Lifeforce Weightlifting Journal

[Disu]

posted too soon...

a little more research and this http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=150447seems to answer my questions. Or maybe not.

i get the impression i should start out with full body splits before getting into the separate days for chest, legs, back splits...

Jeez, there's too much info on where to start. Argh. Maybe I'll just stick with http://www.exrx.net/WeightTraining/Instructions.html


any tips you have would be appreciated.

 

[Lifeforce]

First off, congratulations to deciding to start, you are walking in the winners path. :] And thanks for the warm words.

1. Actually you must learn the exercises first, it'll take a couple of weeks. And if you are just starting you can do almost anything to get your body to grow. I started with squat and deadlift on the same day! Just get used to the exercises and try them out for a couple of weeks then go into splits. I started to train before this journal, in march but only trained for three weeks. Then skipped two months and started again.

Nowadays I use the three major exercises and base my workout aroudn them. 1 Day squat, 1 day bench and one day deadlift. Then I stick the minor muscle groups to each of these days. It's what I like best and I still grow so for me it works.

My split looks like this (actually varies some when I work out):

Day 1: Legs + calves
Day 2: nothing
Day 3: Chest + delts + tris + abs
Day 4: Nothing
Day 5: Back + biceps + traps
Day 6: Nothing
Day 7: Nothing

2. Everything you need to know is in the DIESELs guide to bulking, except splits. I used max-ot a little but I don't like to train five days a week. I do agree with going super heavy 4-6 rep on every exercise except forearms calves and abs and having enough rest between sets. Most of the things are bull**** from the magazines. To fill the pages they will invent bull**** systems which some pro will say "This was my way to great XXX". DIESEL knew his **** and saw through all that.

I have some pointers I do want to give

* As DIESEL says do not use machines except pull-downs, hamstring curl, leg press and some more.
* Be prepared that you WILL gain some fat with the muscle, it's normal unless you gain too much. Many skinny guys are afraid that they might get fat, if you are, you must get this out of your head.
* Do as much compound exercises as you can. If someone does a biceps curl standing in their head and singing "for he's a jolly good fellow" then it doesn't mean his curl is more effective than your ordinary compound biceps curl. Avoid isolation exercises like the plauge!
* Keep your workout around an hour if possible
* when lifting it should take double the time to letting the weight down than it took to get it up.
* If you are skinny be prepared that your metabolism is high so you may have to eat as much as you can of the guidelines DIESEL gives or even some more. You might want to increase your eating habits slowly so your stomach doesn't go berserk, or you can just eat and eat and adapt that way (I did)
* Go light for a week or two so you get the form before you start pumping away heavy. Most likely your muscles are not used to heavy lifting like this.
* Do not listen to people around you if they try to discourage you or if they tell you to stop when you start to grow. Some people will just diss you.
* Stretch after your workouts it really helps.
* Get a tan at the same time you start bulking, you'll look more defined.
* Always warm up before. Sample warmup:

12 repx50% of maximum weight you will be using
10 repx50% of maximum weight you will be using
6 repx65% of maximum weight you will be using
3 repx80% of maximum weight you will be using
1 repx90% of maximum weight you will be using


Some notes on some exercises that can be dangerous if done wrong.

Deadlifts

* Keep your back straigt when lifting and Flex the abdominals.
* The bar should be positioned so if you look down at it it covers the base of your toes.
* Look yourself in the eyes in the mirror and inhale before you lift up, lift down and outhale, repeat.
* Your knees should be pointing the same way as your feet. (valid for squats too)

Squats

* Keep your back straight and have some air in your lungs and flex your abdominals before you squat. This is one of the most dangeous exercises so this one should be shown respect
* Make sure your weight point is in the middle of your feet.
* When you hold the bar on your back, try to get the shoulder blades together by holding a close grip and at the same time that the wrist and the hand is aligned so the bar isn't lying in a hand that is bent backwards.
* Good to have a spotter on this one if you shouldn't be able to get up.

