New Member would love some help please

[utd]

Hi all, Im 22 years old 6'4" (194cm) and 90kg and am just getting into lifting weights and I would love some advice and info on how i can get the most out of my training and diet.

My goals are to shed some body fat and put on some muscle and most importantly make this a part of my life and stick to it.

Im currently splitting my gym sessions into 1.Arms 2. Core/Back 3. Chest 4. Shoulders 5. Legs. Im working out at least 5 days a week but aiming for everyday, im not sure if i need rest days or if my level of work isn't hard enough to warrant one. Im also aiming to do 30mins of high intensity cardio a day.

My Daily Diet at the moment is,

Meal 1. 2 eggs on toast

Meal 2. Protein Shake

Meal 3. Mince and kidney beans on rice or chicken and veges on rice

Meal 4. Ham Sandwich

Meal 5. Protein Shake

Meal 6. Leftovers of Meal 3

4-5 litres of water

1 glass of OJ

1 glass of Milk

Multivitamins, 1000mg Vitamin C and some Fish Oil .

Ive also been looking at Creatine monohydrate powder and would like to get your guys views on it and whether its right for beginners. Also wondering about Glutamine and also Pre Workout stuff like the curse and jack3d etc..

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, i'm gonna have a big read of the forums tonight, but if you can point out anything obvious I'm doing wrong or would like to help me with my training schedule I would really appreciate it.

Cheers

Marc

[Optimass]

Hi Marc

Welcome - how long have you been training? Do you have, or have you used a PT in the past? How did you come up with your split ...

Always good to give the masses a guage of your knowledge and/or the current direction you have been following.

Where abouts are you based ... AKL, CHCH ...

O

[utd]

Hey O, been training 2 weeks now, havent used a PT (if that stands for Personal Trainer), I take it split means how I split up my workouts? If so then the answer is my friend does sport management and coaching at polytech and we worked it out together, he has a bit of knowledge and we followed a few guides from his course but a lot of it came from looking at websites etc. My level of knowledge is about an hour or so a night looking at websites and reading articles over the last couple of weeks prior to which my knowledge was zero. Im in Tauranga and workout out at my old schools gym with a few of my friends, were all basically at the same level and Ive kinda taken the role of organising everything so theyre pretty much following the program I made so I wouldn't mind some advice on whether its right or not.

Quick Question- For pretty much every exercise we do we aim for 4 sets of 10 reps with a 60-90 break inbetween, but dont always get 10 reps on the the last set or last 2 sets. Is this the right amount of reps, im sure it varies from exercise to exercise but at a rule of thumb would 4*10 be alright?

Cheers

Marc

[Shutupandsquat]

Split is pretty much what your workout week is like. for example mine is

Monday - Arms and rear delts

Tuesday - legs

etc.

As for the reps and sets 3-4 sets of 10 reps is recommended but it all depends on how you train. I usually hit 10 on my first set if it's too light I'll go 12-15. Then 8-10 on my second set and then 5-8 on my last. But it all depends really if you're having a high rep or low rep day/week/month.

Welcome aboard

[utd]

Thanks for clearing the split thing up, so you're saying that you aim for 12-15 on your first set then up the weight for 8-10 then up again for last set aiming for 5-8?

e.g.

Normal Bench Set 1 60kg 12-15

Set 2 65kg 8-10

Set 3 70kg 5-8

Something like that?

Cheers

Marc

[Shutupandsquat]

I'd say hit 10 on your first set. But if it feels to light and you're not feeling anything when you hit 10 then go to 12 or 15.

[Optimass]

Sounds like you guys are on the right track. Doing split routines is something I would normally wait a bit on for beginners like yourself - only because you are better off becoming proficient in the key lifts first. (Bench/Squat/Chins/Deadlifts/Flyes etc - "Compound movements".

You'll find some good insight in most of the threads on this site. Just keep in mind that it isn't always black n white as to what works nd what doesn't.

