my training routine

[carter]

Hey, I just recently put together a plan thats made up of exercises from a couple of books that i have recently read, most of the stuff from my routine was taken from the book "expressing the human body" by bruce lee/john little. So I feel like im lacking a lot of current stuff? I havent really read much into nutrition books, so i feel that my routine might be suffering from a lack of proper eating.

my diet basically is:

7:00: bowl of cereal and glass of orange jucie.
11:00: Apple plus glass of v8 juice
1:00: Banana and Salad.
3:00: peanut butter sandwhich.
5:00: another apple and glass of v8 juice.
7:00 whatever the family has for dinner, just in a smaller portion.


I would also like to target my forearms better, so i was hoping that some of you guys would have some exercises that would help develop my forearm muscles.

now before i post my plan i think i should say that i dont have any access to a gym, so all i have access to is my brothers set of weights which include:

-Bench that can recline
-dumbles [12lbs, 30lbs, 45lbs, 60 lbs]
-barbell with max weight up to 90 lbs.

so as you can see i dont have much to work with, but i was hoping you guys could give me some exercises, that im not yet aware of that i could use.

so here's what ive been doing for the past 4 weeks:

7:45-8:45 Warm Ups: [Mon-Sat]
+Jogging: 2 Miles
+Jump Rope: 20 Minutes
+Chin Ups: 2 Sets of 5
+Pull Ups: 2 Sets of 5
+Frog Kicks: 20 reps.
+Push Ups: 4 Sets of 25
+Sit Ups: 4 Sets of 25
+Finger Tip Push Ups: 2 sets of 15
+The Twist: 50 Reps
+Side Bends: 4 sets of 20.

Sequence 1-A 1 Minute Each: [Mon-Wed-Fri]
+Jump Rope
+Forward Bend
+Cat Stretch
+Jumping Jacks
+Squats
+High Kicks

Sequence 2-A 1 Minute Each: [Mon-Wed-Fri]
+Waist Twisting
+Palm Up Curls
+Roman Chair
+Knee Drawing
+Side Bending

Sequence 2-B 1 Minute Each: [Tue-Thur-Sat]
+Groin Stretch
+Side Leg Raise
+Jumping Squats
+Shoulder Circling
+Alt. Splits
+Leg Stretch

Sequence 2-B 1 Minute Each: [Tue-Thur-Sat]
+Leg Raise
+Rev. Barbell Gurl
+Sit Up Twist
+Alt. Leg Raise
+Mt. Climbers

Weights [Mon-Wed-Fri]:
+French Press: 5 sets of 10, 40lbs.
+Incline Curl: 10 sets of 12, 12lbs.
+Concetration Curl: 3 sets of 10, 35lbs.
+Barbell Curl: 6 sets of 10, 50 lbs.
+Dumbell Circles: 4 sets of INF. 12lbs.
+Tricep Stretch: 4 sets of 10, 12lbs.
+Reverse Barbell Curl: 6 sets of 10, 20 lbs.
+Wrist Curl: 2 sets of INF. 40 lbs
+Rev. Wrist Curl: 2 sets of INF. 40 lbs.
+Bench Press: 8 sets of 10, 50lbs.
+Squats: 3 sets of 10, 70lbs.
+Zottman Curl: 5 sets of 10, 12lbs.
+Standing Barbell Press: 2 sets of 10, 40lbs.
+Clean & Press: 10 reps of 40lbs.
+Back Rowing: 2 sets of 10, 20lbs.
+Upright Rowing: 2 sets of 10, 20lbs.
+Bent Arm Pull Over: 4 sets of 10, 20lbs.
+DeadLift: 10 reps of 40lbs.
+Dumbell Press: 2 sets of 10, 30lbs.

that is about it, i would greatly appreciate it if you guys critiqued my diet and workout. if you guys see anything that im doing that is a waiste of time or any exercise that you could give me that could help me develope myself further i would greatly appreciate it!

thanks,

[thai_pete]

for a start mate i would say your not eating enough, especially for your training routine where your training monday to saturday.

i am not an expert on nutrition but i would say up your food intake (with the correct foods) and this will complement your routine better ,try and get some white meat in there!

sorry i couldnt be more specific relating to exercise etc, but im sure they pple on here will give you better advice

[adacas]

I would grab a new copy of mens health nutrition guide. they give a pretty clear picture as to what you should be eating and how many calories your taking in. I don't think your taking in enough calories as well. Im not sure if you are trying to burn fat but if you are you might be overdoing it just a bit. If not then you are in for quite a headache. Add some more calories in there somewhere. Also I would suggest eating some nuts. peanuts, cashews whatever.

[RobertG]

Your diet is atrocious. Godawful. Before you do anything get that in order.

Between 7 am and 5 pm you are getting maybe 15 g of protein (assuming a cup of milk with the cereal plus the peanut butter). There's about zero fiber in there. And all your carbs are simple sugars. Crap diet. You will never, ever gain any muscle on that diet. Nor is the caloric intake sufficient to fuel your workouts. You're going to overtrain fast.

