Is anyone here savvy in regards to fitness and strength training? Need of advice regarding a routine.

[Fryer]

I am entirely new to strength training and tried getting help from /r/ fitness and Bodybuilding.com. I have since then strayed away from those sites from getting some harsh feedback.

I have recently joined a gym which is something like Planet Fitness (this gets a bad rep) where it has several free weights, a Smith machine, and other weight training machines. It is ideal that I join one that has barbells and proper racks for benches and squats but I cannot do that due to my gym's location and price convenience. Bear with me, I am a skinny guy; I simply want to do strength training for the sake of looking bigger and stronger and I hope to make do with what I have.

I was thinking of doing a 4 day split routine with 2 upper and 2 lower body days. 

Upper body (Chest, shoulders and tricep): Chest press machine, Dumbbell bench press, dumbbell shoulder press, lateral raises, some sort of tricep exercise, Cable pulls

Lower body (Quads, back, biceps, calves): Squats and Deadlifts (with a Smith), Leg press, Lat Pulldowns, dumbbell rows or machine rows , Leg curls, bicep curls, calf raises.

Each exercise is done in 3 sets with maybe 12-20 reps. I don't know if this is ideal for muscle building but from what I know, anything will do as a beginner. I know it is best to something like SS or SL but it is impossible to do with what my gym offers and transferring is not an option at the moment.

[Deltre]

On 3/8/2018 at 12:19 PM, Fryer said:

I am entirely new to strength training and tried getting help from /r/ fitness and Bodybuilding.com. I have since then strayed away from those sites from getting some harsh feedback.

I have recently joined a gym which is something like Planet Fitness (this gets a bad rep) where it has several free weights, a Smith machine, and other weight training machines. It is ideal that I join one that has barbells and proper racks for benches and squats but I cannot do that due to my gym's location and price convenience. Bear with me, I am a skinny guy; I simply want to do strength training for the sake of looking bigger and stronger and I hope to make do with what I have.

I was thinking of doing a 4 day split routine with 2 upper and 2 lower body days. 

Upper body (Chest, shoulders and tricep): Chest press machine, Dumbbell bench press, dumbbell shoulder press, lateral raises, some sort of tricep exercise, Cable pulls

Lower body (Quads, back, biceps, calves): Squats and Deadlifts (with a Smith), Leg press, Lat Pulldowns, dumbbell rows or machine rows , Leg curls, bicep curls, calf raises.

Each exercise is done in 3 sets with maybe 12-20 reps. I don't know if this is ideal for muscle building but from what I know, anything will do as a beginner. I know it is best to something like SS or SL but it is impossible to do with what my gym offers and transferring is not an option at the moment.

The most important thing is that you actually go. The (probable) reason people were skeptic is because Planet Fitness has a bit of a reputation. Essentially, it's a stereotype that many first-timers will end up going for a short period before fizzling out never to be heard from again. Sadly, it's not entirely inaccurate in a lot of cases. That said, don't worry about what other people are saying, just prove 'em wrong. Don't be the guy that fizzles out. 

You are going, right? The only way to fail is to not go. 

Don't worry about min/maxing if you're just starting out. Come up with a basic routine (as you have) and do it. Probably throw biceps stuff to upper body and tack on abs stuff to lower body. 

 

[Tango]

On 3/14/2018 at 6:23 PM, Deltre said:

The most important thing is that you actually go.

This 100%!

Your routine looks fine to me, but it's hard to tell over the internet since there's so many things that factor into what you can and cannot do right now as a beginner.

The most important thing right now is setting a strict schedule for when you go to the gym and sticking with it. You're really not going to want to go to the gym some days, but go anyway. Forcing yourself to stick to the regime at those times is going to burn you out fast, so definitely make with something doable. If you aren't feeling the gym that day, do the bare minimum. 

Going to the gym consistently is the hardest step. Once it becomes a natural part of your routine, then you can start getting more serious about creating a daily muscle training routine.

[Junkhead]

I've been hitting the gym for around 4 years, so I know a thing or two. And with that said, I also happen to know certain sites like bodybuildingforums.com (at least, teen forums) can be somewhat of a toxic place, if you don't know how to ask (in what they consider) properly.

If you want to get stronger and "bigger", I recommend you eat properly and not eat for the sake of it. I know there are guys that are so skinny that they don't even mind putting on fat if even for the sake of filler (to be bigger-looking). I'll try to simplify nutrition in a moment, but I'd first like to talk you over the actual weight-lifting:

 

Focus on primary compound movements, such as the bench press, overheadpress, pulling variations like pull-ups and rows and squats and deadlifts for lower body. These are all excercises you need proper tecnique, so look it up if you need to learn them...these are the ones people get the most injuries when they get reckless. If you don't want to go there yet, you can start out with machines. They work just as well for gaining strength and muscle, but they apparently don't "translate" well into their actual freeweight variations. Regarding pull ups, just use a cable machine until you can actually perform them with your own weight.

