Hi

I'm 6ft and weigh around 160lbs (19 years old) & have just started bulking. I'm taking in around 3500-4000 cals a day (all healthy food - mainly vegs + chicken/turkey breasts, tuna etc.), and get about 300g protein every day.

My main aim to increase muscle mass - particularly on my arms (are about 12" when tensed). Can anyone plz give me some advice on the workout routine I've put together. It seems pretty good to me but I'm no expert??

mon - chest
tue - legs
wed - abs
thu - triceps
fri - back
sat - shoulders
sun - biceps

chest:
chest flye - 4 sets of 8
incline flye - 4 sets of 8
flat bench press - 8 sets of 8

Legs:
close leg squat - 4 sets of 14
wide leg squat - 4 sets of 14
calf raises - 3 sets of 20
leg extensions - 5 sets of 14

Back:
bent over rowing - 4 sets of 14
stiff leg barbell good morning - 4 sets of 14
single arm rows - 4 sets of 14
superman - 2 sets of 14

Triceps:
tricep extension - 4 sets of 14
double handed tricep extension - 4 sets of 14
french press - 2 sets of 14

Shoulders:
shoulder press - 4 sets of 14
lateral raise - 4 sets of 14
seated bent over rear delt raise - 4 sets of 14
upright rows - 4 sets of 14

Biceps:
dumbell curl - 5 sets of 14
hammer curl - 5 sets of 14
barbell curl - 5 sets of 14

Abs:
reverse crunch - 2 sets of 50
dumbell side bends - 2 sets of 14
saxon side bends - 2 sets of 14
crunches - 2 sets of 50
butt lift (bridge) - 2 sets of 20
glute kickback - 1 set of 20

I'm also considering doing 30 mins of intense HIIT (running) twice a week. Is it worth it?

does it look good to you? I'm using 14 reps because, having read a lot of posts on here, high reps with moderately heavy weights increase size (apart from chest where I've stuck with 8).

Any other advice for how I can help to increase muscle mass would be greatly appreceiated!!

Do your abs 3-4 times a week, or every other day.

My bicep workout looks like this.....

Preacher Curls-2 sets, 10 reps
Concentration Curls-2 Sets, 10 Reps

Then I do a superset with Seated Hammer curls and Standing Barbell Curls. I do 3 sets, 10 Reps.

That workout works well for me.

Roonaldo,

You need some rest in there, you'll be depleting your glycogen levels and not making optimal gains because you won't have optimal recovery.

You might try something along these lines-
http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=244anti2
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459276
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459216

Yeah I'll probably do my abs moday, wednesday and friday then, but I won't do as much as listed above for mon & fri as that takes a good hour to do.

As for the biceps, thats the one workout I haven't yet done so can't be sure my setup does the job. Generally speaking, do you think hammer curls are good? because I don't particularly enjoy doing them compared to regular curls - aren't they supposed to target the forearm more as well as the bicep? Finally, don't you work your biceps/triceps to failure because I think you need to be doing that for muscle growth don't you?

Oh and do you reckon its worth doing hiit/cardio as well as my regular routine or is it just going to hinder my progress?

Thanks..

The abs don't need a day to themselves.

Why are you doing close and wide stance squats? I'd rather see a close (olympic) stance and follow it up with a 1 legged leg press or bb step ups or some kind of uni-lateral leg work. You have to much quad emphasis and not enough ham work compared with quad work.

Instead of 2 flying movements, why not work with-
Flat bench:4X6, Incline db press:4X6, incline fly:4X8, dips:3X12

For your back, a heavy weighted back extension will be better than the supermans. You might also go with a verticle back movement-chins, pull ups, lat pulldowns, stiff arm cable pulldown.

I think on your arms, that you should lower the reps to the 8-12 max scheme. 14 reps is getting more into endurance work for the musculature. You could combine your arms and shoulders easily into one day. Use three movements for each of them. In fact, you could easily do a 5X8 setup and run a nice circuit or super set for them.

And yes, HIIT is always worth it.

Hi Evolution, in bold can you explain this further? I'm thinking it will hit the quads more than the hamstraings but i'm not sure i just started do to squats after a number of years due to a knee problem. I think it was an excuse actually i couldn't believe how deep i could go but had to give them a try considering the huge impact they have on overall fitness.