Bench

* Hold the bar just a little wider than shoulder width
* Do not curl your back when lifting, if you do it's too heavy.
* The bar should be around the lower end of the chestbone to get most strength in the lift
* It's good to have a spotter so you can go hardcore and not worry.

Military press

* Lock your hip by flexing ass and abdominals while doing this.
* Always do standing and in front of your head.

Upright rows

* Very debated exercise, be very careful when you do it or your delts may get hurt.

Dips

* Do not do this with jerky movements and when you are about to get down to the floor again do it smoothly.

Stiff leg deadlifts

* Make sure you do this with your back straight
* Bend your knees slightly so you don't lock them <- very important
* Look yourself in the eyes
* Keep bar close to body if you can
(the same things apply for bent over rows except the last point)


Check exrx for how the exercises look like.

Happy Bulking and if you have any question just ask it.

Lifeforce

 

[DJBen]

Disu:

Right. Do two months of full body workouts. Maybe three. Spend one of those months slowly increasing the weight up to what you find heavy. Form is very important, and so is strengthening your ligaments to cope with the new weight. If you dont do this, you'll do what I've done and fvck up your shoulder when benching too much. I've got another doctors appointment tomorrow. Cest La Vie, eh?

If you're slightly overweight, cut some body fat. I'm not really big on cutting the traditional way, but for bulking:

Slowly increase your calories by 300kcals per week. Make sure that you up your protein intake so that your body can build a lot of new muscle tissue, I'm sure you're aware of the 1.2g baseline for protein.

Carbs arent the enemy. My new diet see's me eating close to 550 carbs. Nuff said on that. Make sure it comes from complex carbs - I'm sure you can find a list of what good complex carbs are.

Avoid cardio. Unless you can easily get300-500 more calories into your body - in which case, do a bit of cardio maybe once or twice a week. Not around leg day though.

EXCERSIZE LIST:

Deadlift
Squat
Bent Row
Pull Ups/Chins
Tricep Dips
Chest Dips
Straight Leg Deadllifts [You happy now, Lifeforce? ]
Power Cleans
Snatch

Thats the excersizes you should base all your routines around.

Thats pretty much the basics to bulking. Bust your ass in the gym, stock your kitchen with healthy foods, and eat like a horse.

Then you can sleep like a baby at night to get 8/9 hours rest.

Oh:

Whey protein
MRP if you're lazy and cant eat loads like me
Vit C/Vit E. Everything else you can get a load of from fruits and vege's.

Lifeforce:

Couldnt post all of that in your journal without trying to give you a helping hand, so let me share a few things with you that I might not have said around here before:

I've got a new split for you to try. Scientifically, it's a damn solid split:

Chest + Back
OFF
Legs+Calf+Abs
OFF
Chest+Arms+Delts+Traps
OFF
...back to chest/take a day off. Whatever you want.

Now here is where it gets interesting.

Chest+Back:

Do a barbell bench press, rest 1/1.5 mins, do some bent rows, rest 1/1.5 mins, back to bench. You're not actually supersetting. This should kick you into awesome growth.

See, the body does some interesting things when you stimulate antagonist muscles... I'd go into it now, but I'm TRYING to be brief and spend less time
online! It's failin'! lol

Do that with all of the excersizes for a week - go pretty damn heavy. So for arms, weighted chins followed by dips. For legs, squats/SLDL.

A note on sets/reps:

Instead of doing something lile 3X8, do 4X6 or 6X4. Its a way of going heavier [although you should really train as you normally would] and also cuts down on recovery time.

Another random note:

I've found, for me atleast, that my bench press sky-rocketed when I split tri's and delts away from my bench day. Benching is primarily a tricep movement, all the chest does is adduct the arms. So there. [But hey, you're gonna give this new split a try arent you? You can tell me abou the amazing new PR's and muscle growth soon!]

Note on diet:

Eat 20g's more protein and make sure you have 2spoons of olive oil/flax oil, using the carbs+protein/fat+protein idea. I've found tuna and olive oil to be suprisingly nice for some reason!

