stagnant, wants and loves and craves change

originalyl i tried that idea (3sets, 3 exercises), but, eh, I didn't make anywhere as much progress as I am now