I’m actually a very unorganized person and never have a real plan when working out, but here are just a few things I follow.
1. Do 4-5 sets on whatever muscle you are working on.
2. 10-12 reps/set, depending on weight—Say, if your first set is sort of a warm up and is really light, 17-20 won’t hurt.
3. After those 4-5 sets, do another 4-5 sets on the same muscle but on a different machine, slope, motion, etc. If you haven’t died yet—and you haven’t—do another 4-5 sets on the same muscles again. IMO this way of working out works well for the pecs as I can do bench press, inclined and declining presses, dips, pec fly, pushups… that’s easily 24-30 sets…I rarely do that since I like to work out more than just a few muscle groups for each work out, but if I really want to focus on my pecs…it’ll be good.
4. Find a good balance between getting the motions correct but still feeling like you can't go on anymore at the end of each set. I growl in pain on most sets, I hope you do too.
5. Generally, I alternate between the pull and push muscles…so if I’ve just killed myself doing bench presses, I might continue onto the shoulders but after that, these push muscles will be just too tired… I would therefore definitely not go for the triceps until I’ve rested them while I work on the biceps and back.
6. In the summer I work out for 2 hours, generally, sometimes 3. Now I have to work out for 1 hour to 1 and a half hours…I take a break in between and use that time for the protein shake—it gets me going for the second half.
7. Yes, your muscles do need to rest so you shouldn’t be killing yourself every single day—but this type of mindset easily forces you to become lazy—so tell yourself to go to the gym every single day anyway and Do It because there are going to be days when you Really don’t have the time to work out at all, and these days serve as breaks.
I find that the days when I got tons of work and tests coming up are the days I absolutely need to work out, even if it means rushing to the gym less than an hour before it closes and just senselessly murdering myself—the sense of accomplishment after I stagger out is priceless.
8. Sleep. This weekend, I finally got enough sleep and I was surprised by how my pecs grew so fast… scary… almost like a penis erecting eh.
9. Lean meat, eggs, beans, milk, you hear it all the time…but they’re good. You gotta eat enough to gain muscles, but at the same time, eating more means you can easily gain fat. So you do have to find a week or two (or month, if you’re that fat) once in a while to just not care about gaining, work out just as much anyway, but really cut down on your diet. I finally learned that building muscles isn’t about trying to get heavier—that’s too easy an excuse for getting fat. Look into the mirror to make sure you’re building but try to keep your weight the same, if not lighter.
Well, there’s the amateur’s advice
… would appreciate any other suggestions … and if you’re real familiar with this stuff already, go ahead and criticize my work out “plan
” and help me out.
