Potentially dumb question

Kell

Heres one thats beginning to baffle me, and responses should really only come from people of similar weight.

I have been working out for 8 months and am wondering what weight I should be hefting i.e. whats safe whats not. I am approx 5' 11", 10st virtually no body fat.

What I am chugging to date has been (briefly)-
30/35Kg bench press
25kg barbell preacher curls
15kg dumb bell arm curls

I have a feeling (since I took Jaks advice on warm up sets) that I could be chugging a hell of a lot more i.e. up to about 20kg+ on dumb bell arm curls.

Could someone point out what sort of weight, given my height and weight I should potentially be able to lift given the length of time I have been at it?

Cheers,

K-

Jak

Don't be overly concerned about weight for curls etc.. tho having barbell preacher curls at a similar weight to your max bench seems very off.

A simple rule of thumb for max benching as an amateur,

Bodyweight for bench is respectable. Most active people should manage this. So for you that is ~60kg.

Bodyweight x 1.5 is very good.

Bodyweight x 2 is considered pretty exceptional.

At the moment I am at about x1.8 and with more training time next year I hope it will take another year to get to x2. Above bodyweight x 2 and you are delving into serious competition lifting, as a 'natural' amateur I'd have serious doubts about ever getting up to that level.

JAK.

Kell

I thought bench pressing was primarily aimed at developing your chest. I satrted lifting mainly to develop my arms, hence the benching weight is maybe not up to where it should be (most of my training is geared at my arms). Are there any other groups of muscle that benching works besides chest?

Cheers.

K-

Jak

Regular Benching is primarily for chest. Where did you get an idea otherwise?

Benching will also work your arms/forearms to an extent. I haven't done a specific arms only session (just some tricep stuff) in a few months, but bench and shoulder work outs have kept my arms in shape and size.

I was skeptical, but arms really do get a semi decent work out by secondary means. Now in the long term I think arms should be trained specifically, but that is another discussion.

Anyhows, I have to say that training you arms mostly is an exceptionally poor idea. If you train anything 'mostly' - make it a compound movement. Just working your arms will leave you with serious strength imbalances and may lead to injury when you try alternate or compound movements.

You need an all round program. Focusing on just one bodypart is short sighted. You can develop a balanced program around training just twice a week, maybe 3 times seeing as you are new to it. But in any case - try and round out the program a but more.

JAK

Kell

Stood under Jak. I only mentioned the basic weights and where I work them. Trying to get into splits. Arms and Back one night then Shoulders and chest rotated.

I am finding that time is the biggest killer for me. Most of the posts I have seen relating to the time people spend each evening of training is 45mins to an hour. Is this the "training time" or the "warm up plus training time"? I find that by the time I have done 4 warm up sets, nearly an hour has lapsed at that stage.

Secondary topic. In relation to warm up sets, is it necessary to do warm ups per mucscle group i.e. in the case of my split warm up arm excercises and then warm up back exercises.

Cheers,

K-

Jak

I usually talk about the time I get into the gym to the time I leave - not including showers etc. obviously.

1 hr for 4 warm up sets is very wrong. Speed it up.

As regards warm up sets for each group - yes and no - it's always a good idea to build up the weight in a given few sets for a new excercise. But generally, if you are training chest - once you are warmed up, you should be fine for all chest excercises.

Kell

Methinks I should reduce the weight slightly then for warmups to get more in in a given timeframe.

Cheers for all the help Jak. Things forming a definite picture now.

K-

logic1

Not sure what type of warm up you're doing but an hour for 4 sets is plain wrong.

I tend to do fewer warm up sets than JayK would do mainly because he has alot more stamina than I would and my muscle would tend to fatigue earlier so I try to stick to one maybe two warm up sets.

For instance if I'm going to train chest I'll do 25 reps flat bench with just the bar (20kg) as a warm up. Then one set of 15 or so reps with 50kg as a second warmup. Then do 3 to 4 work sets.

Following I'll do incline chest press with no warm up. 3 or 4 work sets. Then I may move onto flat flyes one warmup set with 18kg dumbells and 3 to 4 work sets.

In total this should have taken about 30 - 40 minutes. Then move onto triceps following the same principles.

.logic.

Kell

I was kinda forming the same opinion Logic in terms of how many warm ups I should do. Case of taking JAKs advice and translating it directly to my own situation (dumb as JAK is twice the size as I am).

K-

MoosemaN

Originally posted by logic1
Not sure what type of warm up you're doing but an hour for 4 sets is plain wrong.

I tend to do fewer warm up sets than JayK would do mainly because he has alot more stamina than I would and my muscle would tend to fatigue earlier so I try to stick to one maybe two warm up sets.

For instance if I'm going to train chest I'll do 25 reps flat bench with just the bar (20kg) as a warm up. Then one set of 15 or so reps with 50kg as a second warmup. Then do 3 to 4 work sets.

Following I'll do incline chest press with no warm up. 3 or 4 work sets. Then I may move onto flat flyes one warmup set with 18kg dumbells and 3 to 4 work sets.

In total this should have taken about 30 - 40 minutes. Then move onto triceps following the same principles.

.logic.

This is basically the structure of my training as well.

Normally I do 2 warm-up sets and then hit it with heavy weight. I try to keep the rep-range between 4-6 and sometimes alter this with a training session of 8-12.

Something to keep in mind is that Bench pressing also hit the front shoulder a lot, thus training the front shoulder is not really necessary.

Kell

I am beginning to think I am overdoing it on the rep range as well. On both warm up and session sets I do 8-12 reps. Is this overkill?

K-

MoosemaN

I train 4-6reps, 2sets on pretty much everything,

I generally go with this guideline myself:

< 4- leave it for powerlifters. 3-4 may be acceptable for certain movements (e.g., chain benching)

4-6- good combo of size and strength, more focus on strength

6-8good combo for strength and size, more focus on size

>8 ehhhhh, i'd leave these alone, not really worth it for most (some, depending on muscle fiber setup, may benefit though)

This has given me really good results..

Kell

Based on that Mooseman, I have been well overdoing it. I reckons I should drop the warm ups down to 2 sets then do three sets of "exercise" hefting more weight with lower reps.

Progress up to now has been infuriatingly slow*

*Kell is also one impatient b*stard

Cheers again all.

K-