Thanks

The narrower the stance, the less the hamstring emphasis. It's not that the olympic stance squats don't hit the hams or glutes but place a bit more emphasis on the quads than anything else. The olympic stance squats really hit a bit of everything from the waist down, so these should be the staple and follow them up with one quad emphasis movement and one posterior chain movement.

I integrate wide stance box squats about every 3-4 weeks from olympic stance squats because they're both useful tools to have in the pocket. And actually, I rotate about half a dozen main leg exercises every week, so I tend not to return to the same movement for 2-3 weeks.

OK thx, i just done stiff legged deadlifts for the first time in my life. Strangely enough i never seen much of them before probably a spinoff of workoing out at home. Anyway, do you do SDL's on legs day? And how far down do you go? Probably depends on flexibity. How close to you keep the bar to your body?

I have a few sites and a book that all do SDL's slightly differently. Added input would be appreicated.

Thanks

Another question One site has the knees slightly while the other one is straight. Hence the name "straight" leg deadlifts i keep my legs straight lol

I really don't do SLDLs that often. I do cable pullthroughs and Romanian deadlifts instead of the sldl. The SLDL should be performed with straight legs, otherwise you start running into a RDL (Romanian deadlift).

With how far you should go down, a lot will depend on flexibility, but generally, the further the better...just make sure your back is completely arched and not rounding. The bar should be kept pretty close to the body, I'd say at least within 6 inches. Keep in mind that because of mechanics and levers, each person will do them slightly different.

Ok this is where i'm getting confused. I grew with my uncle (powerlifter) telling me that deadlifts where the king for back which i know now is false.

Is this the romanian deadlift

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/...BDeadlift.html

This is what i grew up with. is that what a lot of people call deads?

I like to get this cleared up its amazing how you can be so impressionable when your young.

Thanks

That is not a Romanian deadlift, that is a standard deadlift and it is what most people picture when you talk about a deadlift. The deadlift is pretty damn close to being the king for the back. It hits pretty much everything when done correctly. Power lifters swear by it because they do it in competition.

Here is the RDL http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/exer...anian+Deadlift

The deadlift is impressive because it's you and the bar on the floor. All ya gotta is pick that bar up and pull it up...which can get pretty damn hard when the weight gets heavy.

Most of my training at the moment revolves around olympic lifts.

Ok thx dude so he wasn't wrong lucky for him lol

Question: Why do you use RDL has opposed to SDL?

I always thought there was only one deadlift. All these different deadlifts are making me confused lol

BTW Would you call any lift the King of the back? For some reason i like the lure of this is the King of ________.

Oh man, there are a ton of different styles of deadlift, you have
conventional (standard), sumo, snatch grip, 1 arm, deadlift from different height platforms, and I think that covers most of them.

It's just a personal preference. I feel the RDL is safer than the SDL and I can use more weight without worrying about my back rounding out, so I can go heavier. The other main thing is since I do quite a bit of oly lifting, I tend to follow what works for other oly lifters and the RDL has always been used as one of the main accessory tools. The main thing is the RDL just feels better to me than the SDL.

It's hard to quantify which movement is the king of the back. I'm going to have to go with deadlift because it covers so much of the back from the lower to the lats and traps. However, a successful back training will include at least partially some of these movements-bent over bb row and chins/pull ups. The 1 arm db row is nice for isolating the lats without a lot of bicep assistance and the stiff arm cable pulldown is also a really nice one to add.

Getting back to my routne

I've been messing about with it since what you said about needing more rest (evolution), and have decided to have a rest day straight after my bicep day and after my triceps day so hopefully that should really help?

I've also added the HIIT & abs recommended, to the routine. I really wanna beef up so if you think I can improve it even more keep the recommendations coming in as I've just tried to do the best with my limited knowledge on working out. Oh and I haven't changed the squats yet because I need to look into other excercises as I don't know how to do much else.

Here it is:

mon - rest
tue - chest + abs
wed - legs + hiit
thu - back + triceps
fri - rest
sat - shoulders + abs + hiit
sun - biceps

I've trid to keep the biceps + triceps isloated so I can focus as much time on them as possible - with only working them directly once a week.

Does this look good??