4 sets of 10 is a good place to start - but there isn't really a blanket rule. As you experiment more you may find lower or higher rps give you the best results. Just have fun with it in the meantie and mix it up. You have noob muscle and it will respond no matter what you throw at it.

1.Arms 2. Core/Back 3. Chest 4. Shoulders 5. Legs

Rest is important: IMO look to break up your days to allow your muscle time to recover. e.g Chest and Shoulders on back to back days will over load your delts.

For a beginner I would start with somethng like this;

Chest/delts/tricep - (all pushing movements)

rest - cardio low HR - 30 min

Back/Biceps/traps - (all pulling movements)

rest - cardio low HR - 30 min

Legs/Abs

rest - cardio low HR - 30 min

rest

12 - 18 sets per workout // training no more than 50 minutes at a time.

...

Lots more to cover - but this is what I would look at for training.

I don't know of any personal trainers on the board currently based in Tauranga but I guarantee there a few people that can steer you in the right direction. Would pay to get in to se someone with some solid bodybuilding experience as it can help to iron out any bugs straight out - saves you time and money in the long term.

O

[tomsammce]

bro id recomend a pyrimid type of training for your sets/reps/weights, iv doen this most of my training and got pretty good results from it at different times.

so if your doing 4 sets on an exercise you could go something like example incline bench press thats an easy one.

1st set - 50kg 15 reps

2nd set - 60kg 12 reps

3rd set - 65kg 10 reps

4th set - 70-75kg 6-8 reps

so as ur your reps decrease your weight increases, using this method you can exhaust the muscle in each set, its not going to give you much trouble injury wise as its not a taxing way of training on your joints and tendons but u still get to do the heavy stuff too while giveing you sufficient warmup on each exercise in the first set. i favour this way, its a good one for beginners and one you can stick with till death.

[utd]

Thanks for the advice O, love the "Noob muscles" call, so true.

[utd]

Thanks for the advice Tom, Pyramiding makes a lot of sense, I might try it out this week and see how it goes.

What are your guys views on Creatine monohydrate as far as taking it early on vs waiting a while, like anyone else i wanna get the max results from the effort i put in but at the same time I dont want to be throwing my cash away on something that isnt necessary yet.

From my understanding there isnt anything wrong with taking Creatine straight away other than you might be less likely to drop weight and that it doesnt really help your cardio?

I could be completely wrong, theres so much info out there its alot to take in and it gets hard to remember everything

Cheers

Marc

[tomsammce]

taking creatine now is fine its all naturally present in the body and is found in meats your eating, use a basic creatine monohydrate and ur be away laughing.

[Van Smasch]

welcome aboard utd,

good see someone like myself in height and age. I cam on here a few months ago and got great advice from people how really know there stuff.

speaking from my own experience the biggest thing i struggled with is consistency with getting into the gym and dieting. I found that a 'solid' gym partner is good way to stay motivated and on track as you less likely to slack off.I see your training with your mates but be sure your in there to have a good workout opposed to a yarn about the weekend. Diet is tricky too, i recommend easing into it, for me easing into it means you will less likely diverge as most of the food can be a bit bland at times. hope this helps a little

Best a luck!!! hope to hear your making solid gains soon

[utd]

Thanks for the advice Van Smasch, yip the gym is strictly business for us, we normally have a chat afterwards over a shake or kick a footy around.

Hope everything is going alright down in chch

[rovr4on]

i got me fastest gains being a noob and taking creatine and going hard at the gym for the first 3 months, but this is to be expected. In saying that I highly recommend seeing a PT who knows there stuff to get your form right, cannot emphasize how important getting good form before you do it too long then it's harder to correct. Ask the PT if they can do a few casual lessons with you and your mates at same time to save a bit of coin maybe..

[utd]

Thanks for the advice rovr4on, Yeh i might have to look into a PT, whats the best way to find one? just ring a gym?

