Advice on my workout please

[marcello]

I was wondering if some people here could critique my workout. I'm 6'4", 185 lbs, and have been lifting for about 4 months now. I gained 15 lbs in the first month and have stayed the same weight since then. My goal is to gain some more weight (not sure how much, just going to go by how I look) and I plan on lifting being a lifelong thing so I'm not trying to gain weight fast and I'm not trying to get huge, just filled out.

My workout is MWF:

M: Squats, 3x12 at 200lbs
Bench dumb bells, 3x12 at 45lbs each
Reverse bench (not sure what it's called, but you put your knee and hand on the bench and pull the weight up to your chest), 3x12 at 45 lbs each
Bench bar, 3x12 at 95 lbs
Biceps dumb bells, 3x12 at 20 lbs each
Biceps bar, 2-3 sets of 21's at 30lbs
Neck (sorry again, it's where you hold the weights at your side while standing and squeeze up with your shoulders and neck), 3x12 at 55 lbs
Abs and back workout too

W, F: Same thing, but w/o squats.

So, any advice at all would be appreciated. Sorry for not knowing the names of some of the exercises. BTW, I eat 3 eggs for breakfast, lunch varies but usually involves meat, and pasta or meat for dinner.

[marcello]

No one has any advice? Even: "your entire workout is worthless, I don't know where to start"?

[Lift2Live]

Originally Posted by marcello

I was wondering if some people here could critique my workout. I'm 6'4", 185 lbs, and have been lifting for about 4 months now. I gained 15 lbs in the first month and have stayed the same weight since then. My goal is to gain some more weight (not sure how much, just going to go by how I look) and I plan on lifting being a lifelong thing so I'm not trying to gain weight fast and I'm not trying to get huge, just filled out.

My workout is MWF:

M: Squats, 3x12 at 200lbs
Bench dumb bells, 3x12 at 45lbs each
Reverse bench (not sure what it's called, but you put your knee and hand on the bench and pull the weight up to your chest), 3x12 at 45 lbs each
Bench bar, 3x12 at 95 lbs
Biceps dumb bells, 3x12 at 20 lbs each
Biceps bar, 2-3 sets of 21's at 30lbs
Neck (sorry again, it's where you hold the weights at your side while standing and squeeze up with your shoulders and neck), 3x12 at 55 lbs
Abs and back workout too

W, F: Same thing, but w/o squats.

The first exercise you didn't know what to call is a "Dumbell Row". Instead of pulling it to your chest, try to pull it a little further back towards your hip. It's a fantastic exercise for the back, namely the Lats. The second you didn't know what to call is a "Shrug". They are also very good and work the Trapezius muscle that runs along your neck and upper back.

If you have the equipment available to you, and it sounds like you do to some extent, you may want to round out your schedule with some tricep, middle back and shoulder work. You can always do kickbacks with dumbells, or behind the neck presses. Bent rows are an awesome back exercise, as are deadlifts. Shoulder presses, lateral raises, front raises and rear delt flys will hit your shoulders really well. Try adding a few of these in to get a more 'all around' workout.

That's just my first impression and i'm not the only person with ideas. I am sure others will be able to give advice but as a start, you are doing alright.

[Barry]

What you need to do is research on this site and others on a proper split. You are working each muscle group 3 times in the same week. Most folks will train a muscle group once a week or so. Find yourself a good workable split routine and then check out this link.

http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/slide...id=16&subId=37

It has many different exercises you can do for each muscle group. Try to rotate the different exercises around. What I do is if I do Barbell Bench Press one week, the next week I will do Dumbell bench press and so on. This way you will get more different muscle fibers working than if you did the same workout each and every week.

Also focus more on the large muscle groups that require compound movements like chest, legs, and back. You will be working your biceps and triceps on these movements as well.

Just to give you an idea of a split.....Here is mine. On most excercises if I can do more than 10 reps for the first working set, I raise the weight. I want to barely or not quite get the 8th rep on the 3rd set.

Mon...Chest....2 warmup sets...then 4 excercises with 3 sets of 8-10 reps

Tues...Back...2 warmup sets...then 4 excercises with 3 sets of 8-10 reps

Weds...Shoulders...2 warmup sets...then 4 excercises with 3 sets of 8-10 reps

Thur...Arms...2 warmup sets and 3 excercises with 3 sets of 8-10 reps with 1 excercise being a lighter weight more concentrated movement. I do this for each bis and tris.

Fri...Legs...Start off with 2 warmup sets with light weight for either squats or dead lifts and work my way up usually with 4 working sets, last one at 6-8 reps. Then lunges or leg press 3 sets 8-10 reps. Then leg extensions and hammi curls 3 sets 8-10 reps. Then 2 calf excercises, each 3 sets 8-10 reps.

Sat and Sun...Rest

Next week I repeat split but I rotate into different excercises for each muscle group.

[marcello]

Thanks a lot for your help. I have been looking at that site a bunch and have decided to change up some of my workouts because I've plateaued quite a bit. I'm also thinking of changing my workout to something like this in the near future:

M: Legs: sqauts, calves, and a couple others

W: Chest: flys, bench, dumbell row, maybe more?

F: Arms: hammer curls, reverse preacher curls, some forearm exercises

Each day I would do some ab and back workout too. I can't go to the gym more than 3 times a week right now, but that may change soon. However, I think if I'm going to workout more days a week, I'm probably going to start running instead of more lifting.

Any thoughts/concerns with what I'm planning on doing? I realize that I'm likely leaving out quite a bit of muscle groups, but I was hoping that many of the exercises I did would work multiple muscle groups, albeit not as good as if I focused on them individually. I'm still a bit skinny, so I should still be working on the bigger muscles as opposed to fine tuning, right? Thanks again