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TLDR: 5’9-10 150 LBS 19-year-old trying to prepare for the Fire Academy (next fall)
Hello, everyone. I apologize if this is a question that is commonly repeated, but I really do need help coming up with a schedule for which workouts to do. For the past four months, I’ve been doing the Arnold Split. But I've been told that I need to apply more focus on functional body workouts. As well as cardio.
Now, I’m unsure on how that schedule would look like.
I did my research and saw that HITT is popular. Alongside kettlebell training. But if I’m doing that, then do I continue doing the stuff I was already doing, (hack-squats, leg-raises, leg press + incline chest-press, incline dumbbell-press, low dumbbell-row, pull-ups, lat pull-down + various bicep exercises and cable shoulder workouts) added with this type of training? And with HIIT cardio, which I assume is like running on the treadmill at a steady pace before adding a few intervals of explosive activity? Sorry if I sound very uneducated on this topic, I’ve only been researching this for the past day while studying for the NREMT.
In other words, I’m very unsure on how this schedule would look like. If anyone has a spreadsheet on a workout schedule that I could follow, it would be greatly appreciated. I could also pay for a recommended program, too. I go to a nice gym too, so I should have most of the equipment needed. I really, really, want to make sure I’m working out with a correct schedule before the Academy. I’m terrified of being weak. Thank you for the help, and for your time.
Today I tracked my workout with my watch, did half hour non stop high intensity up and down 2 flights of stairs, then did a 20 minute dumbbell arm workout, and a 10 minute high intensity ab work out. My watch said I burned 723 calories.
So with a BMR of 1991 that’s about 83 calories per hour (I know that’s not how it works exactly but for the easy math).
My question is this.. is that 723 I burned minus the 83 calories I would have burnt “doing nothing” or 723 in addition to that 83.
Sorry if that’s confusing, in my mind the question makes sense lol.
I don’t get why you are dividing the 723 cal? Why distribute them through 8,7 (?) hours?
I started lifting 8 months ago and I used to be quite skinny (65kg at 187cm / 143 at 6'1") and I haven't paid too much attention to bulking i just ate healthy and tried to eat a bit more, now at 72kg. I wanna bulk now to around 85kg maybe (and then go on a cut), would around 0.5kg per week be too aggressive of a bulk for me? I go to the gym 5 times a week
0.5kg is a good target
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Morning people are like social nazis for real...
Personally I sleep 100% better having a jog or a bike ride in the evening. Go for it.
So I’ve been super sick the past week and unable to stomach food so in 4 days have lost 3kg. I know as soon as I’m better I’ll put it back on but is what I’m losing fat or muscle? I simply do not have the energy to do most daily tasks so working out is definitely out of the question!
How long before muscle wastes away?
Significant muscle loss typically takes 3-4 weeks of inactivity to take root. Muscle memory is a real thing though, so it’s very easy to regain lost mass
My son is 11 and is now allowed and the gym floor. He wants to be my workout buddy but I’m not sure a routine that he can do at his stage. Any advice? I’m talked to the trainers at the gym and some of them have a lot of experience with kids his age. It’s a bit pricey but I’m considering it because it would give him really good foundational knowledge.
am i training hard enough?
hey guys. im a 20yo female, and I've been consistently going to the gym for 4 months (im lifting since july, but I've started taking it more seriously since september basically). i follow a PPL split, 6 days a week, usually 2 sets per exercise with both sets taken to/near failure. I try to keep my protein high (112-120g for 52kg bodyweight).
up until recently i think I've been doing too much junk volume – around 190ish sets per week, often working the same muscles (eg seated rows, chest supported rows, barbell rows all in one session). I was able to progressively overload but i think my form wasnt ideal, so i decided to finally structurize my routine in a way so that i can hit multiple muscle groups, i do ~18 sets per workout, 5-10 reps, and i lowered the weight on some exercises where i felt my form wasnt perfect.
the thing is though, i feel like im not pushing myself hard enough, because im not as tired after the gym as i used to be. i am unsure whether it's due to me taking the excessive volume out or if it's the not training hard enough issue. I would appreciate some intake. thanks :)
Are you going near failure?
yes! on every set
Then you are training hard enough.
