Newbies fire away your questions

[Goosey]

Just to make sure admin doesn't lose all hope...

I've been doing 3x8 and 3x10 sets for a while now and recently started doing 5x5's to switch things up a bit and see how it feels.

Bad thing, good thing?

It's a good thing if progression has stalled

[Shrek]

It's a good thread, let's keep it on track.
Sticky.

[Romie]

Im currently doing full body 3x a week but I constantly feel bashed/fucked up. I know my recovery isnt the best mainly because of my nutrition. I work 10 hour+ a day doing a physically demanding job so my motivation can be pretty crap alot of the time when it comes to cooking. I was thinking either swapping to a 4 day upper/lower body split or a 4 day split which trains body parts or main lift + assistance each seperate day, I think this will make it alittle easier to recover from over full body 3x a week. What do you think I should do?

[Mckim]

Maybe a push / pull / legs routine will work better?

I prefer to hit each muscle group twice a week so do a 4 day push / pull.

I don't think increasing to 4 days will help in your case, even though you'll be working more specific areas.

[Goosey]

Im currently doing full body 3x a week but I constantly feel bashed/fucked up. I know my recovery isnt the best mainly because of my nutrition. I work 10 hour+ a day doing a physically demanding job so my motivation can be pretty crap alot of the time when it comes to cooking. I was thinking either swapping to a 4 day upper/lower body split or a 4 day split which trains body parts or main lift + assistance each seperate day, I think this will make it alittle easier to recover from over full body 3x a week. What do you think I should do?

Without knowing anything about about you and your lifestyle, the first thing that comes to mind is instead of working out on specific days, like; Monday, Wednesday and Friday for example, may not be giving you enough time to recover.

Not giving yourself time to recover might be the issue, you might need to increase this recovery time to 48 hours / two days.

it would then look like this;

Workouts a,b and c....

Monday, A
Thursday, B
Sunday, C
wednesday, A
saturday,B
tuesday, C
friday, A....and so-on

giving yourself 48hours might give you the rest needed.

Your goal is progression.

Don't do a split.

[Romie]

Thats a good idea silverback but I prefer to train tues/thurs/sat as the gym isnt as busy. At the moment im after mass over strength, alot of guys I know do splits, they arnt that strong but they look good, thats why I was thinking a split would be alittle easier to recover from as im not constantly pounding my body with compounnd movements. If I did a split it would be something more like 531 BBB with weekly weight increases, Max OT or a powerbuilding program.

At the moment my routine looks like this, ive taken out most of the compounds out of thursday to see if its any better on recovery, was thinking swapping to 3x8 on the compounds to save abit of time.
Tuesday
Squat 5x5, OH Press 5x5, DB Row 4x8-12 (paused for 2 secs at the top), Shurgs 3x8-12 (paused 3 secs at top)

Thursday
Deadlift 4x10, SLDL 4x10, Pullups 4xAMAP, Pushups 4xAMAP

deadlifts are for rehab, recovering for an ongoing hamstring issue so weight stays at 40kgs, nearly painfree at the moment so if the pain stays away for another 4 weeks ill start deadlifting low volume/high intensity

Saturday
Squat 5x5, OH Press 1x5, Tbar Row/Chest Supported Row/Cable Row 3x8-12, Farmer walks

[kaz]

4 day split. 2 days cardio. 1 active rest day.
Fit bit is measuring 13500+ steps daily not including exercise activity.
Only on a 200 calorie deficit.
Today I'm pooped!
Lots of volume in my routine.

[Hombre]

I'm in the process of cleaning up my diet with a goal to lose body fat. I've come across a variety of theories as to the base calorie number to commence with, typically either bodyweight or LBM multiplied by "x". Stick at this point for 2 weeks and evaluate - when stalled reduce by 200 calories and start again. My problem is the first bit - the base starting number - so that it is in the ball park to begin with (eg. not too low or too high). As I say, I have come across a variety which can vary fairly significantly. Any consensus with this ?

[Timeah]

Check out carb cycling. Always works for me.

[Hombre]

Check out carb cycling. Always works for me.

What sort of grams for P+F+C do you recommend Timeah on high and low days and do you calculate that on bodyweight or LBM ? I've seen both recommended but leaning toward LBM if bodyfat level it +15-20%.