New regimine... advice requested!

[MAURER]

basically a two day split each done twice a week

day 1

deadlift 3x8
row 2x8
pullup2x8
upright row 2x8
rear delt row 2x8
curl 2x8
calf raise 3x12

day 2

squat 3x8
lunge 2x8 (each leg)
calf raise 3x12
bench press 3x8
dip 2x8
military press 2x8
front raise 2x8
tri-pushdown 2x8

[F_Mac]

Decent mix of compound movements. I don't see any ab work in there though.

And when you say "rear delt rows" do you mean flyes? or just a high row that would isolate the rear delts? Either way you could probably sacrifice those. Heavy rows and upright rows will take care of your rear delts.

[MAURER]

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/...eralRaise.html

thats the excercise im speaking of. i know it isn't really imperitive, but i like doing them. i never really thought of working abs as i already ahve a decent 6-pack but maybe they would help my core strength. perhaps i'll throw them in on day 1's.

[F_Mac]

Well, if you like doing 'em then keep it up. Might as well enjoy yourself while you're there.

Even if you have a 6 pack you need some ab work in there to improve your core stability. Doing this will really help on all your other lifts. My strength has shot up since I started strengthening my core.

[MAURER]

i will indeed work them then... perhaps at the end eof every session actually. maybe 2x15.

[etothepii]

Originally Posted by MAURER

basically a two day split each done twice a week

day 1

deadlift 3x8
row 2x8
pullup2x8
upright row 2x8
rear delt row 2x8
curl 2x8
calf raise 3x12

day 2

squat 3x8
lunge 2x8 (each leg)
calf raise 3x12
bench press 3x8
dip 2x8
military press 2x8
front raise 2x8
tri-pushdown 2x8

So, day1, day2, off, day1, day2, off, off? Looks great. Throw in 8 weeks of weight progression, decondition for 9-12 days before you start, and you've got an HST routine going!!!

I did the rear delt exercise for a cycle. I did it seated, but it was the same movement.

[MAURER]

how would you go about the weight progression?

[etothepii]

Originally Posted by MAURER

how would you go about the weight progression?

Here's a version of an HST weight progression:
Let's say your DL 5 rep max (5RM) is 200 lbs. You're going to do this exercise twice per week. Start at 150 lbs. In your first week, do 15 to 25 reps. You can do or 2x12 or 2x15 (30 reps may be a bit much), whatever. Next week, lift 160 for about the same number of reps. Keep increasing weight each week. Decrease reps, and increase sets as you need to in order to hit the desired total number of reps. As the weight gets heavier, you may find 3 sets of 5, or 15 total reps to be enough. You may even be able to exceed your 5RM after 8 weeks or so by doing 5 x 3, even singles.

The point is, start out light, and lift heavier until you reach, and maybe even excede your 5 RM. For various lifts, increment 5-10 pounds for upper body, 10 - 20 pounds for lower body exercises.

You may want to increase your load every workout instead of every week. In that case, you may start your deadlift at 120 lbs or so. This is preferable, and is what is recommended in HST. Also, this weight would be much easier to do 2 sets of 15 with.

No doubt, you notice that you are starting out with quite light weight, and traditional wisdom tells you that this weight will not help you grow any muscle. If you have a big ego, you may quite the light stuff (but you shouldn't) The secret is in the deconditioning. You don't workout, not even cardio, for 9 to 12 days before you start. Your previous muscle adaptation to heavy weight has had the chance to diminish, so you can adapt all over again, even to the lighter weight. And what the side effect to that muscle adaptation? Growth!

The sets of 12 or 15 in the first couple weeks is good for creating a lactic acid burn, which is good for joint health. When you get to the point of lifting sets of 10 and less, muscle growth really starts (assuming you are eating well).

I said I'd make this simple, and by the looks of it, I haven't. It really is simple, I just think I'm doing a bad job.

You can go here to read up on it. There' you will find the typical "15, 20, 5, eccentric rep" scheme, and a lot of the science behind it explained.
http://www.hypertrophy-specific.com/hst_index.html

The main points are this:
Decondition
Start light and progress toward, and even above your 5 RM
Do frequent, full-body workouts

[.V.]

Weight progression - start lighter than you are able, add weight every workout until you are lifting heavier than you could when you started. You can reach a new PR in about 2 weeks doing that. Easy, simple, effective.

An example is my CDL. I can get a bit over 300x1. For 10, after my illness and injury a couple of months ago, I couldn't even get 200.

I started my 10 rep CDL's at 105, did 2x10 every other day, and on the 6th workout, pulled 205x2x10.

This week I start doing 5 rep workouts and will see where I go now. But my strength is effectively coming back - I'll never be strong enough to be a powerlifter, or big enough to be a bodybuilder, but weight progression and frequency the way etothepi has described is helping me improve my strength and physique gradually. That's all I can ask.

