I started my workout routine on August 14th and have since started to think it may be inadequate. I'm looking for ideas on a better routine.


Right now my equipment consists of:

A set of Hex DBs
Powertec workbench rack system
Workbench curl machine accessory
300lb Olympic weight set
Nordic Track Ellipse

My routine looks like this:

Monday/Thursday:
----------------------
Squats: 3x8
Shrugs: 3x8
Calf Raises: 3x8
DB Side Bends: 3x8
Leg Curls: 3x8
Leg Ext: 3x8


Tuesday/Friday:
----------------------
Incline BP: 3x8
Flat Bench DB Flye: 3x8
Tricep Ext: 3x8
Middle Back Shrug: 3x8
Palm Down DB Curl: 3x8
Palm Up DB Curl: 3x8
Front two db raise: 3x8
DB Curls: 3x8
Crunches: 2x25


Wednesday/Saturday:
----------------------
20+ minutes of Cardio


I'm missing my lowerback and lats and potentially other muscles.


My questions are...

Are there better exercizes to do that hit more muscles than I'm getting right now with my equipment? What muscles am I missing?

I think I'm neglecting some portions of my shoulders as well. The front two db raise hits the front of them but I don't think I'm hitting any more than that.

I have a VERY limited time to workout so I'm looking for something I can get done in 30-45 minutes tops.


If I left out any info let me know and I'll respond. Thanks in Advance

How come you have traps on legs day? Its usually associated with shoulders or back. As for your delts, front standing lat raises are good, for your side delts I personally do standing side lat raises, and then we have a machine at my gym for rear delts. All in all I do 12 sets for shoulders - which is all I do on that day as it gets pretty much after that. Also, for your triceps, I wouldn't have said Tricep Extensions are the best exercise around. I personally do close grip bench press, which is a superb exercise for building, I also do cable pushdowns too. I would also say you are probably doing too much on Tuesday/Friday, but thats only my opinion.

If you have that many days to dedicate to weight training I may be tempted to split it slightly differently myself, but as a starting point its pretty good to get you going. Try not to get into the way of thinking that more is better - the reason I say this is because you are doing a lot of your excercises twice a week. This is perfectly ok, but you really can get results from doing each excercise once a week - and therefore get in more varied excercises on your other days.

have you injured your back, is that why you are not doing any excersises for it?

Thanks for the reply. I honestly don't know why I stuck the shrugs in on the lower day...

I have actually been toying with the idea of more exercizes....working muscles only 1x a week. I appreiciate the suggestion to go that way. I'll try some of those tricep exercizes as well to see how they feel. Sadly I don't have any cable system currently.

I makes me want my old machine I had in my bedroom during high school when I played football.

I think next week I'm going to try a different split and get a few more exercizes in.

Is there a way to work the rear delts without that machine? I have limited equipment right now and limited space and limited fundage :D

As for the back...I do the middle-back shrugs but I never feel any soreness the next day. That is one of the exercizes I've wanted to change.


I thought about the deadlift but I'm afraid I'll blow my back out doing them wrong. I've read and watched how they are done and I still don't feel 100% comfortable with them. I DO need back exercizes for sure...especially lower back. Any suggestions I could do with the equipment I have?


Again, thank you for the reply.

You can target your rear delts without any machinery. If you lie front first on a lifting bench with your head right at the end and your arms by your side, you can then lift some dumbbells from the floor up so that your arms are about level. Its difficult to explain as I don't have any diagrams. Check out AST sports science (http://www.ast-ss.com/training/exercises/eow-intro.asp), there's some good exercises on there, although not the one I mentioned. There's allsorts of exercises on that site that you can try out, just have an experiment.

There is still a fair bit you can do without a pulley system, although with it, the range of exercises you can do are much more varied. With regards to dead lifts, that’s a difficult one, I started doing them a few months ago, and thought I was doing ok, but I have just started getting slight twinges in my lower back, although not sure where from. Dealifts are a superb excercise because they promote developement in a lot of places, and should be incoporated if possible.

My advice would be to start off really, really light - just with the bar to start, and keep reading about how to do it. Practice, you should be ok with just the bar to start with - you need to get your body used to such exercises and it will take time. When you become more confident then you can add a little weight and begin to improve your strength once your technique is down to a T. Don't be too worried about buying new equipment, there is not a lot you can't do with dumbbells to be honest, so just experiment and learn.