Personally, I avoid squats and deadlifts as to avoid building my core muscles. I'm not a fan of blocky-looking mid-section. I think deadlifts have more effect on that than squats, but I wouldn't recommend avoiding squats.

 

Nutrition is fairly simple if you learn how to count calories. You leave nothing up to fate, and weight loss/gain is made into simple numbers. I'm going to suggest eating at about 200 calories over maintainance on training days. On your rest days, I'd either suggest maintainance or at least the same amount as to either avoid unnecessary fat gain or under-eating. If you eat a lot of junk food, avoid it. You don't have to eat a super clean diet to make it through, but at least try to get a couple of pieces of fruit, greens and definitely some protein throughout the day. Protein is said to be key, in building muscle.

[Junkhead]

oh yeah this site is my absolute favourite in regards to fitness:

http://www.fitmole.org/blog/

Everyone can learn something, and it makes fitness fit into an easy lifestyle.

[Charmeleonbrah]

I do a push/pull style workout myself. I'd recommend that. Really anything will work if you do it for a long enough amount of time.

Heres some old man wisdom: stay away from heavy squats, deadlifts, and bench press. They kill your joints and back; there are other ways of training those muscles that are just as effective.

[Slumber]

I'm old fashioned, so I liked doing full routines every day, with variations. Monday/Friday, I'd do flat bench and squats, Wednesday would be incline bench and lunges, with less intense lifts in between. Stuff like that. Usually I'd give my non-"glamour" muscles more love on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The thing is, it all varies. I'm sure plenty of people will give advice that will work. If you feel splitting upper/lower body days like a lot of people do nowadays, then that works for you.

One thing you should decide early is if you want to go to get strong, or if you want to go to get big. And yes, these are two different things. There's a lot of dumb bro-science around this, but there's some truth to it. I did 5x5 when I wanted to gain strength, and I saw more positive results than I did when I did 3x10 or progressive routines, which were routines that worked better for when I wanted to maintain and focus more on overall physical health(IE incorporating more cardio) and cutting weight.

Oh, and a word of advice, avoid assisted lifting machines like Smith machines. Part of what makes the Bench Press or Squats so appealing is that they're MASSIVE compound movements. Not only are you moving heavy objects off the ground, you have tons of tiny muscles and muscle groups that exist to make sure your whole body is moving properly and keeping these heavy weights balanced, on top of the big muscles that actually move the weights. Assisted lifting machines kind of diminishes this. They take away from those muscles that are working to keep your body balanced as you lift.

They isolate your compound lifts, in a way. Unless somebody can convince me otherwise, I always saw them more as stations for people who NEEDED assistance for strength training, like somebody going through physical therapy, or lifters who have injured themselves. I don't really see them as something able-bodied people who want to get into strength training and fitness should ever really go to.

Edited April 16, 2018 by Slumber

[Junkhead]

5 hours ago, Charmeleonbrah said:

Heres some old man wisdom: stay away from heavy squats, deadlifts, and bench press. They kill your joints and back; there are other ways of training those muscles that are just as effective.

I feel like this could technically be the case, even if certain evidence woud suggest otherwise..."certain evidence" being more-experienced lifters. 90% of which has probably suffered some joint-related issue throughout their career, maybe even regardless of form. I've suffered injury despite being pretty solid with my form.

1 hour ago, Slumber said:

Oh, and a word of advice, avoid assisted lifting machines like Smith machines. Part of what makes the Bench Press or Squats so appealing is that they're MASSIVE compound movements. Not only are you moving heavy objects off the ground, you have tons of tiny muscles and muscle groups that exist to make sure your whole body is moving properly and keeping these heavy weights balanced, on top of the big muscles that actually move the weights. Assisted lifting machines kind of diminishes this. They take away from those muscles that are working to keep your body balanced as you lift.

They isolate your compound lifts, in a way. Unless somebody can convince me otherwise, I always saw them more as stations for people who NEEDED assistance for strength training, like somebody going through physical therapy, or lifters who have injured themselves. I don't really see them as something able-bodied people who want to get into strength training and fitness should ever really go to.

Going off of what I just said above, I don't think it should be too much of a problem for a person starting out. I've heard of people that had no trouble gaining muscle and strength off of machines, which only makes me think it's some old-fashioned bro science pride thing...seriously, that's what I think. If your body feels like it's pushing 200lbs, it will feel it no matter in what form the resistance comes. There was a time I was staying away from free weights and tried off one of those fancy incline press machines. It allowed me to actually concentrate on the full contraction without even have to worry of whether I fail or not.

