Critique my muscle gaining workout and nutrition plan

[Adodd]

Squats, deadlifts, benchpress, overhead raises, sit ups and planks, curls. Will be adding pull ups when I get a bar.

All every other day and using a weight that I can rep 6-12 times max.

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Daily- Omega 3 supplement, b12, Creatine, maca, lots of water. 4 or 5 medium size meals instead of 3 large meals to help get enough food.

Protien smoothie with maltodextrin and tart cherry juice after workouts

Edited January 27, 2022 by Adodd

[Average Investor]

What does the rest of your meals look like? 

[Adodd]

I primarily eat plant based foods. High carb and protien diet. Fruits, veggies, grains, nuts and seeds. Very occasional eggs or seafood but I have cut put seafood a month ago due to heavy metal contaminations.

[aurum]

5 hours ago, Adodd said:

Squats, deadlifts, benchpress, overhead raises, sit ups and planks, curls. Will be adding pull ups when I get a bar.

All every other day and using a weight that I can rep 6-12 times max.

--------------------------------------------

Daily- Omega 3 supplement, b12, Creatine, maca, lots of water. 4 or 5 medium size meals instead of 3 large meals to help get enough food.

Protien smoothie with maltodextrin and tart cherry juice after workouts

Looks good.

Ideally, I would vary the workouts a little more. Strength is usually built at around 5 or fewer reps, that’s when you’re really tapping that Phosphagen system. And if you really want to build muscle, I’d be hitting that 15 rep mark at times with 30 second rest for max hypertrophy.

Also, there’s more to fitness than compound lifts. What about your aerobic exercise, mobility or your endurance? Maybe those aren’t important goals for you, but to me they go hand in hand with being a healthy, fit person. Not someone with just big muscles.

Regardless, these are rather nitpicky points I’m making. The most important thing is you have a plan, be consistent with it but also adjust as you learn more over time.

5 hours ago, Adodd said:

Protien smoothie with maltodextrin and tart cherry juice after workouts

Maltodextrin is not good for you. I’d cut that out.

2 hours ago, Adodd said:

I primarily eat plant based foods. High carb and protien diet. Fruits, veggies, grains, nuts and seeds. Very occasional eggs or seafood but I have cut put seafood a month ago due to heavy metal contaminations.

I’d incorporate more healthy fat into your diet. Fat is going to be more calorie dense to help you put on size. If you can find grass-fed ghee, that might be a good place to start. You don’t just want to be a carb burner.

I’d also consider adding some red meat. That will help you get your protein and fat in. And that’s going get you a lot of essential amino acids (bcaas) for building muscles. You won’t even need to take creatine if you eat enough red meat. Meat has creatine.

[7thLetter]

6 hours ago, Adodd said:

Squats, deadlifts, benchpress, overhead raises, sit ups and planks, curls. Will be adding pull ups when I get a bar.

All every other day and using a weight that I can rep 6-12 times max.

If I'm understanding this correctly, you do this same exact workout with the same exercises every other day?

So for example you would do Squats, deadlifts, benchpress, overhead raises, sit ups and planks, curls for 6-12 reps on Monday, then on Wednesday, then Friday? How many sets are you doing per exercise, 1?

If that's the case, everyone works out differently but in my personal opinion it would be best to split your workout routine into something like having a Chest & Bicep day on Monday, then Legs & Cardio Tuesday, etc. Something like that is usually the most common way for people to workout and build muscle, it works.

Me personally I use to do the "bro-splits" until I switched it up to upper body Monday, lower body Tuesday, rest Wednesday, upper body Thurs, lower Friday.

Because if you're doing it that way with Squats, DL, Bench, etc. every other day then you're pretty much doing a full-body workout, hitting every single muscle group, every 2nd day and you're not giving your muscles time to recover. Rest days are important for the muscles to grow and regain its strength for the next time you hit that muscle part. I mean you do have here the 1 rest day in-between workouts but I think it's a good idea to have at least 2 or 3 days of rest in-between before hitting a specific muscle part again.

If you look at the bro-split or upper-lower body routine, you can see that it gives 2-3 days of rest in-between muscle groups.

Just a few more points, 3 sets per exercise is ideal at 6-8 reps per set if your goal is to build muscle. Should take about 1 to 1 & a half hours to complete a workout.

[Adodd]

11 hours ago, 7thLetter said:

How many sets are you doing per exercise, 1?

Just a few more points, 3 sets per exercise is ideal at 6-8 reps per set if your goal is to build muscle. Should take about 1 to 1 & a half hours to complete a workout.

