If youre someone who tends to gain body fat easily then cardio training while doing your workout routines to build muscle could potentially help you stay leaner and be a good idea.

Monday: Abs and leg muscles (jogging/biking)
Tuesday: Arm and back muscle such as pull ups, press ups and dips
Wednesday: Rest muscles
Thursday: Abs and leg muscles (jogging/biking)
Friday: Arm and back muscles such as pull ups, press ups and dips
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Abs and leg muscles (jogging/biking)

Follow this on every day throughout the week

try a 3 day split:

monday – chest / triceps
tues / abs cardio
wed – rest
thurs – biceps / back
fri – rest
sat – legs / shoulders / traps
sun rest or cardio / abs

i put muscle groups together as shown above because when you work one muscle group, secondary one’s are also being eorked e.g when you work your chest on exercises like the bench press, dumbbell press etch your tricpes are being worked as a secondary muscle group. and you want to avoid working 2 muscle groups on the same week where possible. same with back / biceps, when doing pull ups, although biceps are the primary muscle group being targeted in that exercise, you back is also being worked.

remember to eat enough to. that doesn’t mean go on binge of crap food, just eat food high in protein and carbs as you need these to help rebuild the muscle, which is how it grows back bigger.

also remember to lift heavy but keep good form (technique). never sacrifice your form for heavier weight as it would help build and you could injure yourself. at first try doing 3 sets of 8 for each exercise, then once you can comfortably do that, then up the weight.

It’s a 5 day split full body workout with free weights, so you have all the equipment for it and it can help you tone and build muscle. All the information for sets and reps is listed in the program. Before the routine, you should do some basic stretches just to make sure that your muscles are supple and that you don’t get injured. Jogging is also good and should be done for around 30 minutes 5 times per week, in order to keep your body fat percentage low. However, you should always do the cardio portion of your workout before and not after your weight training, as otherwise you can inhibit muscle growth.

For your diet, around 2500-3000 calories is about the right amount to eat (it may be more depending on how active you are generally, and also your current weight, age, and BMR) You should try and eat lots of protein in order to help with muscle building and supplement your diet with Protein Shakes as well. Natural additive free whey Protein powders are good for this. Cut out junk food, sodas, and alcohol, and instead eat lots of fruit and vegetables, high fiber foods, wholegrains, and drink lots of water. Here is an example of the kind of diet plan you should follow… http://training.fitness.com/nutrition/3000-calorie-high-protein-weekly-diet-36730.html

squats for legs 2×10
bench press for chest 2×10
bent over row for back 2×10
overhead press for shoulders 2×10
dips with weight belt for triceps 2×10
pullups for bies with weight belt 2×10
crunches and bicycles with weight 2x whatever i can do.

i think it’s effective, because these are compound exercises(multi jointed, body weight and working multiple muscle groups at 1 time). these, boost testosterone levels and increase anabolic hornmones rates to extant that achieves muscle growth. and also my supply of protein every few hours, plus i do daily jogging for 30 minutes. and yes i know once in a while when i reach a plateau i gotta mix up weight, anyways i think this beats splitting up muscles into isolation exercies by many miles with this routine and yeah i kinda explained why lol.

did i do good?!?!?!?!? or am i a failure???? lol

You selected great exercises, no need to do any additional exercises, there’s plenty there.

But you can’t do these everyday, you’ll never build muscle. You build muscle when you are resting, not when you’re working out. Split your routine in half: upper body exercises and lower body exercises. Do lower body monday and thursday and upper body tuesday and friday. Take the weekend off, or do some light calisthenics work.

Aerobics: Be careful to give yourself breaks running so you don’t get stress fractures (one or two days off a week is great). And no need to run over 1 1/2 miles….if you do wind sprints, you’ll get really conditioned without putting your body in a catabolic state.

Eat well (especially first thing in morning) and get plenty of consistent sleep (get up at same time everyday) and you’ll get bigger for sure. Good luck.

I am looking for a really good, descriptive upper body routine. The main goal of this routine is to build muscle. Obviously i would also like to increase my strength. I am willing to put in as much time as possible, i just cannot find a routine which is good.

Does anybody know where i can find a very detailed and descriptive routine for upper body online?

Jack

according to exercise for men the first 3 exercises i would recommend that covers most of the upper body are they 3 UPs; the push up (the chest,triceps,shoulder, abs), the chin up(back muscle groups, shoulders, upper arm) and the sit up( abs, lower back). these three should we incorporated into a broader routine of exercises which can include the bench press (for more muscle mass), free weights and dumb bells and all the other stuff that guys do in gyms these days (like row cables or something like that)

edit; check body building.com or exerciseformen.com

For example, my split is Monday – Upper body (9 sets each chest/back, 6 sets each others), Tuesday – Lower Body (9 sets each glutes/quads/calves, 6 sets each else). Wednesday off, Thursday Upper, Friday Lower, Sat/Sun off. So I’m getting 18 sets of chest/back/quads/glutes/calves per week, and 12 sets other groups. So to match that in a split routine (2 muscle groups per day), I’d have to go to the gym 4 days a week, but do 18 sets per muscle per day to get the equivalent workout. Which would be TOUGH to do. I can lift heavier only doing 9 sets per day, because I use weight that set 9 leads to failure of the muscle. Otherwise I would have to do weight in which 18 sets leads to failure…which would be a lighter weight. Make sense?

I have also read some things that seem to indicate that working more groups in a day leads to a greater endocrine response (ie, testosterone and anabolism) as opposed to splitting muscle groups. I would say that doing a full body workout is probably disadvantageous though because you are talking about a lot of energy there. IE, I try to put the same amount of energy into my upper body as I would in a full body workout. And then there is the time component. You don’t want to have to be in the gym 2 hours daily to get your workout done.