With regards to volume, don't get too out of control with loads and loads of exercises, when you are just starting out you need to ease your muscles into it, and not go all out straight away. The most sets I will do in any given workout is 15 in total - which is probably too many, so I would try to keep it below that for now - at least until you get a feel for how much your body can handle.

I don't know if you knew this, but certain muscles are like opposites to one another - by that I mean they are acting against one another. For example, quads and hams, chest and back, biceps and triceps - these all need to be trained carefully as not to over train one particular part. For example, if you train and train and train chest for a year and don't do any back then there would be an imbalance and you could not only injure yourself, but you may end up changing your posture. You have probably seen some bodybuilders who's arms bend all of the time - this is often because they have over trained their biceps (which is a really difficult muscle to develop - which is why a lot of people totally over train them). There are various guideline ratios that I was given to follow for these different muscle pairings;

3 : 2
quads/hams
back/chest
1 : 1
biceps/chest

This basically means that if you train 6 sets on back, then you would do 4 sets on chest, and the same for quads and hams. Apparently biceps and triceps are both the same - even though triceps make up 2 3rds of the upper arm.

Unfortunately I don't have any sources to back up what I said. Sorry if I went on a bit there, hope that is helpful.

I think you are doing too much, esp. on Tues/Fri. Limit yourself to 15 - 20 sets maximum. Here's how I would fix up your workout:

Monday/Thursday:
----------------------
Squats: 3x8
Shrugs: 3x8
Calf Raises: 3x8
DB Side Bends: 3x8
Leg Curls: 3x8 Cut, instead do stiff-legged deadlifts
Leg Ext: 3x8 Cut, you are already doing squats. Do your squats harder instead


Tuesday/Friday:
----------------------
Incline BP: 3x8 Do only on Tuesday
Flat Bench DB Flye: 3x8 CUT - Replace w/ Flat Bench Press, and do on Fri
Tricep Ext: 3x8 CUT - Replace w/ Dips or Bench Dips
Middle Back Shrug: 3x8 CUT - Replace with barbell rows
Palm Down DB Curl: 3x8 CUT - Replace with pullups
Palm Up DB Curl: 3x8 CUT
Front two db raise: 3x8 CUT - Replace w/ Shoulder Press
DB Curls: 3x8

Your workout is very lacking in the back, and very heavy in the biceps. It is very unbalanced overall. Think about trying to balance all your development. Your arms are all supporting muscles, and not major muscles. They will develop along with the rest of your body. Here's a more balanced version of your workout, that should get you better growth overall:

Monday/Thursday: (Total Sets: 15)
----------------------
Squats: 3x8
Stiff-Legged Deadlifts: 3x8
Shrugs: 3x8 (You can even do the shrug at the top of the deadlift)
Calf Raises: 3x8
Weighted Crunch/Russian Twist Superset: 3x8

Tuesday/Friday: (Total Sets: 15)
----------------------
Incline BP: 3x8 (Tuesday)
Flat BP: 3x8 (Friday)
Barbell Rows: 3x8 (Underhand grip will work the bis harder)
Dips or Weighted Bench Dips: 3x8
Pullups or Chinups: 3x8
Shoulder Press: 3x8

This will hit all your major body parts with almost all compound movements. It is a more balanced two-day split. Compound movements will add more muscle faster than isolation exercises. If you want to do more exercises per body part, then make it into a four day split. Something like Leg day, Chest/Tri day, Back/Bi day, and Shoulders/Abs day. I would try something like the two day split above for a couple of weeks, and see if you like it. If not, you can rebalance the split. This sort of split will leave your body pretty drained after each workout though.

I suggest you go pick up the Book of Muscle by Ian King and Lou Schuler. It is a great book. It already has 18 months of hard workouts in it that are perfectly balanced. It also will teach you how to create your own workouts and balance them properly.

Thanks guys for the replies. I have decided to take some of your advice and re-do my workout schedule for next week. I hope you will check back in a day or so as I may post my revised workout, but if not thanks _very_ much for the responses.

I did some basic research tonight, I haven't had time from my last post until now, and looked at 3 day splits... 2 day splits and 4 day splits as well as researched the suggested exercizes in this thread and read a bunch of the Max-OT materials. I've come to the conclusion that I need to do more research.

