What's wrong with my routine?
>5'10", 200lbs, 20% body fat
>down from 225lbs, 28% body fat in October
>gained about 5lbs of muscle
Goal:
Drop from 20% to 15% body fat while retaining as much muscle as possible, hopefully within 3 months.
Routine:
Core every day (1min plank, 20 leg lifts + reverse crunch, 30 bicycles) x 2
Cardio every day (20min stairmaster or 30min treadmill, heart rate 170bpm+)
Chest:
Flat press 3-4 sets of 6-10
Incline press 3-4 sets of 6-10
Pectoral fly 3-4 sets of 6-10
50 push ups
Back:
Seated row 3-4 sets of 6-10
Lat pull 3-4 sets of 6-10
Low row 3-4 sets of 6-10
Assisted pull-ups 3-4 sets of 6-10
Reverse hyperextension 3-4 sets of 6-10
Bent over row, 50 reps each arm
Shoulder:
Shoulder press 3-4 sets of 6-10
Rear delt fly 3-4 sets of 6-10
Front raise 3-4 sets of 6-10
Delt machine 3-4 sets of 6-10
Shoulder press, 50 reps
Legs:
Leg press 3-4 sets of 6-10
Hamstring curl 3-4 sets of 6-10
Leg extension 3-4 sets of 6-10
Seated calf 3-4 sets of 6-10
Standing calf 3-4 sets of 6-10
50 squat jumps
Arms:
Dumbbell curls 3-4 sets of 6-10
Skull crusher 3-4 sets of 6-10
Cable pull down 3-4 sets of 6-10
Tricep press machine 3-4 sets of 6-10
Tricep extension 3-4 sets of 6-10
I really just pick a weight where I can do 6-10 reps before I can't do anymore. Sometimes I'll drop weight by 5-10lbs if I can't get 6.
Diet:
~1500 calories/day, so probably at least a 1000 calorie deficit.
Protein shake for breakfast and post workout (sometimes skip breakfast), about 50g protein, 30g carbs
Chicken, pork, or steak + veggies for dinner
I just try to get over 100g of protein every day, and minimize carbs as much as possible. I eat basically zero sugar and almost never cheat.
How could this be improved to maximize fat loss?
Am I overtraining?
Should I be increasing training load while cutting? Or just lift as much as I can within 3-4 sets of 6-10 reps?
I'm afraid of carbs, I think they'll make me fat. Keto brainwashed me.
yeah its pretty retarded lol
What's wrong with it? I'm a total noob.
It's a shitload of volume loaded onto one day per body part and you're eating too little to support a workload like that. You'd be better off splitting the volume up into 4 days per week hitting each muscle twice per week. Also increase your calories a little and do some low intensity cardio like incline walking every morning instead to make up for the calories. The extra nutrients help a lot and it'll save your sanity compared to just cutting your calorie intake so hard
It does feel like a bit much if I'm trying to cut. So I should work two muscle groups a day and only 4x a week? Any specific routine you'd recommend? So sick of overthinking this, just want to set the most optimal routine and forget about it.
Don't worry about optimal dude. Worry about good. Take it from someone who had that issue for years. It'll never be good enough. Here's a quick example routine that would be good for what you're trying to do within 3 months. It's a bit oldschool but it'll work really well
>Day 1 - Chest, Back, and Biceps - Monday and Thursday
Bench Press 4x6-10
Chest Supported Row 4x8-12
Incline Bench 3x8-12
Assisted Pullup 3x8-12
SUPERSET x3
Dumbbell Curl 10-15
Rear Delt Raises 10-15
End the day with 3x10-15 cable crunches, weighted situps, or leg raises depending on preference
>Day 2 - Legs, Shoulders, Triceps - Tuesday and Friday
RDL 4x6-10
Dumbbell OHP 4x8-12
Bulgarian Split Squats 3x8-12
SUPERSET x3
Lateral Raises 10-15 (pushed beyond failure)
Rope Pushdown 8-12
SUPERSET x3
Overhead Extensions 10-15
Calf Raises 10-15 w/double dropsets
End the day with 3x10-15 cable crunches, weighted situps, or leg raises depending on preference
>Cardio
Stairmaster, incline walking/walking hills, or other light cardio of choice for 45 minutes every morning. Increase to 60 minutes after 1 month and 75 minutes after 2 months
>Diet
2000kcal per day. Skip breakfast and divide into 3 meals for lunch, dinner, and before bed meal. Meat, fruit, and vegetables are the cornerstone with a potato or two of choice added every day and 1 protein shake. If you need more volume use soups, chilis, salads, and curries to volumize food. Lower kcal to 1800 after 1.5 months. Cheat meal once per month not exceeding 1500kcal. Salt food to taste and don't exclusively eat really lean proteins. You need at least a little fat in your diet
I can do this. How do I pick a weight? Should I be failing towards the end of all of these?
When your first set hits the top of the range and the rest of your sets fall within the range, increase the weight. You won't make as much progress on a cut like this as you would a bulk so don't beat yourself up if you're not increasing weight as fast as you'd like. Just keep pushing and trying to make progress
Thanks a lot brother. Do I use the huge barbells for RDLs? Or the smaller ones?
I wish you luck and hope your nervous system keeps up
How much of this routine are you actually doing in a day?
Every single bit of it, I'm not kidding. Sometimes an extra set or drop sets all the way down.
Bruh. That seems insane. How long are you in there? I go through like a half dozen exercises and am in there for an hour and a half
Usually about two hours or a little more. I'm about to start a new job so will probably have to cut it down to 60-90min.
How long do you spend resting between sets? And there is a dropoff in gains past a certain volume which you are probably hitting with this. Personally I'd split this up, focus on form, and slow things down to bring up intensity
A minute or less between sets. I do worry that I'm overtraining, just don't know what exactly to adjust
One thing to adjust are your rest times, I guess. A minute or less is simply too little. Pretty sure all the studies show that performing much worse than the 2-4 minute range. And for the sake of your sanity I'd suggest to split this across a couple days. This doesn't seem like something you can keep up over the long term. Can be hard to get back in once you fall out of it, but you do you
And if your goal is simply to maintain muscle then you don't need to go balls to wall on exercise. So long as you are getting your protein it shouldn't take much to keep what you have
So split it up by working multiple muscle groups and less exercises each day? I've honestly been following this exact routine for the last 4 months or so, haven't changed it at all. Increased weight over time obviously but basically the same volume and exercises.
Exactly what
said. Trim some of the fat off this. There's no need to be hitting muscle groups repeatedly in one session if you're just going to hit em the next day. Use the time saved by reducing the number of exercises to increase rest time and intensity
>What's wrong with my routine?
Everything. If you really insist on doing a full body routine instead of any sort of split then at least pick 2 or 3 of the most effective ones each day and you can rotate different exercises on different days. There's no way you're training with any intensity towards the end of all that shit, that's more volume than fucking Arnold did
Wait.. to be clear, I'm only doing cardio, core, and one muscle group every day. Rotating between chest/back/shoulders/legs/arms each day. Not doing all of them every day.