Did you read the wiki?
Hi,
I want to know if my current workout schedule is enough to build muscle over time.
I currently ride horses 1x a week (60-70 min, jumping/hunter), aerial silks 1x a week (75 min), and my actual program of compound lifts 2x week (workout A = Chin-ups, shoulder press, back squat, bicep curls, step-ups, lateral and front shoulder raises; workout B = bench press, back row, conventional deadlift, stepups, skull crusher, chest flies).
Used to run a 3-day routine rotating ABA and BAB weekly but find its really hard to maintain that with the extra hobbies I have.
Lift progression has changed - not stalled, though. Ive also gained a healthy 20 lb of weight. So I look and perform differently than I used to.
Do these activities and workouts make sense or is there something I should change?
Assuming the program and diet are decent, you'll be able to build muscle
Hey everyone! I used to be fairly active on reddit and did an uninstall after realizing I was letting it take too much n of my time. Its been a year or 2 and I feel I am in a better place for mental stability and self control. So I restarted an account, focusing on threads that enhance my lifestyle. So here I am. I would have made this a post, but don't have enough karma to do so. That being the case, I'm throwing a question out there...well, multiple questions. I got really serious about tackling my health and physique about 6 months ago. I was 190 pounds at 6'. I know that doesn't seem bad, but I've always been skinny fat. In high school I was 220. Now in my early thirties. My first priority was to eliminate excess body fat. So, I started myself on a low sugar, low carb calorie restrictive diet. 1400 calories a day. I also quit smoking around that same time and walking the dog about 3-6 miles every day. After about a month, I felt that wasn't enough to reach my goals. So I started doing T25, you know the beachbody program? I finished that and upgraded to doing insanity max 30. I work nights and have limited time, so I found these workouts suited my schedule. After finishing max 30. I decided to start doing resistance training to help build muscle and keep body fat at bay. So now, I was walking the dog 3-6 miles a day, doing a 30 minute hard cardio session, and about an hour of full body resistance training a day. I got myself to 150 pounds and according to my smart watch, (I know I know, they aren't accurate, but it gave me a number to quantify progress) I was burning around 1600 calories a day with that v routine and last week hit a body fat percentage of 9%. I've always wanted to be under 10. Presently, I'm about 152 pounds and have a slick little 6 pack and a slender and toned physique. However, I'm very aware that a 6' tall man in his thirties is not recommend to be that light. So last week, I decided that since I've shredded the body fat, I need to bulk up a bit. About a week ago, I beefed up my program. I now walk the dog 4-8 miles daily. I do max 30 AND T25 back to back daily to keep my cardio on point. I have beefed up my resistance training considerably as well. My program is a hand made full body circuit I do daily. It took me about an hour before and takes me about 2 hours now. Why a full body circut? I am a habitual procrastinator and quitter. If I don't hold myself accountable every day, I will stop doing it all together. So at the moment, I do 2-2.5 hours walking daily, an hour of hard cardio, and 1-1.5 hours of resistance training daily. I've bumped my allowed calories up to 2500, since all the resources I've looked at say my tdee is 2600 calories per day. I apologize for the long question, but according to this info, do you guys think this will yield results for muscle building? Is there something I can do to make it more efficient? Thanks for reading.
If you aren't gaining weight at the rate you want to, eat more.
Did you read the wiki?
tl;dr
Definitely reread before you hit post.
Basically eat way more. I’m 6’0 and about 175, in a bulk phase I’m eating over 3K calories a day.
Track your weight and aim for gaining 1-2lbs a week. If you aren’t doing this, bump up your calories
What shoes would you recommend for a woman for at-home dumbbell lifting + other at-home fitness activities (such as HIIT exercises, jumping, etc.)? I already have separate shoes for walking/running, but want something for the rest of my exercise activities.
Cheap vans or reebok club c. Wrestling shoes or any other flat, hard sole shoe.