 

12 hours ago, aurum said:

 

Ideally, I would vary the workouts a little more. Strength is usually built at around 5 or fewer reps, that’s when you’re really tapping that Phosphagen system. And if you really want to build muscle, I’d be hitting that 15 rep mark at times with 30 second rest for max hypertrophy.

 

I do 3 or 4 sets depending on how im feeling after the 3rd. I will go ahead amd lower my reps and do more weight. Thanks.

[Adodd]

12 hours ago, aurum said:

Looks good.

Ideally, I would vary the workouts a little more.

@7thLetter @aurum

12 hours ago, 7thLetter said:

but in my personal opinion it would be best to split your workout routine into something like having a Chest & Bicep day on Monday, then Legs & Cardio Tuesday, etc. Something 

Because if you're doing it that way with Squats, DL, Bench, etc. every other day then you're pretty much doing a full-body workout, hitting every single muscle group, 

So ive been torn between which split to use but after doing a lot of research it seems to me that most experts and studies show that full body is most effective. Maybe I'm not aware of something though.

How would I know for sure that I've fully recovered from a workout? I feel good and strong again with 1 day in between. Is that a good sign that ive recovered? I also might take longer to recover once I increase my weight and drop the reps. Have to see.

 

 

https://youtu.be/9O8mOtdKr44

 

Edited January 28, 2022 by Adodd

[aurum]

1 hour ago, Adodd said:

 

I do 3 or 4 sets depending on how im feeling after the 3rd. I will go ahead amd lower my reps and do more weight. Thanks.

You don’t have to lower your reps every time. It’s just about what you want to focus on building. Different rep ranges target different things.

Olympic lifters and powerlifters tend to go high weight, low rep because they want max strength and don’t care about much else. But a bodybuilder, whose main concern is muscle size and physique, is going to be building in a lot more volume.

So think about what your goals are. I personally prefer a more balanced approach, where I vary rep range and weight on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

1 hour ago, Adodd said:

@7thLetter @aurum

So ive been torn between which split to use but after doing a lot of research it seems to me that most experts and studies show that full body is most effective. Maybe I'm not aware of something though.

How would I know for sure that I've fully recovered from a workout? I feel good and strong again with 1 day in between. Is that a good sign that ive recovered? I also might take longer to recover once I increase my weight and drop the reps. Have to see.

 

 

https://youtu.be/9O8mOtdKr44

 

Again, it all depends on your goals and where you currently are in your fitness journey.

For most people, I think full body a couple times a week is probably ideal. Most people only need 48 hours to recover, maybe even 24 hours in some cases. And on your rest days you can do some light cardio if you want, just don’t overdo it.

 

Currently my split looks like this:

Monday: HIIT Cardio, Pull day

Tuesday: Low Intensity Cardio

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: HIIT Cardio, Push day

Friday: Low Intensity Cardio

Saturday: HIIT Cardio, Full body bodyweight exercises

Sunday: Off

 

You don’t have to copy that split but might give you some ideas on how you want to structure things.

 

[Adodd]

2 hours ago, aurum said:

I personally prefer a more balanced approach, where I vary rep range and weight on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

That makes sense I like that idea. Might that also help avoid plateaus you think?

Also what's wrong with maltodextrin following work outs? From.my research it seems pretty beneficial.

[aurum]

35 minutes ago, Adodd said:

That makes sense I like that idea. Might that also help avoid plateaus you think?

For helps avoid plateaus. Keep the muscles guessing.

35 minutes ago, Adodd said:

Also what's wrong with maltodextrin following work outs? From.my research it seems pretty beneficial.

I just don’t think it’s worth the risk. I get that you’re looking for that post-workout insulin release, but maltodextrin is a highly processed sugar and I’d rather not put that in my body. Especially when you consider that other alternatives exist that can give you the same effect:

In small doses I’m sure you can take maltodextrin and not die. But I just don’t see its upsides relative to healthier foods.

[Adodd]

3 hours ago, aurum said:

 

In small doses I’m sure you can take maltodextrin and not die. But I just don’t see its upsides relative to healthier foods.

Ok fair enough. Thats solid advice. I should look deeper into that . Thanks for the advice man.

[7thLetter]

On 1/28/2022 at 10:47 AM, Adodd said:

@7thLetter 

So ive been torn between which split to use but after doing a lot of research it seems to me that most experts and studies show that full body is most effective. Maybe I'm not aware of something though.

Find what works best with you and for you.

