Essential Random Gym Thoughts Revisited...

Jesus

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The ADD

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Need some help advice brehs:

They finally are giving us the ability to join the gym right by my office. I've got another membership that's basically at the half point between my home and office. If I joined the new place I would keep the other one as well because the combined cost isn't bad and it saves me little distance on the weekend.

The bigger question is how to go about training. Currently all of my sessions are upper and lower. It was easier for me to lift 4 times per week. I do the following:

Sunday: Upper
Monday Lower (PT session)
Tuesday: Morning Cardio (sprints or hills)
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Upper (PT session)
Friday: Lower
Saturday (Morning Cardio sprints or hills)

Now that the gym is next door I'm open to another method. Big picture the goal is to get lean but I'm in the struggle nutrition wise but that's for another day.

Aware me brehs:
@Spliff
@ocmfII
@Adam3000
@krackdagawd
@Serious
@Black Jesus
@GinaThatAintNoDamnPuppy!
 

TLR Is Mental Poison

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Kind of a tough call. I am doing 3 upper and 2 lower a week. When I lived in NYC I would do 5-6 days of cardio no problem on top of lifting. I'm def gonna jump back on that wave for my cut. As long as you plan it out right you can do cardio and lift on the same day. If you are doing a leg day obviously don't do sprints the same day. But you can do LISS cardio and a heavy lift day the same day no problem. That should help a lot and make things flexible.
 

The ADD

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Kind of a tough call. I am doing 3 upper and 2 lower a week. When I lived in NYC I would do 5-6 days of cardio no problem on top of lifting. I'm def gonna jump back on that wave for my cut. As long as you plan it out right you can do cardio and lift on the same day. If you are doing a leg day obviously don't do sprints the same day. But you can do LISS cardio and a heavy lift day the same day no problem. That should help a lot and make things flexible.

Yeah I don't particularity like LISS cardio so trying to find time to do it just wasn't going to happen. Like you said now I can lift in the morning and do the cardio after work without such a time commitment.
 
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Need some help advice brehs:

They finally are giving us the ability to join the gym right by my office. I've got another membership that's basically at the half point between my home and office. If I joined the new place I would keep the other one as well because the combined cost isn't bad and it saves me little distance on the weekend.

The bigger question is how to go about training. Currently all of my sessions are upper and lower. It was easier for me to lift 4 times per week. I do the following:

Sunday: Upper
Monday Lower (PT session)
Tuesday: Morning Cardio (sprints or hills)
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Upper (PT session)
Friday: Lower
Saturday (Morning Cardio sprints or hills)

Now that the gym is next door I'm open to another method. Big picture the goal is to get lean but I'm in the struggle nutrition wise but that's for another day.

Aware me brehs:
@Spliff
@ocmfII
@Adam3000
@krackdagawd
@Serious
@Black Jesus
@GinaThatAintNoDamnPuppy!

In my personal opinion, your Upper/Lower X2 is quite possibly the best method for combining muscle gain with injury prevention. It allows you to hit all body parts in sufficient volumes 2 times per week without excessive stress on your shoulder girdle from splitting up chest/back/shoulder specific days.

BUT, that doesn't seem to be your main goal. For getting lean, I am now a 100% believer in 3X per week full body strength training and 3X per week cardio (or more cardio if you want to do some on lifting days). And not some specific bro science cardio like "HIIT only to save muscle" or "LISS only to save muscle".....with strength training and proper protein intake your muscle will be spared no matter what type of cardio you do as long as you keep it to reasonable lengths based on intensity.

In a calorie defecit, full body strength workouts can really suck at first but you will quickly get used to them. A generic workout structure based around push/pull/push/pull/push/pull works great

Squats 3X5
Deadlift 1X5
Chest Dips 3X5
Weighted Pulls/Chins 3X5
Dumbell Shoulder Press 3X5
Some Type of Row 3X5

Thats it. fukk all the isolation and accessory work, you aint gonna be building any muscle anyway and the compounds will be plenty good for maintenance

For your cardio, I highly highly highly highly recommend investing in a heart rate monitor--it keeps you honest with yourself and on track with your goals. Whatever intensity you use, aim for 500-700 calories burned per workout. This is around an hour of LISS, 30-40 minutes of MISS, or 20 minutes of HIIT

I'm not gonna preach to you on nutrition, you know what you need to know.
 