You are young so whatever you do is going to give you nice results.

[MAURER]

if i have to add weight every workout i would think i'd have to start out really really low. would it be ok to add weight every week instead, or would that defeat the purpose? also for excercises like rear delt raises, can i abandon the weight progression for that particular excercise? reason being that there is no way i'd be able to increase weight by 5 pounds even once a week for more than maybe two weeks unless i started out with negative weights.... obviously for heavier excercises this won't be a problem... just have to leave the ego at the door.

[.V.]

Depends on how you want to workout and what your specific goals are.

I start out really, really low to be able to add every workout - 3x a week. Some things I go low enough (25-30lbs below RM) to add 5lbs per workout. Other things, I go low enough (100lbs below RM) to add 20lbs per workout.

If not doing high freqency workouts ie 3x a week for each body part, I don't think doing that is actually necessary, just do the progressive reps, when reaching a certain goal, then raise the weight.

This may just be working well for me because I'm small and weak. Other plans do kind of the same thing - like the 5x5 stuff for strength training or 5x5 adapted for bodybuilding. Same principle, done over a longer time, with different increments and impressive results.

Ego at the door. I left mine there a long time ago then somebody moved it. I still can't find it.

[MAURER]

alright so it works out so that at the end of two weeks (for lets say your 15 rep block), you're doing your 15 rep max but before that you were ending well before failure?

[.V.]

OK, let me explain how it works for me. Please don't make fun of my light weights that my elderly weak body has to use.

Let's use the squat for example:

15's 15RM was 140 the previous cycle. So I plan to do 150 this time.

Each # is a new workout. 3 workouts/week

100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 150. Now I'm able to do 150 instead of 140 for 15.

10's
120, 130, 140, 150, 160, 170. Now I can do for two sets instead of 160 or 170 for one set.

5's
140, 150, 160, 170, 180, 190
(still working on these). Notice I've done 225x5 in the past and gotten injured with 225 the next workout. Now instead of wide, lowbar, parallel powersquats, I'm doing olympic squats going until my butt actually touches my ankles or hams to calves befor coming up. This means I have to use less weight than with the PL oriented workout and I had to give up my beloved box. But I actually did get 175x2x10 two days ago - never got that much, that deep before in my life. The size and strength gains doing it this way kind of sneak up on you.

Switching to 5's today using less weight than with the 10's kind of made it feel like a day off. But that will change soon enough. The light weight days are a nice chance to work on re-perfecting form, concentrating on intensity, and preparing for the day at the end of the block where you are setting a new PR. It can also be fun.

Today, I took an opportunity to do some unusual (for me) supersetting.

Squat 1x5, SLDL 1x5.....no break....another set of each....no break....another set of each.

Did the same with curls, skullcrushers then CDL, calf raise, shrug.

This gave me the chance to catch some cleans and whatever the negative of that would be (uncleans perhaps?) too, moving the loaded bar from the floor to the armpit pins for calf raises or squats after doing a set from the floor. Then lowering it under control from the armpit high pins to the thigh high pins for the next set.

Remember of course, this is only one way and because of the frequency it requires that you always stop short of failure. Where with something like Max OT - another terriffic plan you'll be working to positive failure every workout and lifting much heavier each week, improving reps until reaching your rep goal, then raising the weight. You do that because the frequency is less so you work to failure more. I had to stop that kind of workouts because my medical conditions were interfering with progress and I had an injury which required lighter weight workouts.

Just gotta do what works for you within your limitations ya know.

[MAURER]

ok so lets say my 15 rep max for bench for example is 135, then for what im doing (bench twice a week), start at 120 (same weight all sets) then next time 125, then 130, then 135, except now it shouldn't (necessarily) by my max anymore? then the next two weeks, 12 reps of the same deal, then 8 reps of the same deal, 5 reps of the same deal, then deloading phase, then repeat with slightly higher weights the next time?

[.V.]

When I was doing each body part twice a week I was working at maximum or close to it, trying to increase reps over the course of the week, sometimes two, then adding weight in the 2nd or 3rd week. How to do it with a submaximal progression - I've never tried. I imagine it would work the same way though.

Give it a shot and let us know how it turned out. We can always learn from one another's experiments - kind of like when I had the bright idea of adding progressive singles to failure at the end of each Max OT workout. We all learned that it was a wonderful way to get much stronger for about six weeks, faster than with some PL programs or with Max OT. Then we learned that after 6 weeks it will lead to severe CNS overload, massive strength loss, and joint injuries.

Your idea actually doesn't sound bad, but the only way to know for sure is to go for it and see what happens. However, there are lots of folks on here who know waaay more than I do who can probably and hopefully will chime in and tell you better how that sounds.