Perhaps full body is more 'effective' but that really depends on what your goals are. Effective when it comes to what? Some people train for size, some people train for strength, some train for endurance, aesthetics, weight loss, etc. So of course, different workout plans & styles exist because they all have their own unique way of growing or strengthening the muscles. There's no one size fits all.

In my personal opinion, full body workouts are less concentrated. Full body workouts are a handful of compound exercises in a single workout session, and you're not exactly hitting the minor muscle groups that could use some attention. But of course, this comes back to your personal goals. Are you training for aesthetics, are you going for a bodybuilder type look or the powerlifter type look? Are you training for strength? Full body workouts are mainly what powerlifters do. So if you’re going to train full body then you’ll be focusing more on strength training rather than training for aesthetics.

If you're going for aesthetics then I'd recommend following splits. Just think about it, a single workout is about 1 hour to an hour and a half at most. Full body workouts are sort of like trying to cram everything into that one hour, while splits spend that hour focusing on one or two muscle parts. Do you now see how full body can be less concentrated?

If you're doing squats, deadlifts, etc. in one day for example, then where's your calf muscle workout? Those compound exercises may hit your calves but not entirely. If you want calves that look good then it makes more sense to dedicate a gym session only to calves & quads for example for a leg day.

If you're going to do full body then I say 2-3 days of rest in between workouts is recommended to give your body time to recover.

On 1/28/2022 at 10:47 AM, Adodd said:

 

How would I know for sure that I've fully recovered from a workout? I feel good and strong again with 1 day in between. Is that a good sign that ive recovered? I also might take longer to recover once I increase my weight and drop the reps. Have to see.

 You can feel good and be ready to workout again the next day but that doesn't mean your muscles have fully recovered.

Personally I say it's safe to assume your muscles have recovered after 48-72 hours have passed but muscle soreness is another way to judge whether or not your muscles have recovered.

You might take something away from this article if you're looking to know more: https://livehealthy.chron.com/weight-training-secondday-soreness-muscles-4830.html

Edited January 31, 2022 by 7thLetter

[The0Self]

On 1/27/2022 at 6:47 PM, Adodd said:

Squats, deadlifts, benchpress, overhead raises, sit ups and planks, curls. Will be adding pull ups when I get a bar.

All every other day and using a weight that I can rep 6-12 times max.

--------------------------------------------

Daily- Omega 3 supplement, b12, Creatine, maca, lots of water. 4 or 5 medium size meals instead of 3 large meals to help get enough food.

Protien smoothie with maltodextrin and tart cherry juice after workouts

Looks good. Very important you get at least 120g protein a day. By overhead raises do you mean standing overhead press? Because if you bench you should also do standing overhead press to avoid rotator cuff issues. The planks and sit ups are not required -- especially once you include chin ups. The curls will not be required once you're doing chin ups. Can actually very effectively get a noticeable amount more delt/shoulder size and strength if you want by simply adding side lateral raises -- several sets of 10-20 -- at the end of the session so you can just burn them out and then leave; just do sets until they're exhausted... like 2-6 sets with little rest... don't do that with other exercises though... it's fine for small movements because they only fatigue the muscle and not the nervous system.

The rep ranges you're using are good but for any main barbell movements a better balance of fitness vs fatigue buildup would come from staying in the 5-10 rep range. But for hypertrophy of smaller muscles, higher helps (e.g. side lateral raises 3x10-20).

I didn't see you list sets per exercise, but I'll say: 3 is great, except for deadlift. Don't exceed 1 set for deadlift or you will soon run into neural fatigue -- in fact while the deadlift is the exercise with the highest stimulus level, it also has the lowest fitness/fatigue ratio of any exercise... keep it to once a week once you get pretty strong and exceed (lb)405x5, and perhaps even when only at 315x5.

And always ramp up for warm ups. At least 2 sets (not including the initial very low weight set). i.e. if deadlifting 405, do 1 set of 5 at 135, 1 set of 5 at 225, 1 set of 5 at 315, then perhaps 1 set of 1-3 reps at 360, then do your one work set of 5 at 405.

 

The backbone is including all the main movements and any less is an incomplete program: pushing, pulling, and a leg-dominant.

i.e.

standing overhead press, or bench press and standing overhead press (never bench by itself), or weighted dips

chin up, or row (or horizontal row) + chin up

deadlift and/or squat

Optional: anything else; some of the most useful ones are... lateral raises, standing barbell curl

 

For calves, if you're after aesthetics, the best exercise is actually stair climber with weighted vest or pack on.

Edited February 2, 2022 by The0Self