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TLR Is Mental Poison

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I would not write off accessory work.... arm work has my biceps looking and feeling swollen :banderas:

If u want big arms push them to failure... after your compound work of course. I used to be on that no compound stuff.... but since I cut down my compound volume and upped my accessory stuff my arms are looking better and my compound lifts are still going up :yeshrug:

3x/wk is good money if you can stomach it though.
 

Spliff

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Need some help advice brehs:

They finally are giving us the ability to join the gym right by my office. I've got another membership that's basically at the half point between my home and office. If I joined the new place I would keep the other one as well because the combined cost isn't bad and it saves me little distance on the weekend.

The bigger question is how to go about training. Currently all of my sessions are upper and lower. It was easier for me to lift 4 times per week. I do the following:

Sunday: Upper
Monday Lower (PT session)
Tuesday: Morning Cardio (sprints or hills)
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Upper (PT session)
Friday: Lower
Saturday (Morning Cardio sprints or hills)

Now that the gym is next door I'm open to another method. Big picture the goal is to get lean but I'm in the struggle nutrition wise but that's for another day.

Aware me brehs:
@Spliff
@ocmfII
@Adam3000
@krackdagawd
@Serious
@Black Jesus
@GinaThatAintNoDamnPuppy!

Your only concern is recovery from HIIT days going into the following lower body day. They both work similar energy pathways and may impair performance depending how you go about the cardio. If you're noticing a decrease, but still want the HIIT day, try combining a HIIT session with a lower body day; any time post workout or way beforehand (in this case, make sure to replenish carbs).
 
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I would not write off accessory work.... arm work has my biceps looking and feeling swollen :banderas:

If u want big arms push them to failure... after your compound work of course. I used to be on that no compound stuff.... but since I cut down my compound volume and upped my accessory stuff my arms are looking better and my compound lifts are still going up :yeshrug:

3x/wk is good money if you can stomach it though.

Not knocking direct arm work during bulk or when hovering around maintenance calories. But during a cut I see no reason to do it. The point is to keep the gym sessions efficient and to the point and focus on calorie burn. Maintaining muscle mass doesn't require much work really. Might look flat after an extended period but will pump back up quickly when its all said and done.
 
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Starting back into gaining phase today....other than my chest specialization, I'm going to really work on trying to correct some imbalances that are starting to become noticeable.

I'm left handed, and I have spotted recently that my left bicep/tricep is noticeably larger than my right. Been doing mostly 2 handed arm work with an EZ Curl bar or rope pulldowns, so for this cylce I'm going to switch it up and ignore my left arm and strictly do dumbell curls with my right.

Also noticed my right quad is bigger than my left. Thats going to be tougher to fix since barbell squats are 75% of my leg work. Going to continue doing single leg work for the remaining 25%, but its going to be for my left leg only

I'm sure I have other imbalances, but those two are the most clearly visible and will bother me if for no other reason that being dominant to one side is going to hurt my strength progress.
 
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TLR Is Mental Poison

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Not knocking direct arm work during bulk or when hovering around maintenance calories. But during a cut I see no reason to do it. The point is to keep the gym sessions efficient and to the point and focus on calorie burn. Maintaining muscle mass doesn't require much work really. Might look flat after an extended period but will pump back up quickly when its all said and done.
Well in a cut you are trying to maintain muscle. For me chest and arms are weak points, so using what little capacity for volume I have in a cut to preserve those is worth it. Just something to think about I guess.
 

duck

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Breh my feet fukking stink, I aint exposing no one to that shyt:huhldup:


It aint about personal sanitary needs, its about being respectful to people around me. In a hardcore gym no one would give a fukk, but in a standard commercial gym with a lot of old people and noobs you are gonna get a lot of crooked looks and maybe some complaints to management. No need to go through that when the Vibrams will do the same job as socks and provide superior traction to boot....plus be useful for other activities outside the gym

I put a lot of thought into these types of decisions:ld:


Now....the next decision becomes whether to start using a belt or to just stick to raw lifts:patrice:.....right now the pros of adding one seem to be outweighing the cons
I can relate. :sadcam:
 

The ADD

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Preciate the advice:

I might tinker around with 3 Upper days, 2 Lower day and One sprint day. On the two upper days do LISS in the afternoon with lifting in the morning.

I won't get started until after Labor day so I've got time to figure out the best days to make it work. Probably start a thread, I need some accountability.
 
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