Not a steroid issue, but I'd like some advice

M

major philosophy

Greenlighter
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May 22, 2011
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I'm 18, will be going to college in the fall, and I weigh hardly 140 lb. I'm 5'5'' (italian...) Been lifting for a year or two, been serious this last year. My workout right now is called Doggcrap Training. Basically, you do legs and bi's one day, then the other muscles the next time you come back. It goes every other day, with cardio on off days if you want.

How it works is... For bi's I'll do one exercise. We can call this day Monday. I will do what I can for failure, then rest for 10 good breaths, go again, rest, then go again. You should get a total of 11-15 reps depending on the exercise. Directly after the set, you stretch the muscle for a minute. Then the next time you come back you will do chest,back,etc (wednesday). On friday, you will do your bi's again but will do a different exercise to failure, and the next time you do bi's it will be a different exercise again. There is a total of 3 exercises that you do in cycle. I've been eating well for the most part, or atleast trying. Should I change anything? Are there better workouts to do? I want to get decently sized before i head off to college. First impressions are everything and I want mine to be the best it can be. Understand? Please help if possible
 
What's your food intake like? Are you eating the right things? How much are you sleeping?


Get rid of all the isolated exercises. You're better off spending your effort on lifts that'll help you gain more. Focus on compound lifts- squats, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press, and perhaps bent over rows. Throw in some pull ups and dips if you'd like. 3X5 as well as warm ups.

Spend at least half a year gaining as much as possible, then worry about cutting and adding isolated lifts.
 
I weigh 135 so I really don't think i need to eat all that much. i consume atleast 130 grams of protein a day. should i up it? Sleep has been a problem, but ZMA should be coming in Wednesday. I wake up in the middle of the night sweating my ass off almost every night, anyone know why this might be?
Lay this out for me though. Should i go every other day still? and.. What should i do on the days. Thanks in advance
 
You have to assess the sleep issue yourself. Firstly, do you have any anxiety or stress which may cause it? depending on whether you have any other accompanying symptoms it may be worth visiting a doctor about it.

Also, have you looked at the Paleo diet? you wouldn't need to follow it entirely, but cutting out processed foods and eating high quality protein, vegetables and avoiding bad grains will do you a lot of good. It's not as hard as it sounds either if your not going all out Paleo.
 
Sounds good Jaylib, thanks for the input. I'll check out the diet once I get money to actually buy the book. Unless there's an online source that I haven't been able to find..?

Concerning the sleep cycle, I'm really unsure of what could be causing it. I mean, it does seem to happen when I have bad dreams, but it also happens when I'm having a pretty regular dream.

Can anyone lay out a workout regiment for me. meaning, what to do on what days.
 
I weigh 135 so I really don't think i need to eat all that much.
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I'm not sure I follow your logic here. Your weight doesn't really have anything to do with how much you need to eat to gain. What exactly are your goals here? Be specific. If you're to say something like "I'd like to weigh 155 with 10% bf," it would help.

i consume atleast 130 grams of protein a day. should i up it?
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You should be consuming 1 gram of protein per pound. Some will say per pound of lean body mass, but more won't hurt you.

Can anyone lay out a workout regiment for me. meaning, what to do on what days.
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Look into Rippetoe's Starting Strength.

You'll be doing this:
Workout A
3x5 Squat
3x5 Bench Press
1x5 Deadlift

Workout B
3x5 Squat
3x5 Press
5x3 Power Cleans (If you don't want to do power cleans look into the StrongLifts program, you'll be doing bent over rows instead of this.)

Working out MWF.

Start with just the 45lb bar and add 5 lbs each day you do it. You can add 10lb to your squat and deadlift at first, but you'll end up doing just 5 once the weight gets up there. Don't start with any plates because you'll be focusing on form. Go to his website, or use Google, to get more info on form for each lift.

Make sure you're eating properly, enough, and getting at least 7-8 hours of sleep.

Follow that program to bulk for 6 months, then cut for the next 3-4 months. After that look into more advanced programs/splits that use some isolated movements.