Vans
I’d look into CrossFit shoes
I like minimalist shoes that have room for my toes to spread out for all my general gym training. Right now I'm using Xero prios and I like them.
I’m 4 months into training (bulk), doing 3×/week full body with a routine a trainer in the gym gave me, with mostly machines, 3 sets each:
Leg press, leg curls, calf press, horizontal chest press, chest supported T-bar row, pull-ups, biceps preacher curls, triceps cable pushdowns, DB lateral raises, ab crunches.
Lately I've had concerns so I tried adding hip thrusts and leg extensions (cycling through leg exercises, and sometimes doing only 2 sets), thought about adding incline chest press, and started doing some searching online.
But after reading the wiki and forum posts, I’m seeing that most people recommend only doing an existing compound-focused program. My concern is that switching now means relearning a bunch of lifts, dropping exercises I’ve built confidence with, and basically resetting my “flow” in the gym. On the other hand, I don’t want to waste time on a bad routine.
If you want to "add more", don't kitchen sink it into one day. Spread it out across the week. Probably an a/b/c split.
That'll give you 15 slots on the week.
Thanks! Splitting is probably what I'll do, but just to understand - what's the difference between doing each exercise just 2 times a week, and just reducing sets from 3 to 2?
Two sets will get you good at two sets, increase the weight a smidge, and lower the volume.
Three sets will get you good at three sets. For most lifts, 3 remains the sweet spot.
I doubt your progress will be much worse (if at all) than on a compound focused routine. One of the main reasons compound focused routines are recommeded to beginners so much is that they are much more fun/exciting to do (adding weight to the bar each workout) so beginners are more likely to stick with working out and not give up, also compounds will build general strength better than those exercises, but if you only care about muscle growth then you don't need to do compounds
switching routines once in a while is generally a good idea too
Thanks for the response! It is really good to hear, I was starting to get worried😅
Are you doing all 10 exercises in one day? That's a lot. I have been lifting for about 10 years and I don't think I've ever done 10 different exercises in one session. Not to say you can't train effectively that way, you can, but it's definitely on the upper end for number of exercises.
Yeah, my workouts are about 90 minutes... This wasn't a big problem as I currently do have enough free time, but now that I'm trying to fill gaps in the routine such as the glutes and upper chest, I'm not sure how to do that without making the workout even longer, let alone making it shorter (which again is not super important to me, but could be nice of course).
Do you have any suggestions?
The best answer to make workouts shorter is to do less excercises in a single session.
The second best answer is to combine excercises into supersets.
What are supersets?
Instead of doing 3 sets of on excercises and then 3 sets of another excercises , you switch between them. If you choose wise (without overlapping muscles), the time spent on one excercise functions as rest time for the other. So for example, if one set takes a minute to do and you rest 2 minutes between sets:
Normal sets are like e1s1 R e1s2 R e1s3 R e2s1 R e2s2 R e2s3 R for a total resttime of 12 minutes
Now with a good superset, you can reduce your rest to 1 min: e1s1 e2s1 R e1s2 e2s2 R e1s3 e2s3 R Now you only have a total rest time of 3 min, saved 9 min total while your individual muscles still have the same 2 min rest.
Supersets will get problematic in a crowed gym, when you combine excercises that use the same muscles, and if you need too much time to change a setup.
You currently have 10 exercises. If you add hip thrust and leg extension that makes 12. I would also say you should add some more shoulder focussed pressing exercise (like an overhead press). So that makes 13 exercises. Right now your trying to do each exercise 3x weekly. I would drop that to 2 (so you do 2/3 of your exercises daily).
Doing each of the 13 exercises 2x weekly is 26 exercises in a week. Split between 3 days it is 8 or 9 exercises per day. Still too high in my opinion. So I would then choose to only do some exercises once per week to get the number of daily exercises down to 6-7 per day. You can do that based on priorities or personal preference. Personally I would say maybe do lateral raises and ohp once per week (they both hit shoulders), and leg press and hip thrust once per week (they both work glutes and quads).
Or add another day so it's 4 days per week with 26 exercises. You still might choose to drop some down to once per week to get it lower if you want.