Thats about it from me. I'm off work the right hand side of my upper body. I might not be able to do the right hand side, but for christ sakes, I'm not gonna stop training

 

[Lifeforce]

Ok workout XX

Todays workout Chest + biceps + delts + abs


Warm up:

Bench 12x20 kg 44 lbs
Bench 6x40 kg 88 lbs
Bench 3x50 kg 110 lbs

Workout

Bench 3x65 kg
Bench 6x60 kg
Bench 3x62.5 kg

Db Bench 4x26.4 kg 58 lbs
Db Bench 4x23.9 kg 52 lbs

Biceps curl 3x40 kg 88 lbs
Biceps curl 3x40 kg 88 lbs
Biceps curl 4x37.5 kg 82 lbs

Military Press 4x40 kg 88 lbs
Military Press 5x40 kg 88 lbs
Military Press 7x35 kg 77 lbs

Upright rows 8-10?x27.5 60 lbs
Upright rows 8x27.5 60 lbs
(working on form)

Dumbell curl 13.6 kg 30 lbs (the heavier one was taken )

8 Leg raises attached to machine 15 kg 33 lbs
12 leg raises attached to machine 10 kg 22 lbs
8 leg raises attached to machine 10 kg 22 lbs
8 leg raises attached to machine 10 kg 22 lbs

This workout was ok, nothing more. Didn't really have the power in the muscles today. It's just one of these workouts you'll forget.

BEN! Finally you are giving some creds to the stiff leg deads :] I'm so happy.

For you, anything, I'll try it out in a while and tell you the results. I just want the weight gain to go slower before I change. :] I'm just about to have dinner with my family so I cannot give a longer reply. Wasnt' you supposed to cut down on internet surfing ben?

 

[Double]

My bench workout today:

Bench 3x64,5KG
Bench 4x64,5KG
Bench 4x64,5KG

haha think i won very close


but how you do Military Press 5x40 kg man thats fantastic i can only do 5x26kg and NOT after bench


btw after my warmup sets for squats i began lifting my training weight and my eyes got dark and i felt very weak and very strange/unreal....lucky i was able to put the weight back to the machine....man that was a shock!

 

[gav]

nice one man. your benches are a little better than mine; your biceps must be awesome - 40kg? so are they your favourite muscles? - you goin for that 100lb curl soon?

 

[Lifeforce]

That's the problem, my arms still suck 13.6" but they are growing. Haha, no actually triceps is much more fun to train, and of course the good 'ol legs. :]

Tried 100 lbs curl today but I couldn't get it up, my biceps were impotent. Next time I will try it not after the entire workout but before


Nice double you beat me. My military press is low, look at solid the damn guy can rep 60 kg!

You probably just trained a little too hard. It have happened to me before too. The thing you should do when it happens is to lean forward and down with your head and breath deeply.

 

[gmonster2]

Hi Lifeforce good thread.


I've been training for 20 months now and plateaued so have decided to try the max ot method of 4-6 reps of heavy as i can lift.

Your other lifts, squats bench deads etc look good but
Just a pointer on your bicep curls, i think u should drop your weight back a bit and aim for at least 4 reps.

something like 5 reps then 4 and 4. I know its important to up the weight when u can but i think 3 reps are getting a bit low.

Also do you warm up before the 3 hvy sets for biceps?

heres my latest bicep routine.

2 sets alternate dumbell curl 12kg*10 reps (warm up)
4 sets barbell curl 42g *6 reps

keep pumping the iron.. peace

 

[Lifeforce]

Awesome workout XXXX

Workout back + triceps

Warm up

Deadlift 10x50 kg
Deadlift 6x70 kg
Deadlift 3x90 kg
Deadlift 1x110 Kg

Workout

Deadlift 5x110 kg 242 lbs
Deadlift 4x115 kg 253 lbs
Deadlift 4x110 kg 242 lbs

Howabout that gav?

