Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Workout Wednesday #1

Introduction:
     For the first Workout Wednesday post, I would like to introduce you all to the exercise routine I started doing when I began to take exercising seriously. A "split" is just a weight lifting schedule that you follow weekly.  This "split" tells you what muscle groups to workout what days of the week or how many times a week.  It will also tell you how many sets you should do and how many repetitions you should do during your workout.  It is important to have a split in my opinion, otherwise you will just be going to the gym and either be under training a body part(usually the legs get neglected) or over training a body part(usually the biceps get over trained). The best part of using a split is how easily you can modify it to suit what you are trying to do. Also many people online have also already posted their splits online on other websites such as bodybuilding.com which is where I usually get my workout supplements and information.

     I started off doing a whole body split 3-4 days a week after I had already been going to the gym for a while on my own.  I had seen some progress and was going regularly to the gym but eventually I stopped getting stronger and even stopped losing weight.  This was because I had hit what is known as a "plateau" which just means I reached a point where I couldn't really progress any further with the way I was working out.  That is when I decided to look into a different workout and I learned about splitting muscle groups up and which groups to actually group together.

The Whole Body Split:
     This split is basically built for beginners to use when they start off.  It is like a smorgasbord of every type of workout there is and it actually gets the entire body.  It is great for a beginner to use this split because it limits the number of sets one does for each muscle group.  Most beginners want to go all out usually when it comes to doing chest or biceps so having something telling you what to do is important to keep you on track.  Also, this workout really helps out your weight loss because of how many muscle groups you are working out.  I thought I would share the exercises I would do, so here is the split that I used a while back that helped me get stronger and helped me with weight loss:

Dumbbell Bench Press (for chest) - 3 sets of 12 repetitions

Lat Pulldown (for back) - 3 sets of 12 repetitions

Front and Lateral Raises (for shoulders) - 3 sets of *6 front raises, 6 Lateral Raises*

Leg Press (for legs) - 2 sets of 20 repitions

Concentration Curls (for biceps) - 3 sets of 8 repetitions

Skull Crushers (for triceps) - 3 sets of 10 repetitions

And finally any variation of abdominal exercises to finish off your day.

*The good thing about workouts and exercises is that even if you don't know what the exercise is, you can always find a video of someone doing it on youtube or by google search.  I learned through a combination of that and by asking friends who go to the gym what some exercises were and to help out with my form.*

Conclusion:
     This may seem like a huge workout but thats actually because it IS a huge workout.  You are supposed to do this 3 times a week only and thats because of how much you will be hurting when starting out.  Before this workout I would go to the gym maybe 6 times a week and I wouldn't see results.  After this I got more informed on muscle groups and exercises and I started to see results again.  And for next weeks "Workout Wednesday" i'll be talking about supplements and the TWO day split!

15 comments:

  1. really great tips, probably too much for me though

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice workout, good blog as usual. Though you defo need some more cardio in there

    ReplyDelete
  3. What kind of suplements will you take?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great tips, but perhaps you should include a picture or something to show what each workout is. Never heard of "Skull crushers" before.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I always feel really guilty when I read stuff like this :(

    ReplyDelete
  6. going into Basic Combat Training next week. . . THAT should be a workout lol. Follow

    ReplyDelete
  7. Cool tips. What do you think of this jack3d stuff people use?

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm too lazy to do all this stuff, haha. :P

    ReplyDelete
  9. thanks for the tips, but ill stick to football and airsoft for now :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. I appreciate your tips, will try to use them :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Good read, have a great weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Definitely need to get my skinny ass off my computer and start working out. Keep up the tips man.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thank for the tips and the links !
    (bodybuilding.com is scary though)

    ReplyDelete
  14. This is awesome! Can't wait for more posts

    ReplyDelete