First of all, thank you very much! I’ll update my plan and split the exercises. Does it matter how I split them? For example, should I put all the leg exercises on two of the days, or split them evenly across all three days? And does the order of exercises in a workout matter? Right now I basically just use whatever machine is free while avoiding training the same muscle group in a row.
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You should look into your diet. If normal amounts of food and protein is bloating you that badly, you’re likely eating stuff that doesn’t agree with you.
If you have enough muscle and low enough body fat, abs go on auto-pilot. Sustaining that level of leanness isn't for everyone, and isn't particularly enjoyable for many. Abs show up around 15% BF, but for many it can be higher depending on where you carry your fat (which you have no control over.)
Also, how much protein are you eating? Unless you're in a weight class where no one has abs or you're like 6'6+, you can get by on ~160g/day. 55g 3x/day isn't exactly gorging on protein...
And taking a lot of pictures in good lighting first thing in the morning, and slowly drip posting over time.
I'm working on getting better at tracking my food, as I've found I've been failing to reach my daily caloric goal.
tl;dr: How do you track things like oil, butter, etc when you make your foods in them.
I was making some roasted snow peas this afternoon, and realized I wasn't really sure how to accurately track the calories. I put salt and pepper on them, and tossed them in oil then roasted them. Is this calorically significant? How do I track the calories from the oil and spices?
It seems like 65 calories from 100g of snow peas is... not very much at all, especially with olive oil on them.
I just measure the oil a few times to see what I’m doing naturally, then eyeball it
Pick a number around 75% of what you measure and go with that.
All that happens if you guess wrong consistently is you'll pick a lower calorie target which indirectly fixes the measurement error.
If you're using 4 tbsps of butter, by all means, track it. If you're tossing a teaspoon of oil on stuff, I wouldn't bother. That's far more important when cutting, and even then, we're talking about stage-level bodybuilding or combat sports where you're cutting weight.
If you're having trouble meeting calories, little dribbles of oil or a tablespoon of butter aren't gonna get you there anyway. Add in 1/4 cup of raw almonds at some point in the day, and then throw a PB&J in before bed. Those two things are gonna be good for like 600 cals and are super easy to get through.
Don't worry about spices, they're negligible. For oil, best you can do is weigh how much you put in the pan.
I started working out last week and have been going to the gym every day doing upper and lower body splits with cardio on upper body days. Question I have is that even though I am lifting to failure...I feel fine the day after and I am wondering if I am pushing myself enough. I figured I would have some soreness as my muscles are getting back into shape. FYI, I was a couch potato before starting to work out and started lifting to lose weight.
Soreness is not an indicator of work done. Sometimes you'll feel it, sometimes you won't, usually based on how "new" something is.
You'll be fine. It's the first week. Consistency, consistency, consistency is what matters more than anything else.
You largely should be okay the day after. It's when you hit the progression wall & the weights get heavier that some sessions will hit you like a truck the day after
Enjoy easy recovery while it lasts.
There are two answers, and only you can decide which one is more correct.
I feel like this is a good time to employ the adage "If you have to ask, the answer is no". That first week if you're lifting to failure you should be pretty ridiculously sore. I'm pretty far removed from that first week but I'm still getting some soreness from lifting. I would also say I'm fine but I don't have zero soreness. If you're pushing yourself hard, you'll know.
If you're progressing (which would be hard to tell just 1 week in) and you're bringing about your goals and adhering to your plan and preferences then you're good. Soreness isn't the point and soreness isn't a reliable indicator of quality devoid of any other context. Progress is.
Thanks, I have increased the number of reps to make sure that I am pushing myself. I am prior USAF, so I wasn't too bad out of shape...but yeah, I started doing 3 sets of 8 and have bumped it up to 10 or 12 depending on the exercise and weight. I am seeing progress, as I have gone up weight as well as the number of reps, so I guess ill just continue. Dont want to push too hard and end up pulling something and be sitting out for a few days...just feel odd as I feel like I should be more sore and wore out the day after.