Start here:
http://t-mag.com/nation_articles/271diet.jsp

You're going to want at least 1.2 g protein/pound of body weight. If you're 150 pounds that means you've got to eat 180 g of protein a day. To put that into perspective, that's more than 4 cans of tuna. You're going to have to get familiar with whey protein powder. If you eat six meals a day, that means 30g protein with each meal. With whatever you're eating at dinner every night, at best you're looking at maybe 45-50g of protein with your current diet. I'm thinking you'll want to get some complex carbs in there (that means oatmeal and bread that looks like compressed wood chips) and more fiber. And veggies. V8 juice is not a vegetable. Its high fructose corn syrup disguised as veggies. You might as well be drinking coke and popping some multi-vitamins with it. Oh, and of course, you've got almost no fat in there either. Basically you're eating almost all fructose and corn syrup. Yeah, read that link to T-mag.

Ummm, why are you doing so many frigging exercises each day of your lifting routine? Deadlift, squat, bench, power cleans and presses, and then some dips and chin ups will do you for a while. If you're eating right you'll put on muscle with big compound lifts. Wrist curls? Screw those isolation moves. What's going to put your wrists/forearms under a heavier load for longer--wrist curls or holding yourself up while you do pull ups? Pull ups--higher volume of work=bigger muscles. You're not a competitive bodybuilder--you don't need to work all these isolation exercises, at least not at this part of your lifting career.

Your general conditioning routine looks good. Gruelling in fact. It would kick my ass. So keep that up. That initial "warm-up" routine plus weights 3x a week, plust straightening out your diet should take care of you for a while. But seriously--adjust that diet. I don't know how you can possibly maintain that workload on the amount of calories there--doesn't even look like 1000 calories there. Even if you have a slow metabolism, no one has that slow of a metabolism. Your body is going to catabolize muscle tissue on that diet and that is totally counterproductive.

Good luck.

[Stigma]

I have no useful imput on your diet, but i just have to say... impressive work schedule! If your actually keeping that up, your allready pretty strong

I do agree with the others though, just common sense is enough to see that you just can't get enough energy on that diet to fill your need on such a harsh workout schedule. You must be litterally starving, and that just means your muscle tissue is beeing used as a replacement souce of nourishment... thats not good...

[carter]

hey thanks for the replies everyone i really appreciate your input.

im going to be adjusting my diet, to get all of the proper nutrition i need, im actually browsing the web on nutrition right now, if anyone has any other links to nutrition i would appreciate it.

and thanks for the link robert, i read it and found it really enlighting. I really enjoyed looking at some of the diets they had on there, thanks.

I was also thinking about buying some protein shakes to help myself. Im also going to up my calories, i was probobly taking in 1500 a day, i think. im going to try to get at least 2000.

thai_pete reccomended i get some more white meat in my diet, im not sure if this is a stupid question or not, but could sandwhich meats that are like turkey count? or do i have to buy some chicken breasts and get to baking?

and i think im going to be adjusting my weight routine to a split routine where i work:

Mondays: Legs/Shoulders
Wednesday: Back/Biceps
Friday: Chest/ Triceps/Forarms

someone suggested that, if you work out certain parts of your body maybe only 1 or 2 times a week, it will be more benificial than say doing a full body workout 3 or 4 days a week, like ive been doing. Is the split routine really that much better?

thanks again for all of your guys input. hopefully this thread can help some other people that had similar questions to mine.

[RobertG]

Hey Carter, I have a few questions. First, are you doing some martial arts in addition to everything else? Secondly, just how big are you now and what are your fitness goals? Are you trying to gain or cut or stay the same? On my current regimine I've been steadily dropping weight with about 2300-2400 calories/day. So I'm thinking that depending on your goals, you might want more than 2000 calories. Even upping the protein intake you'd have a hard time gaining significant weight on 2000 calories (at least most guys would). I don't get the feeling you're looking to get huge, but eating adding a couple substantial meals and you'll probably see some modest muscle gains over the course of a few months. If you're trying to cut, well, you'll cut real fast on that diet and routine.

And, yes, turkey sandwhich meat counts as a white meat. However, unless its the good deli stuff (e.g. turkey meat actually sliced from real cooked turkey breast) you might want to stay away from it. Those packaged meats, as I'm sure you're aware, are full of crap you probably don't want.

As for the split, well, thats still a matter of debate. Most people do split routines, but some people argue for the benefits of full body routines each day (and are successful with them). You're going to need to switch up routines anyway every few months, so you might as well try the split and see what sort of results you get. Then go back to doing a full body routine and see if that leads to improvements or not. In the end, with all of this stuff, you're going to have to experiment and figure out what works best for you. Good luck.

[carter]

hey,

No, at the moment im not doing any martial arts, I would like to be in a class ryt now, i had to quit my training about a a year to a year and a half ago because of school, but now that im out im just waiting untill i move to dallas, i would hate to really get into training then have to quit for a month or so and find a new school.

Im 5'11 ryt now, and i weigh around 170, my goal ryt now is to continue losing weight and build up my endurance strength and flexibility. Im looking more into being as lean as i can with the most muscle mass more so than anything else.

I feel, that im going to want to continue on my full body routine for now and come the end of november try a split, and see if i notice any gains or losses. Im also trying to build up my endourance more, i believe that a full body work out would be more benificial to that of a split, at least for endourance.

thanks,
-daniel