[tomsammce]

i have a mate who trains at Fitco bro he competes and he would be keen to have a few workouts with u im sure to show u proper form etc. hes a good c*nt like that, we will be training there on sat 16th april if u want to train we will show u... dnt waste money on a pt... hate those pricks, most just good for pissing in the ear.

[rovr4on]

yeah proberbly your best bet, and let them know you want someone with BB experience, or just find a PT at your local gym who looks like they know what they are doing. I dont know how many noobs I see using big weight and poor technique at my gym, funny to think I used to be one of them, but did a fair amount of research and got a PT for 5 weeks which really helped get the basics right, in terms of targeting specific muscles during different exercises and the contracting. If you work hard, eat well with a some creatine, you can get some significant results in 3-6 months :pfft:

[rovr4on]

i have a mate who trains at Fitco bro he competes and he would be keen to have a few workouts with u im sure to show u proper form etc. hes a good c*nt like that, we will be training there on sat 16th april if u want to train we will show u... dnt waste money on a pt... hate those pricks, most just good for pissing in the ear.

PT only good if you have no other access to good form etc, not all PT's are bad, alot of em are BB's, but there are some average ones out there, agree with you there Tom. Freakin annoys me when you see a PT with someone and they couldn't give a shit, not pointing out bad form etc :x

[tomsammce]

i have a mate who trains at Fitco bro he competes and he would be keen to have a few workouts with u im sure to show u proper form etc. hes a good c*nt like that, we will be training there on sat 16th april if u want to train we will show u... dnt waste money on a pt... hate those pricks, most just good for pissing in the ear.

PT only good if you have no other access to good form etc, not all PT's are bad, alot of em are BB's, but there are some average ones out there, agree with you there Tom. Freakin annoys me when you see a PT with someone and they couldn't give a shit, not pointing out bad form etc :x

alot of them are bodybuilders? no they arent... only a tiny percentage of pts in newzealand are bodybuilders, if all u do is read this forum then u would be led to beleive they all are. but they are not. very few are. most of them are nothings... just trainers.

[utd]

Wow tomsammce thank you very much for the offer, I would be stoked at the chance to come and train with you and your mate, as far as I know im free that weekend, I'll get in touch with you over the forums closer to the date if thats cool. Would save me a lot of cash that I dont have.

[tomsammce]

sweet as pm me we will just do full body workout so u can see all exercises. mint!

[rovr4on]

good work on helping him out tom, good c**t!!

sorry ive got my wires crossed, there are many more BB's who are PT's than PT's who are BB's. any how just trawl through the forums and you will find tonnes of interesting shiz utd

[rovr4on]

is utd football related by chance?

[Chemo]

alot of them are bodybuilders? no they arent... only a tiny percentage of pts in newzealand are bodybuilders, if all u do is read this forum then u would be led to beleive they all are. but they are not. very few are. most of them are nothings... just trainers.

Mmmhmmmmmmm :nod: :nod:

Think of some of your mates not knowing what to do once they come out of highschool. They used to play a lot of badminton and someone said they are good at P.E ...so they go do a PT course.

Anyone can get that qualification look for someone that looks the part/experienced. Or someone with an amazing reputation.

However there are some intelligent mofos out there in regards to bodybuilding, but prefer endurance events/performance.

[Chemo]

alot of them are bodybuilders? no they arent... only a tiny percentage of pts in newzealand are bodybuilders, if all u do is read this forum then u would be led to beleive they all are. but they are not. very few are. most of them are nothings... just trainers.

Mmmhmmmmmmm :nod: :nod:

Think of some of your mates not knowing what to do once they come out of highschool. They used to play a lot of badminton and someone said they are good at P.E ...so they go do a PT course.

Anyone can get that qualification look for someone that looks the part/experienced. Or someone with an amazing reputation.

However there are some intelligent mofos out there in regards to bodybuilding, but prefer endurance events/performance.