[Slumber]

2 minutes ago, Oz ♠ said:

Going off of what I just said above, I don't think it should be too much of a problem for a person starting out. I've heard of people that had no trouble gaining muscle and strength off of machines, which only makes me think it's some old-fashioned bro science pride thing...seriously, that's what I think. If your body feels like it's pushing 200lbs, it will feel it no matter in what form the resistance comes. There was a time I was staying away from free weights and tried off one of those fancy incline press machines. It allowed me to actually concentrate on the full contraction without even have to worry of whether I fail or not.

It's not so much bro-science. A bench press will involve and activate your upper arms and shoulders as you try to balance the bar, keep it parallel to your chest, and keep it from falling. A smith machine does most of the job your arms and shoulders do for you. I think your triceps still are actively engaged, but your biceps, deltoids and I think even little bit of work your lats do will be compensated for with a smith machine.

As an aside, my high school used to make people in sports and doing weight training do KO bar bench, which are basically just curling bars, and the idea is that you'd also get a killer fore-arm workout simply trying to keep the bar level, adding something else to work out as you bench. I think one too many injuries(The KO bar living up to its name) got my school to get rid of the bars, and they just focused on normal barbells for benching, with forearm curls if people needed to specifically focus forearms for whatever reason.

You might be right that it's a solid idea for a beginner, but I also think it might not be super great. I've also heard that people have learned improper form using a smith machine, since again, it compensates for quite a few things that are generally important to proper bench form. If you get super buff on a smith machine and try to move to a normal bench, I don't think your delts will be strong enough to keep up with your usual routine.

[Junkhead]

I don't disagree with what you just said, but I also happen to think the rest of your excercises compensate for the lack of involment (in an excercise in which they aren't even prime movers). If you say machines take certain muscles out of the equation, then you can still do things like overhead presses and pull-downs/rows/any pulling movement, basically. Like, the way I see it, you're only missing out on not being great at the "natural" movement. At best, you'll be shaking like a leaf whenever a log falls on top of you and need to bench it in real life (to which you'll likely be using all of your muscles in an actual real-word context).

[Charmeleonbrah]

Remember that "functional strength" is largely a meme. I could never work out again and not be negatively affected by it in my day-to-day experience. As far as the compound vs. machine thing goes, compounds are better for building strength, but machines are less strenuous on your body. I don't want to have arthritis when I'm 35 from building a bunch of functionally useless muscle.

To each his own, though. There's literally hundreds of threads on bro forums arguing about this same thing.

[Junkhead]

2 minutes ago, Charmeleonbrah said:

Remember that "functional strength" is largely a meme. I could never work out again and not be negatively affected by it in my day-to-day experience.

That's what I'm trying to get at. I only really see it as getting better at that specific movement.

[Charmeleonbrah]

10 minutes ago, Oz ♠ said:

That's what I'm trying to get at. I only really see it as getting better at that specific movement.

Right. That's why I don't believe in the compound crap. Soldiers who can run with equipment on and can survive in a harsh environment are way more alpha than us gym bros teaching lessons on the Internet about HGH secretion in HIIT Compound Exercises that we found on T Nation or Misc.

[Slumber]

On 4/16/2018 at 8:37 PM, Charmeleonbrah said:

Remember that "functional strength" is largely a meme. I could never work out again and not be negatively affected by it in my day-to-day experience. As far as the compound vs. machine thing goes, compounds are better for building strength, but machines are less strenuous on your body. I don't want to have arthritis when I'm 35 from building a bunch of functionally useless muscle.

To each his own, though. There's literally hundreds of threads on bro forums arguing about this same thing.

You can still lift reasonably heavy and still lift safely. You're not going to fuck up your body if you don't lift an unreasonable amount of weight and you listen to your body. 

People get injured and cripple themselves from overlifting(Whether it be too much weight or lifting too often. Once you hit a goal you can maintain strength and muscle with a pretty reasonable schedule), poor form, and flat out just not listening to your body. If you feel a pain that obviously isn't just your muscles burning from to work out, stop. And go see a doctor if it's particularly concerning. You have no idea how many times I have heard somebody go "Man, my shoulder hurts, sure hope I haven't torn my rotator cuff" then toss plates onto a barbell. Those are the kinds of guys who aren't going to be able to lift their arms above their heads when they're 40.

I, myself, don't ever plan on ever benching more than 200lbs(And probably deadlifting somewhere around there and squatting around 300lbs), even if it becomes obvious at some point that I probably could. Kinda because the idea of "bulking" doesn't seem super fun to me(I like weighing between 150-165lbs), kinda because I don't see myself ever needing strength that goes beyond that, and mostly because I know that the more and more weight I lift, the more likely I will be to suffer some crippling injury. 