So in an effort to balance your time so you aren’t always in the gym, as well as maximize sets per week per group, I would recommend:

Day 1 – Upper Body (or Push)
Day 2 – Off
Day 3 – Lower Body (or Pull)
Day 4 – Off
Day 5 – Full body.
Day 6/7 – Off

If you have more than 3 days, I’d say copy my system:

Day 1 – Upper Body (or Push)
Day 2 – Lower Body (or Pull)
Day 3 – Off
Day 4 – Upper Body (or Push)
Day 5 – Lower Body (or Pull)
Day 6/7 – Off

A note about off days / rest days. These are important. They don’t have to be where I put them, but you should never do the same body parts back to back. You don’t build muscle in the gym…you tear it down. You actually build muscle while resting (the rebuilding phase). Overtraining WILL decrease your gains, there is a world of research on this. The only people who don’t need rest days are people who are on steroids/hgh, because their body can repair much faster than ours (because they are chemically supplementing). So make sure you are resting!

I am talking about full on body building, 5 day routine, with a proper diet. (No supplements)

I love weight lifting but I would struggle to go to the gym and lift 15 reps of half my max, as people have suggested at my age.

If my age is to young or my height is too small, what age and height should I start?

My dad is 6ft 2, my mum is 5ft 1.5. My genetic height is 5ft 9.5.

Cheers.
I was naturally weak, but I have done a bit of weight ‘training’ now I am above average. I have grown like an inch since I started though. (About 5 months)

The biggest concern amongst parents as well as children is whether strength training will stunt the child’s growth. This is a common public belief. Is this belief true or just a myth? Science proves it is a myth. So where did this myth originate?

This myth that strength training damages the growth plates of children, which would cause decreased stature growth, is believed to have stemmed from an old report which examined children in remote areas of Japan (Kato & Ishiko, 1964). This report stated that these children, who performed heavy labor, were short in stature. It should also be noted that these children "performed heavy labor in mountainous villages for several hours a day" in addition working and living on a poor diet (Faigenbaum, 2001). From this, it was speculated that strength training could damage the composition of the epiphyseal junctures, or "growth plates", from which bone continues to emanate until complete skeletal growth is achieved. This belief was not based on scientific findings, but an anecdote.

On the contrary to this belief, strength training strength training improves the bone mass density of children and adolescents (Morris et al., 1997). Osteoporosis, a progressive disease which causes bones to lose their mineral mass and become brittle and spongy, is an ever growing disease that affects more than 20 million Americans. Due to an insufficient intake of calcium, the body begins to use bone calcium for its needs. This is a problem in itself, but is further aggravated by the sub-optimal levels of bone mass on adults due to inactivity. Bone mass also decreases as one ages (Katch & McArdle, 1993). Without going into too much detail, exercise, more specifically weight bearing exercise, leads to the buildup of calcium in bones, assuming calcium intake is adequate. By exercising at an early age, children can give their bones a head start in the fight against osteoporosis.

Science does not support the myth that strength training has a negative effect on the growth of children, but rather it has positive effects on the their bone health and growth. These facts have lead to The American College of Sports Medicine (site), American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (site), and the National Strength and Conditioning Associate supporting child and adolescent participation in strength training programs.

"Will Strength Training Lead To Other Injuries?"

Another common concern is that children are easily injured from participation in strength training programs. Research shows that "young athletes participating in resistance training… do not appear to be at any greater risk of injury than young athletes who have not undergone such training" (Guy et al., 2001). In fact, strength training will prepare children who plan on participating in sports for the magnitude of forces they will experience in practice and games, which will decrease their risk for sport-related injuries (

For Upper Body:

Pushups are great. They work out the Triceps, Chest (Pecs), Shoulders, Abs, Back and a little of the Biceps. There are loads of variations of them to make them harder or focus on particular muscles such as Diamond Pushups (Triceps), Wide Stance Pushups (Pecs) or Clap Pushups (Power), alternatively you could do chin-ups and pull-ups which work out the Shoulders and Arms or just do some basic Bicep Curls using a rucksack full of hardback books.

For Core:

Core muscles are the back and abs and are vital if you want 6 Pack Abs. There are millions of exercises and it is important that you vary these exercises as they each work out a slightly different muscle. Try Sit-Ups, Leg-Ups, Crunches, The Plank, The Russian Twist and Pike-Ups. You should really feel your stomach burn and almost a little sick if you do these well. Don’t worry though because these pains wear off quickly and you will see results very soon.

For Lower Body:

The lower body is often ignored by weight lifters but it is perhaps more important than the core and upper body. The main muscles you need to workout are the quads, the calves and the hamstrings. For the quads you can do squats. Like pushups they’re loads of different variations like explosive squats which help build power good for contact sports like rugby and American football. Hamstrings you can do Bench Hip Raises (Google it!) for calves you can put on the rucksack filled with books that you used for your bicep curls and to calf raises (Google again!!!) and this will also work the gluteus maximus (your backside .

Of course cardio is also essential. Simple activities like walking, running, swimming, cycling and dancing help burn away any fat that there may be as well as breaking down all of your muscles for a sustained period of time. A little cardio alongside these exercises cannot go wrong! Here is a routine which I do and is really good!

30 bench hip raises
20 diamond pushups
30 bicep curls (each hand)
20 wide stance pushups
50 explosive squats
20 weighted calf raises
20 close side pushups
20 upright rows
a mix of sit-ups, crunches, plank and other core stuff

Hope this helps and good luck!! I really would recommend this over going to the gym as it is far more convenient and not that much less effective + no expensive gym fees!!