In the mean time I'm going to take your advice kmfisher and try your routine that you layed out. I have two problems though.

1) I think I hurt myself doing squats and it probably has to do with form. I think I hurt it about a month ago as the pain has been nagging. I'm going to stop doing them until it heals. So I will probably continue with Leg Ext/Curls and probably add a few sets of good mornings for my lower back. They are isolation exercizes but I believe it is better than nothing.

2) I don't have a pull-up bar. So I am going to try and find another exercize I can do, with my equipment, that will hit the lats. I might be able to put a pull-up bar in my basement but not for a few weeks. I may just skip the pull-ups without a replacement for now.

I'm going to try this for this upcoming week and see how it goes.

I do think that I want to only train each muscle group 1x a week because doing the same weights on thursday/friday is much harder than on Monday/Tuesday.

I was thinking about a 3 day split (mon/wed/fri) with cardio replacement on Tues/Thurs and taking Sat/Sun off.

Anyway I'm going to continue my rambling in my journal:

http://forums.johnstonefitness.com/showthread.php?t=8017


Thanks again for the replies and if you think I have said anything in this post that sounds stupid let me know.

Where is the pain? In your back or legs? If there is any exercise that aggravates it, don't do it. You could give yourself serious setbacks. Also, you may want to lighten the load when you do start again and work on your form for a while. Also, if it is your back, look up doing some core strengthening exercises.

Until you can get or build a pull-up bar, do pullovers and 1-arm dumbbell rows. If you have a cable system at all, do pull-downs.

Are there any parks around your house? Usually there's atleast one jungle gym in a park, and those are ideal for pull-ups. I go down the block to the local elementary school's park and there's a nice isolated jungle gym I work out on. Most people would never think of it, but it's the perfect place. Hell there's even monkey bars if I wanted them. :nod:

Where is the pain? In your back or legs? If there is any exercise that aggravates it, don't do it. You could give yourself serious setbacks. Also, you may want to lighten the load when you do start again and work on your form for a while. Also, if it is your back, look up doing some core strengthening exercises.


It feels like where my thigh bone connects to my hip. If while in a sitting position I take my leg and lift it up, say to put it over my other leg to tie my shoes, I can feel an ache. I'm not sure exactly where it is coming from but its around my hip/butt area. I stopped doing squats because I could feel it a little when doing them. I've had this since I started my workout and I suspect I had bad squat form when I started out and because I kept using the muscle it didn't get any better. So I've stopped squating for now and will wait for it to heal. Nothing else I do bothers it.


Until you can get or build a pull-up bar, do pullovers and 1-arm dumbbell rows. If you have a cable system at all, do pull-downs.

No cable system but I will look into the pullovers and 1-arm DB rows. Thanks again :)

Are there any parks around your house? Usually there's atleast one jungle gym in a park, and those are ideal for pull-ups. I go down the block to the local elementary school's park and there's a nice isolated jungle gym I work out on. Most people would never think of it, but it's the perfect place. Hell there's even monkey bars if I wanted them. :nod:

I do live next to some schools and that would probably work out but I'm kind of self-concious right now. Its a big part of the reason I did a home gym. I'll have to wait until I put a bar up in a few weeks. Thanks for the idea though..maybe when I get buff I'll do that on purpose to show off my new body ;)

Hah, little kids would probably be the only ones to see you. I make sure to go once school and daycare are done, any time after 5 pm really. I usually don't see anyone around.

But yeah, once you can do 50 pull-ups it'll be a good idea right? :D

It feels like where my thigh bone connects to my hip. If while in a sitting position I take my leg and lift it up, say to put it over my other leg to tie my shoes, I can feel an ache. I'm not sure exactly where it is coming from but its around my hip/butt area. I stopped doing squats because I could feel it a little when doing them. I've had this since I started my workout and I suspect I had bad squat form when I started out and because I kept using the muscle it didn't get any better. So I've stopped squating for now and will wait for it to heal. Nothing else I do bothers it.

Sounds like you have sciatica:
http://www.spine-health.com/topics/cd/d_sciatica/sc01.html

Man thats a scary link. I don't think the symptoms fit me though, thankfully.

My father had a slipped disc when he was about my age and had to undergo a few sugeries. He never fully recovered. I'm going to wait another week or so and see how it feels and if it doesn't clear up I'll see the doc.