I think there's a safe window within reason for lifting where you really shouldn't feel scared of physically feeling like a 70 year old when you're half that age. OP wants to strength train. That's going to involve these sorts of compound lifts. If he goes and runs around with 40lbs of military equipment to get a military body, people are going to think he's crazy. Compound gym exercises, within reason, are a totally fine way to strength train. 

Edited April 18, 2018 by Slumber

[Fryer]

On 4/18/2018 at 1:01 AM, Slumber said:

You can still lift reasonably heavy and still lift safely. You're not going to fuck up your body if you don't lift an unreasonable amount of weight and you listen to your body. 

People get injured and cripple themselves from overlifting(Whether it be too much weight or lifting too often. Once you hit a goal you can maintain strength and muscle with a pretty reasonable schedule), poor form, and flat out just not listening to your body. If you feel a pain that obviously isn't just your muscles burning from to work out, stop. And go see a doctor if it's particularly concerning. You have no idea how many times I have heard somebody go "Man, my shoulder hurts, sure hope I haven't torn my rotator cuff" then toss plates onto a barbell. Those are the kinds of guys who aren't going to be able to lift their arms above their heads when they're 40.

I, myself, don't ever plan on ever benching more than 200lbs(And probably deadlifting somewhere around there and squatting around 300lbs), even if it becomes obvious at some point that I probably could. Kinda because the idea of "bulking" doesn't seem super fun to me(I like weighing between 150-165lbs), kinda because I don't see myself ever needing strength that goes beyond that, and mostly because I know that the more and more weight I lift, the more likely I will be to suffer some crippling injury. 

I think there's a safe window within reason for lifting where you really shouldn't feel scared of physically feeling like a 70 year old when you're half that age. OP wants to strength train. That's going to involve these sorts of compound lifts. If he goes and runs around with 40lbs of military equipment to get a military body, people are going to think he's crazy. Compound gym exercises, within reason, are a totally fine way to strength train. 

No idea this topic was still active, thought it would've died out.

Anyways, I've been able to switch over to a new gym with barbells and have been following a 5x5 program (SL 5x5). Gotta say, I kinda like going to the gym, gives me something productive to do. Still really weak in my upper body, but I have been working with dumbbells to build up some strength before I could lift the bar (why do these things gotta be 45 lbs).

I've gained some weight, not necessarily a bad thing since I look really skinny despite not being close to underweight, and I feel like I am improving myself regardless of how slow it is. I have been doing this for about 6 weeks now. When I first started out, I was having trouble squatting an empty bar plus two 10 lb plates on the Smith machine (no longer use that BTW) and bench 12.5 lb dumbbells. Right now, I can squat 100 lbs and bench 20 lb dumbbells. My upper body is really lagging behind but I cannot progress if I give up (I've had days where I felt like I wasted time at the gym and was hesitating to quit).

So glad the other gym goers skip legs, always leaves an empty squat rack for me.

Edited April 21, 2018 by Fryer

[Slumber]

1 hour ago, Fryer said:

No idea this topic was still active, thought it would've died out.

Anyways, I've been able to switch over to a new gym with barbells and have been following a 5x5 program (SL 5x5). Gotta say, I kinda like going to the gym, gives me something productive to do. Still really weak in my upper body, but I have been working with dumbbells to build up some strength before I could lift the bar (why do these things gotta be 45 lbs).

I've gained some weight, not necessarily a bad thing since I look really skinny despite not being close to underweight, and I feel like I am improving myself regardless of how slow it is. I have been doing this for about 6 weeks now. When I first started out, I was having trouble squatting an empty bar plus two 10 lb plates on the Smith machine (no longer use that BTW) and bench 12.5 lb dumbbells. Right now, I can squat 100 lbs and bench 20 lb dumbbells. My upper body is really lagging behind but I cannot progress if I give up (I've had days where I felt like I wasted time at the gym and was hesitating to quit).

So glad the other gym goers skip legs, always leaves an empty squat rack for me.

Glad you like it. 

Honestly I think the more important part is finding people to lift with. That's always been my issue. I have a tough time lifting by myself and convincing myself to go to a new gym alone, even though I generally enjoy working out. 

[Fryer]

7 hours ago, Slumber said:

Glad you like it. 

Honestly I think the more important part is finding people to lift with. That's always been my issue. I have a tough time lifting by myself and convincing myself to go to a new gym alone, even though I generally enjoy working out. 

My father goes to the gym as well, however he does a PPL type of routine and seems to focus more on bodybuilding rather building strength. I don't go with him as a result due to our different goals, plus our schedules conflict.