OK. Before I begin, let me say that by and large I'm new to the prospect of putting on muscle so any tips from you more experienced guys would be extremely appreciated.
Prior to joining this forum, I snooped around the web looking at various articles detailing the reps and how many sets I should do at what weight, etc.
Before I did low weight, lots of reps like 8-12 w/ about 4 sets. So on the bench press I would slide 45 lbs on each side and try to hammer out at least 8. Same procedure applies to all the rest of the exercise for my various muscle groups. This has been my weight lifting procedure since I began about a year ago. I've made some gains but I'm wondering if I should change it up.
(By the way, I'm doing a split routine so Monday, Wednesday, Friday is upper body and Sunday and Tuesday is lower body.)
So lately I've been doing a low rep, high weight work out as follows. All units are pounds.
Bench Press (Including Bar Weight)
4 x 165 (Felt this was too heavy so I went down to 160. I'll probably be starting at 160 from now on unless you guys think 165 is good)
5 x 160
4 x 160
3 x 160
Bicep Curl (EZ Curl Bar)
4 x 60 (Plus whatever the bar weighs)
5 x 55
5 x 55
Tricep Pull Down (Rope handle)
6 x 125
6x 127.5
5 x 130
Iso Row
5 at 125 lb on each side of the machine
''
''
Shoulder Press
5 at 50 lb
''
''
Ok there you have it.
I'm trying to get at least 4 reps out of each exercise (I got three reps in on the last bench press because I think I overdid it on the first set with 165 lb)
Anyways, I'd like to hear your guys thoughts and just see if you think I'm doing alright and my workout looks good.
After doing high reps, low weights for so long it seems sacrilegious to do anything under 8 reps but I'm assuming this is OK. Indeed, 6 reps seems to be my maximum with the high weight, low reps workout.
Like I said earlier, any suggestions, lifting tips, etc. will be greatly appreciated! = ) Thank you.
BTW, I'm doing crew here in college so if you have a good workout for that, please post. I should say crew doesn't require explosive strength so much as endurance for races.
From the looks of it, your probably doing too much. As a beginner, 3-4 days a week will give you more gains rather than if you did more. So routines such as Rippetoes Starting Strength, Bill Stars/Madcows 5x5, West Side For Skinny Bastards (WS4SB), ect. would prove to be more useful to yourself.
If your goal is mass, then your rep range is fine. But note, without a good strength base, building muscle mass will be hard. Training for strength now will help you greatly in the future for hypertrophy (muscle mass building) routines. Also, as a beginner you'll make extremely fast gains, faster than elite bodybuilders on steroids; so at the moment, you want to take advantage of that. General rep ranges are as follows:
1-5 for strength
6-8 for strength/hypertrophy
8-12 for hypertrophy
15+ for muscle endurance
So you'll notice in the routines I listed above, there main range is 1-5, as building a strong strength base is smart to do at a novice level. As almost anyone on this board, I would recommend deloading for 3-5 days (stop lifting), then start up Rippetoes Starting Strength, or WS4SB (not sure about your weight). 5x5 would be a routine to follow up on, as Rippetoes revolves around 3 sets of 5, and 5x5 is well, 5 sets of 5. Here are links to both:
Bookmarks