7 Pull-ups
6 Pull ups

Pull down 6x63 kg 138 lbs
Pull Down 5x63 kg 138 lbs

Bent over rows 7x50 kg 110 lbs
Bent over rows 4x60 kg 132 lbs

Skull crushers 6x32.5 71.5 lbs
Skull crushers 4x32.5 71.5 lbs
Skull crushers 3x30 66 lbs ???

Whoa, this was some intense workout... took nealy an hour. I got pain in my heart area today so I will check it up on monday to see if it isn't anything serious. :/

Gmonster. You are absolutly correct. I will lower the bicep curl so I manage 4 reps. I thought I could make it and I didn't so I'll go for a little lighter weights. Thanks by the way. And good luck with the max-ot

I do not warm up as my biceps tends to be already warmed up when I do them.

 

[DJBen]

Good deadlifts man. Go 10/5/2/1 in the warm ups and see if that makes you put an extra 10KG on the bar

I'm getting damned jealous reading this. I've screwed my rotator cuff so this is MORE time off of lifting. 3 weeks possibly Moral of the story: Dont train through injuries

Keep up the hard work mate!

 

[Lifeforce]

Originally posted by DJBen
Good deadlifts man. Go 10/5/2/1 in the warm ups and see if that makes you put an extra 10KG on the bar

I'm getting damned jealous reading this. I've screwed my rotator cuff so this is MORE time off of lifting. 3 weeks possibly Moral of the story: Dont train through injuries

Keep up the hard work mate!

Thanks mate... the first to reply as usual. I'll try that warmup. But for now I am taking it easy until I check so I haven't got any problem with my heart.

Too bad man Hope you recover quickly.

 

[gav]

fvcking hell!!! *round of applause for those deads*

i don't think i'll manage that much cuz my forearms won't let me. can't believe you did a 110kg deadlift to warmup. that's takin the piss

 

[Disu]

Thanks

I really appreciate the time you guys put into that,

Now I'll get right into it and show by action rather than mere words.

 

[S0LID]

ye ben, as soon as u feel a slight pain, STOP!

 

[DJBen]

But I was arnold pressing 26KG

 

[semag]

But I was arnold pressing 26KG

how many reps?

 

[DJBen]

three

I wanted to get six, but my shoulder suddenly said:

ahhhh hahahahahahahahahah OUCH!

So I stopped

 

[semag]

Heh, Awesome.

I've been incorporating a new delt workout.

Weeks 1&2
DB shoulder press, 3 sets, 15, 12, 10, weight up each time
Barbell upright row, 15,12,10
dumbell shrugs, 15, 12,19
incline bent over lat raise 15,12,10

Weeks 3&4

Db shoulder press, 4 sets, 8,8,7,6
DB upright row (weird, but pretty good) 8,8,7,6
Barbell shrugs 8,8,8,8
Leaning lat raise (grab something that's a pole, put your feet close, and lean out with a dumbell in your hand, and raise it to the side) 12,12,10
Cable Front Raise (2 hand) 12,12,10

weeks 5&6
Arnolds 8,7,6
supersetted with
cable lat raise 12,12,10

DB upright row 8,8,6
supersetted with
DB front raise 12,12,10

Dumbell shrug 8,8,8
supersetted with
rope cable row (standing, works rear delts) 12,12,10

I haven't gotten to weeks 5&6 yet (that's next week..) but I've gone through weeks 1-4... not bad at all

 

[DJBen]

Not bad, but you'll need to be careful with those front delts - they're being worked a hell of a lot more than the rear delt imo.

I like the leaning variation, but it doesnt like my shoulders. Same with upright rows.

Wheres the bent over laterals, they should be a main-stay in all shoulder workouts!

Good to see someone else that mainly sticks to higher rep workouts. Everyone these days trains blind on an HIT style workout and never gives higher reps a go. They dont seem to understand, as a bodybuilder you're building muscle, not training to enter powerlifting

 

[semag]

Yep, I pulled it out of an M&F magazine, pretty nice when you can recognize what's worth taking away from the mags

I figured the higher reps would be a good new way to hit my muscles after my 5x5's all summer.