The Perfect Program

I'm not really experienced enough to be recommending anything in terms of a program but just wanted to ask; how come you wouldn't have someone training 3x a week squatting more than once in the week, Hanley? Would moving the Press to a non-Bench day not work better for whatever reasons? Just curious, 'cause for example I saw next to no improvement in my press when pressing on the same day as benching.

I guess I'm just wondering why you'd pick a body-part focussed day versus a full-body day type of program.

I can see this thread being very useful indeed.

ah nuts, ive just kicked off on 2 months of 5x5 with pure cardio on the inbetween days...its gonna be hard not to subscribe to this though!!!

I'll give it a shot at explaining my current program - this should apply to the 'from fattie to looking good nekkid' category.

I see it as the perfect program for me, because it's very easy to follow (training and diet wise) and I think it's optimal, that is I get maximum results from the invested time.

Generally speaking, people in this category need to drop body fat and keep as much muscle as possible. There are a few that think they have too much muskle, don't believe them (rolleye smiley)

Diet - gives about 75% of the success

Purpose: keep muscle, burn fat

My way:
- keep calories at a slight deficit of 500/day - that means 1 pound of fat lost a week. 1000/day calories deficit is a bit much and is prone to lead to strength/muscle loss. Find a happy medium, as long as it's a deficit, the weight will drop.

- keep protein high, recommendation is 1gram per pound bodyweight, I find this is a nice target to aspire to, but don't beat yourself up if you only manage 2grams per kilo bodyweight or 1 gram per pound LBM.

Try and keep the rest of the allocated calories from fat and only a little carbs. This is not for superior weight loss (Studies show that in the long term, low-carb and medium carb diets (varying carb/fat) have the same fat loss results), but for superior diet adherrence - I find hunger is not an issue if I eat less carbs.

- foods: chicken, salmon, cottage cheese, eggs, veggies, some fruit, EVOO, coconut oil.

- TRACK YOUR FOOD - especially when starting out, you need to use www.fitday.com or similar, people are awfully inaccurate when estimating their consumed calories

- do not count the calories burned exercising towards your daily allowance - you'll only tend to overeat.

Variation/improvements: Intermittent fasting

- concentrate all the meals in a 4/8/10 hour window, fast for the rest of the day. I found that not eating in the morning is great for great results.

- allows you eat few larger meals, some people prefer this. Plus, eating 6+ meals a day (and starting in the early morning) triggers hunger pangs very often, the body 'expects' to be eating every 2-3 hours). Plus, IF allows me to eat what would be considered cheat meals, but it's ok as long as you're hitting the calories and the protein requirements - e.g. I have half a pint of Ben and Jerry's. or 100g Tiramisu, once-twice a week.

No, you won't lose muscle eating like this

Other diet options that I don't use too complicated/hard for what I need:

PSMF - fastest way of losing fat, should be done for no more than 2 weeks at a time

Carb/calorie cycling - eat more on workout days, less on rest days.



Exercise regime

Purpose: - convince the body it needs all that muscle, so use the fat stores for energy.

My way: Full body workouts every second day.

Key points:

- Compound movements: Squat, deadlift, Chinups/pullups, (DB)Bench press, rack pulls, OH press

- Hit all body parts in every workout, don't lower weight while dieting, could lower sets/reps for lower volume

Variation: -Full body workout every third/Nth day - as long as you're recovered between workouts, but not too long recovered

- Split upper/lower 2 days, then 1/2 days rest - if the full body workout takes too long



Take measurements - key to seing progress or not and in consequence, a key determinant in being consistent with diet/training.

Scales - in a calorie deficit, weight is going down. Weigh once a week in the same day same time (e.g. Saturday morning after waking up)

BF% - use calipers once a week.

Mirror - some changes are too subtle to be detected, that's why I use the first 2

Using this programme, I went from 103.3kg sometime in May to 88.6kg today. Still some way to go to seeing abs, but I'll keep at it.
My strength has stayed the same or increased most notably on chinups I went from 1 to 9 in last night's workout.

The perfect program is the one that enables you to be consistent at it. After that, it's just a matter of PATIENCE. Sorry, had to capitalise that, lots of people want results yesterday.

Hope this helps someone or other.
Take it apart boys

I disagree with isolation exercises, unless you are training purely for aesthetics or are using them to get a bigger bench, squat or dead.

I think that isolations are a waste of time for someone who is lifting to get better, stronger, faster, for a sport.

Too many lads in tiny canterbury shorts and 6th year holiday tshirts doing bicep curl dropsets to prep for their match against blackrock at the weekend.

Will Heffernan wrote: »

2. What is the prevailing wisdom here on this forum? I mean that seriously...what do you think the prevailing wisdom is?

From what I can gather as a long-time lurker here, workouts should take about 45 minutes. Anything over an hour is too much.

But then I see some of the workouts in the fitness logs, and they seem to go on forever! So, it's confusing.

I'm all for the 20-minute cure. I don't think it's going to happen, though.

the drifter wrote: »

5/3/1 is a load fo sh*te there i said it....

Why?

Hanley wrote: »

The warm up should focus on hip and shoulder mobility and be dynamic in nature as they seem to be the areas most people have trouble with. I'd do some form of upper and lower body foam rolling prior to this. So say that's 10 minutes of work...

Roll - IT Band, quads, calves, lats, upper back, work thoracic extension on the roller
Mobility - over and under hurdle drills, front to back and side to side, maybe some glute activation stuff too

I wouldn't have thought foam rolling pre workout is a good idea, I'd see it as similar to static stretching and relaxing your muscles pre workout which I always thought was bad for performance. I'l happily admit I don't know a lot about foam rolling but mylself I leave it to post workout or just at home whenever the mood takes.

heres what i do,takes about 45-55 minutes excluding warm up

5- 10 min jog to warm up followed by stretching

day 1 legs,back,core,

squat 5-7 sets,this includes warm up,2 x 8 and 5 x 5
deadlift 5-7 sets,includes warm up,2 x 8 warm up 5 x 5
calf raises 3 x 10
pull- ups(palms facing) 4 x 8
pull ups (hammer curl grip)3 x 8
bent over row 5-7 sets,this includes warm up.usually 6-10 reps.
abs 3 types of 3 x 12

day 2 chest,shoulders ,triceps
barbell bench 5-7 sets,includes wu,6-10 reps
dumbell bench/dumbell fly 4 x 8
dips 4 x 8-10
tricep 4 x 8-10
shoulder press 4 x 8
upright row 4 x 8

Mad busy at work so had to change to this type of programme although i know its a typical split,i think it covers all the bases.I prefer a full body but its hard to reach a happy medium with work and family life while fitting in the gym.

I train 4-5 times a week including sat/sun so i throw in a bit more if i have time.

Any advice or tweaks would be appreciated