Pretty simple and you're guaranteed results if you follow it.
 
major philosophy said:
I weigh 135 so I really don't think i need to eat all that much. i consume atleast 130 grams of protein a day. should i up it?
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You'll never get bigger with that thinking. If you keep eating like you are you're just going to weigh the same. To gain you gotta up the calories. When I went from 155 to 180 I was eating probably around 5000 calories and getting AT LEAST 230 grams of protein. To get big you gotta think big. Sounds corny but it's really true as far as diet and lifting.

As for the lifting part, stick to mostly heavy compound excercises with some isolation ones thrown in afterwards if your going for hypertrophy. 4-6 reps is a good range for size, lower is more for strength, but that doesn't mean you can't work in different rep ranges into your routine. Don't neglect doing squats and deadlifts either. Bench, squats, deadlifts and overhead presses should be the staple of your weekly routine if you really want to put some good size on and get stronger.
 
Yeah, you have to do squats, especially if this is your first time lifting. They'll help you gain with all your other lifts. Fuck, if you were to only do one lift, it should be squats. I think you get the point.

4-6 reps is a good range for size, lower is more for strength,
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That's not what I've learned.
NSFW:

repetitioncontinuum.jpg


If you're more interested in size, you're going for sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. I wouldn't bother with more than 70-75% your 1RM for 10 reps...
 
Well 4 reps is kind of inbetween power and strength. I actually think it's a good rep range because you can easily add both strength and size on it. I'm more into powerlifting, but even when I was doing more of a bodybuilding routine I seldom went over 6 reps on my compound lifts. Isolation excercises I would sometimes go a bit higher. But I would consider hypertrophy reps really anything between 4 and 10 reps. IMO it's pretty pointless to go over 10 reps on anything. Lifting weights shouldn't be an endurance race. Hell, even with 1-3 reps you can still put on size, it's just not necessarily the optimal range if your primary goal is hypertrophy.
 
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phrozen said:
Fuck, if you were to only do one lift, it should be squats.
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If I could only do one lift it would be the clean and jerk, but unfortunatley I don't have a coach. :(

phrozen said:
If you're more interested in size, you're going for sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. I wouldn't bother with more than 70-75% your 1RM for 10 reps...
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I totally disagree with this. I don't know why people think 10 reps is some magical number for putting on size. I've easily repped 85% or more of 1 rep maxes in my training.
 
Eat, train and sleep. Repeat.

Never heard of that training method. IMO it's better not to copy someone else's training plan. Make a training plan to suit you.
 
ziggaz said:
Eat, train and sleep. Repeat.

Never heard of that training method. IMO it's better not to copy someone else's training plan. Make a training plan to suit you.
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There's good programs out there. Starting strength seems pretty good from what I've read if you're a beginner. I've also heard good things about DC training when I was more into bodybuilding but I haven't really read much about it.

Obviously someone who has been training for years is going to have a better idea of what works for them and will be able to make or taylor their own routines to what they're trying to accomplish. But if you throw someone relatively new to lifting into the gym with no routine or advice, chances are they aren't going to have a clue about what to do. Not saying that that's the case with the op, but there are some good routines out there, even for seasoned lifters.
 
But if you throw someone relatively new to lifting into the gym with no routine or advice, chances are they aren't going to have a clue about what to do.
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Yeah, they'll focus on bicep curls. ;)
 
Captain.Heroin said:
I also find it is excellent to keep up with leg work outs (seated leg extensions, adductor and abductor, seated leg raises, etc) as this will help boost your testosterone endogenously.
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No offense, but how can you talk leg workouts and not mention squats? Squats and deadlifts should be the core of any program imo. Those are what is going to boost test, although how much it actually does is debatable. Not seated leg raises and the one that looks like a gyno chair. lol If anything throw in some heavy leg presses after squats, but the other iso leg excercises are pretty worthless for gaining real strenth and size.
 
nuttynutskin said:
No offense, but how can you talk leg workouts and not mention squats? Squats and deadlifts should be the core of any program imo. Those are what is going to boost test, although how much it actually does is debatable. Not seated leg raises and the one that looks like a gyno chair. lol If anything throw in some heavy leg presses after squats, but the other iso leg excercises are pretty worthless for gaining real strenth and size.
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I listed some as examples, it isn't supposed to be an all inclusive list. :)
 
I'm sure you can builds nice legs without squats. They won't be on an equal level but nice. Squats/deads make your belly bigger. I recently read about a few pros dropping them because of that.
 
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