Beginner/intermediate routine?

[Caleb]

Been a while since I've been on here!

I've just finished my push/pull/legs routine which I've been suing for 2-2.5 months and am looking for something new; and definitely challenging.

This is what I've been doing:

push - bench press (switch between flat, decline, incline), dumbell flys ( same again), military press, lateral rauses, triceps dips, cable pushdown.

pull - deadlifts, dumbbell bent over row, dumbbell seated power cleans, wide grip low pulley rows, chin ups, ez bar curls

legs - front squats, leg press, leg curls, leg extensions, smith calf raises, calf press

This has served me pretty well, but I'm looking for to up the intensity a little bit. Off on holiday in a couple of months and wanna put on some more muscle beforehand. Problem is with my current diet I've put on a tiiiiiiny bit of a belly. It's practically nothing, but that's what i get for not doing cardio properly in 7 months. So I need to reintroduce some cardio. Diet also needs a bit of a revamp and am a little cluesless on where to start with this =/.

Are there any pre-written routine you guys can recommend? Or done any of your own that you would mind sharing? Wendler 5-3-1 looks pretty good, and I like the technical side of it, albeit I don't quite completely grasp how it works.

Was also thinking of knocking things up to 4 days, as doing chest/tri/shoulders on the same day is a real ballache. So my my 4th day could be shoulders and a bit of ab/core work?

Opinions welcome, cheers fellas.

[Tauren]

Gaining muscle = calorie excess = fat gain

There are some fancy ways you can set up your diet to keep the fat gain to a minimum, but its going to happen to some extent. Don't feel bad about it, its part of bulking. If you add enough cardio you may stop gaining fat, even lose some fat, but you will stop gaining lean mass too.

I will leave the routine advice to the guys experienced in those things, but what I would definitely say is don't try to shoot for two goals at once. You might find you are best off having a full on cutting phase sometime between now and your holiday, and use the rest of the time to concentrate on adding mass.

[James]

If you are prepared to train 4 days a week I would suggest a upper/lower split - this way you are hitting each muscle 2-3 times every 7 days, a lot better than only hitting each 1-2 a week with too low a volume to maximise growth.

Build your routine with mainly compound exercises but do include some isolated, for instance:-

Workout A1 (upper)
Bench 3x6
Chin Up 3x6
Dips 3x6
OH Press 3x8
Biceps curl 2x8

Workout A2 (lower)
Squat 2x6
Straight Leg Dead Lifts 3x8
Leg Curls 3x8
Calf Raises 2x10
Abs Bridges

Workout B1 (upper)
Incline DB bench 3x6
Seated cable rows 2x8
Tricep cable pulldowns 2x8
DB shoulder press 2x8
BB biceps curl 3x10

Workout B2 (lower)
Deadlifts 2x6
Leg Extensions 3x8
Seated Calf Raises 3x8
Abs Crunches 3x8

That is just an example, of course.

[SpiderDan]

for four days -

pick WSFSBIII or wendler 5/3/1

[Caleb]

Spiderdan: Not heard of the westside III routine before, got a link to it? I've done the original wsfsb (unless this is it, the III is throwing me off?). Thinking about it, I would really love to try wendler 5/3/1 and it appeals to me so much, but I would like to do more than 2 mesocycles of it before I went away in september. Not sure 2 mesocycles would be enough to really gain what the program is set out for. Once I start uni in september though I think I'm gonna give it a proper go.
I'm almost never able to workout on the same days every week as my hours shift so much at work, which could also get in the way of wendler.

James: I've done a lower/upper routine once before and quite liked it. The routine you've posted looks good. I would like to re-incorporate some ab and forearm stuff into one of the workouts as I've not done either in a couple of months. Suppose I could tag that onto the end of B2? Need to slot some shrugs in somewhere as well as I've not had a pure trap isolation exercise in even longer I think.

Tauren: Yeah I know what you mean mate. I know it's incredibly hard to find a balance between the two as only a handful of the guys on here have managed to do so. I'd be pretty pissed if at the end of this new routine I hadn't really gained anything because I was overdoing cardio.
As a rough comparison to the stomach thing i mentioned earlier, before I started training last year my abs had good definition whereas now they're very hard to see. Stomach is still quite flat though, so it must be just a slightly higher bf% causing it?
I've never done a cutting phase before so I don't really know what those entail?

Also, how the hell do you stop e-mail notifications when people have replied to your thread?! :P

[Tauren]

Quote

Tauren: Yeah I know what you mean mate. I know it's incredibly hard to find a balance between the two as only a handful of the guys on here have managed to do so. I'd be pretty pissed if at the end of this new routine I hadn't really gained anything because I was overdoing cardio.
As a rough comparison to the stomach thing i mentioned earlier, before I started training last year my abs had good definition whereas now they're very hard to see. Stomach is still quite flat though, so it must be just a slightly higher bf% causing it?
I've never done a cutting phase before so I don't really know what those entail?

Also, how the hell do you stop e-mail notifications when people have replied to your thread?! :P

Re: the disappearing abs, it does indeed sound like your BF has gone up a little. On the plus side if you can even vaguely see them your bodyfat is still under control.

A cut is just a fancy word for a diet, albeit a diet where you are explicitly trying to preserve lean body mass (which any good diet should do anyway tbh). There are about a million ways to do this of course - have a look around the forum and the stickies.

Like I said, shoot for one goal. Again, there is lots of information out thereabout bulking, and setting up a diet etc. Just my personal opinion, but I wouldn't be afraid of gaining a little fat to gain some muscle mass too. Just leave yourself enough time to diet it off before your holiday.

Oh, and go to the "User CP" - button on the top left - to turn notifications off.

[SpiderDan]

Quote

Spiderdan: Not heard of the westside III routine before, got a link to it? I've done the original wsfsb (unless this is it, the III is throwing me off?). Thinking about it, I would really love to try wendler 5/3/1 and it appeals to me so much, but I would like to do more than 2 mesocycles of it before I went away in september. Not sure 2 mesocycles would be enough to really gain what the program is set out for. Once I start uni in september though I think I'm gonna give it a proper go.
I'm almost never able to workout on the same days every week as my hours shift so much at work, which could also get in the way of wendler.

Its on Defrancostraining.com, just click on articles.

Regarding Wendler it doesnt matter about which days you actually train. If you set it out

Day 1: Squat
Day 2: Press
Day 3: Dead
Day 4: Bench

Keep doing it in that order until you get through the cycle, so long as you dont try to do more than two days in a row you'll be fine. You can then adjust the volume of the assistance work to suit so long as you get the main exercise in.

Its a great program to start anytime, you can still get stronger using lighter weights.

[James]

Quote

... I would like to re-incorporate some ab and forearm stuff into one of the workouts as I've not done either in a couple of months. Suppose I could tag that onto the end of B2? Need to slot some shrugs in somewhere...

To be honest, you won't need any isolation exercises to train those areas optimally, the exercises in the routine I posted, mainly being compounds, will hit forearms, core (abs) and traps.

[Caleb]

Done all but B2 and am enjoying that routine so far, thanks james. Although Doing bench press and OH press on the same day is brutal, so i might put OH on B1 and move the DB shoulder press to A1. Other than that it's good.

Shall hopefully have the training gloves and straps i've ordered off of here tomorrow in preparation for deadlifts. Have actually been using biking gloves as a substitute since i started just to protect my hands, so it should be good to use some proper ones.

Shall have a quick read through some stickies regarding this, but quickly, how should your routine and diet change when starting to cut? Lower weights higher reps i imagine? And less obviously less calories in the diet; how about fat/protein totals etc.?