Hello, I want to ask, I train fullbody 2x per week (Monday, Friday usually). Do you think it's bad in some way to train sometimes on different days if there is at least 1 off day between sessions ? Ty
Most full body programs are recommended 3x a week. By that logic, if you're only doing 2 sessions it really doesn't matter when you do them.
You can train every day if you program it intelligently.
You're good.
Do y'all prefer lying leg curls or seated leg curls?
Sometimes it feels like seated fucks with my lower back more.
I prefer lying, as I can't seem to get stretch tension on seated.
Pick the one you'll attack for the next few years.
Lying. My hips tend to help when I'm sitting.
One trick I learned was I use a long weight lifting belt to strap myself to the chair for seated leg curls so my hips can't rise. At low weight it's not necessary but at high weight it takes your hips out of it.
Seated, I can get a better stretch on my hams because I can lean forward
Seated.
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For what it's worth, i would recommend less volume for a beginner. I would probably cut out the dips for your first few months.
Consistency is the most important to learn at the beginning. Beginners will grow even with minimum volume
That looks solid for your first program. Every program is gonna have some intent and context behind it.
You are a beginner lifter, your top priorities should be effort and consistency.
Context is king; for an intermediate/advanced lifter, this likely wouldn't be enough work or variety. We all have biases and blind spots. A pretty common one is that once people get intermediate or advanced, they forget what they did to get there.
Some people love beating themselves to death with volume(ala me), but more often than not, it discourages newer lifters because they don't get off on doing 40+ working sets in a session.
I'd be curious what they meant by "not enough?" Because for a push day, this is plenty. The issue is you need a pull and a leg day to go with it. Be sure to track your weights and reps each week through an app or notepad and try to lift more weight or reps each week, do the same with your pull and leg days as well for about a year. Viola, you're not a beginner anymore
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So the context here is you're a beginner, your gym buddies are not. Your relative understands that the MOST IMPORTANT thing for you is to get INTO the gym and actually stay consistent. So he/she is not giving you a 2 hour daily program that's gonna burn you out. Instead they are giving you a beginner routine that you can actually stick to and learn. Most people quit lifting because they simple cannot devote the time or try to do too much at once. The results come from months/years of lifting, not one really great day of lifting. So the idea is to give yourself an actual chance.
Once your routine is down and set, then you can begin to add sets and volume (which is what they are arguing you need more of, volume). You'll find that programming is always evolving based on what muscle group you're unhappy with. But that is a much more, later down the road issue you don't need to worry about right now.
My back is a weak point, and I’m starting to do some sort of back exercise 3x per week to fix it. But I hate it. I work out in the morning before working in an office job, and I feel like after working out back I can’t sit still or focus and I’m more hungry throughout the day. Does anyone else deal with this? Any recommendations on how to better cope?
Back work hits a lot of stabilizer muscles that stay on the whole time, so the fatigue can feel different and kind of full-body. Totally normal when you bump up back volume. Spreading the work across the week can make it feel easier, and eating a good meal or snack after helps a ton with that post-workout hunger. It usually gets easier once your body adapts.
Might need some context here. Are you saying you weren't lifting at all and began lifting all the sudden (only doing back exercises) and now you're hungry all the time? This would make sense why you're hungry, you're burning more energy by being active and your body is telling you that it needs calories.
If you're an experienced lifter and have increased your back work it would still make sense that you're burning more calories and need to supplement it.
Regardless, the simple answer here is eat. Preferably a good source of protein.
Good question. I’ve been lifting consistently for about 2 years now. I just haven’t done much back volume in that time. Maybe 1-2 exercises per week.
Now that I’m upping the volume in that area it seems like the soreness/hunger are way up. I’m still spending the same amount of time in the gym, just shifting volume away from other areas to focus on back for a while.
The soreness is easily explainable, your putting more stress on your back muscles. The scientific explanation is lifting weights depletes your glycogen stores and triggers ghrelin to tell you that you're hungry and boosting your metabolism (especially on larger muscle groups such as legs and back). So there is some combination of increased stress demands + a large muscle group = hunger. Again, I think the answer of "how do I cope" is simply eat.
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