how many times to life weights a week?

[Mtal]

Hi, I been trying to figure out my new workout plan. Trying to get back in the gym again. Now this is the thing, I dont know how many times a week to work a body part. Now I know a lot of people say work on part a week. So lets say I go into the gym on Saturday and do pushing, like chest, tris, and shoulders, and Sunday do pulling, back, bi's, and say legs, is that it for the week. It just does not seem right in a way. Now I also been reading (oh a different source), to do say pushing on monday, pull on tuesday, rest a day, then push again on Thursday, pull on Friday, rest two days, start again on Monday. Now that sounds like a little too much.

 

 

 

Oh and what about abs, do you just train them once a week? Oh and do you have to do like 1000 cruches a workout, or is it more like 3 sets of 10, etc??????

 

 

 

Could someone please shead some light on this for me.

 

 

 

I am not sure what I want from my workouts, I like to get a little bigger and stronger, and cut too, I just want to be healthy #, but for one year, and I always say this, I like to look in nice shape when it comes to beach time.

[CapitalKarate]

what i have been taught, which seems to work for me very well is, if you can, workout every other day and just do the entire body, and do it as quickly as possible, if you don't have the time to do that then what i do is i workout with fisrt day being focused on upper body, (chest shoulders back arms lats), second day is focused on the lower body (legs lower back abs). you don't want to wait too long before working the same area again. lest say you do just a simple 3 or 4 set exercise of bench presses. its reccommended that you not exercise that area again to an extreme until it has rested for at least 24 full hours, and also its reccommended that you don't wait more than 48 hours before exercising it again. now, i'm not coming at this from a body builder's perspective, i don't know how they workout to look perfect. i'm coming at this from the perspective of one who wants to get into shape and just be as fit for martial arts as possible.

[CapitalKarate]

o, and depending on where you are when it comes to how fit you are (which most americans are out of shape), the key here is, just workout, don't focus on what the best workout is, just go and workout. you're not going to damage yourself cause you don't have a "perfect workout plan" (which there isn't). so just do to the gym or into your basement and workout. o, and make sure you do cardio also. as much or more cardio as you do weights

[Hengest]

Two workouts a week is perfectly sufficient. You can make those both full body but personally I wouldn't recommend it. I prefer to train each bodypart once a week so you get plenty of rest. Don't take too much notice of routines in Musclemag and Flex and all that malarkey; those routines will basically only work for steroid users.

 

And don't go crazy on exercise selection. Just stick to the basic movements: squat, bench press, shoulder press, pulldown, stiff-legged deadlift. That's all you really need.

[CapitalKarate]

you know, perhaps i'm doing this all wrong, maybe i'm not working out correctly...

[Hudson]

Bench, squat, deadlift? That sounds like you're minimizing to a powerlifting routine.

 

While I'm all for power and compound exercises, adding a few more terms to your weightlifting vocabulary wouldn't hurt. For one, chins are exercises I can't live without. And having some sort of curls wouldn't kill you either, as well as adding in something that focuses on the triceps, which will get hit in your "basic movements", just not as effectively as some would like. Tri extensions, kickbacks, pushdowns, etc; (Don't really need all of them, I'm not trying to confuse you here by saying you need a million isolation exercises) they're all movements that you'll see in martial arts, and shouldn't be without.

 

I agree with not digging into the muscle mag routines, they're useless to anyone who isn't on a gigantic supplement stack or worse yet, as you mentioned, steroids.

[Maddwraph]

if your used to it, is it good to exercise everyday? i heard something like cardio and push ups dont force that much so you can do them everyday. also, how about abdominals, can you work those out everyday?

[CapitalKarate]

generally, you want at LEAST 24 hours in between workouts depending on what kind of workouts you're doing. if all you're doing are pushups and cardiom every day is fine, and depending on how many exercises you do for abs, every day also is fine.

[Hengest]

Bench, squat, deadlift? That sounds like you're minimizing to a powerlifting routine.

 

While I'm all for power and compound exercises, adding a few more terms to your weightlifting vocabulary wouldn't hurt. For one, chins are exercises I can't live without. And having some sort of curls wouldn't kill you either, as well as adding in something that focuses on the triceps, which will get hit in your "basic movements", just not as effectively as some would like. Tri extensions, kickbacks, pushdowns, etc; (Don't really need all of them, I'm not trying to confuse you here by saying you need a million isolation exercises) they're all movements that you'll see in martial arts, and shouldn't be without.

 

I agree with not digging into the muscle mag routines, they're useless to anyone who isn't on a gigantic supplement stack or worse yet, as you mentioned, steroids.

 

It might look like a powerlifting routine as far as exercise selection goes, but not in terms of sets and reps. A powerlifter is going to concentrate on high sets and very low reps, but I wouldn't advocate that here. Two or three sets of 6-10 reps (using weights heavy enough to make that a challenge) is the kind of thing we'd be looking at here for most exercises, IMHO.

 

This core of basic movements is sufficient to build muscle and strength in large quantities, but there are other "support" exercises you can add. Such movements as leg curls, bicep curls, crunches, back extensions, L-flys, and calf and neck work are all useful if you have the time. I personally don't train triceps in isolation; I find doing your bench press with proper form and weight gives your triceps all the work they need, and it is a muscle very susceptible to overtraining. If you did wish to isolate triceps, I wouldn't recommend kickbacks: they're a quick route to injury. I do agree with you on chins. It's a great exercise that you could use to substitute pulldowns.

 

One other thing you should watch is your cadence. All movements should be done slow and steady, about a three-count out and in (roughly, don't be too serious about counting; you'll just confuse your rep count). Pumping out those reps at break-neck speed is another way to get injured quick.

[Mtal]

Thanks for the info guys. Well right now I am going with three times a week. Chest and Ties, Back and bys, and legs and shoulders. I guess I picked this workout since time is an issue, I can only really make it to the gym like 3 times a week. I might switch back to the pushing and pulling workouts and just alternate. It just does not seem right waiting so long (like 7 days with me right now) between working a body part (for instance I do chest every Saturday). Any thoughts on that?

 

I did have one question. It was mentioned that the routines in the musle magazines are for steriod users. So for us normal people, who just want to get in shape, work out to help are martial arts and any other activites we do, and also try to look decent, lol, how many sets or reps (well for instance I hear Arnold Swartenager likes to do 20 set of various exercises for chest, now we know he does not use steriods, lol) should I shoot for.

 

I mean right now for example, chest I do 4 sets of flat, 3 incline, 3 dips, 3 machine flys. Is that too much, to little, just right? I probably do about the same amout of exercises for my back, legs and shoulders, arms a little less. Thanks.