Looking for tips/advice/opinions

joker77

Afternoon ladies and gents, it's been a while.... (lack of internet access...)

Over the summer I've taken a little time off, been away in Germany drinking beer + watching football, but I'm back to preseason (soccer) training now.

I've been hitting the gym regularly over the summer, and am at a good starting point to build on this routine. So here's how my average week breaks down, if you'd like to throw in your 2 cents as to how you think I could improve it, then feel free - all advice will be listened to. My primary goal is to get my cardio fitness back up to last the full 90 minutes of a match, which shouldn't be too difficult. The secondary goal is to increase my upper body strength, and bulk up a small bit. Lastly I'd like to get a bit quicker from a standing start - I never was the fastest! I'm 28, 5' 10'', and 12st 7 pounds. The routine will differ slightly depending on the week, but I'm hoping to stick to this kind of format between now and Christmas - it kind of has to revolve around the football training on Tues/Thurs evenings and the match on Saturdays.

Monday
08:00 Protein Shake with water after waking
08:00 Cycle 6 miles to work, mostly downhill
12.15 Creatine mixed with a Rubex
12.30 Gym - Chest, Biceps - workout is mostly 5 x 5 reps

Smith Press
Barbell Curl
Press-ups
Dumbbell Curl
Dumbbell Press
Cable Curl
Dumbbell Fly
Hammer Curl

13.20 Protein Shake with water after workout
17.00 Protein Shake with water before cycle home
17.00 Cycle 6 miles home, mostly uphill
00:00 Protein Shake with milk before bed

Tuesday
08:00 Protein Shake with water after waking
19:15 Football training - 2 hours soccer specific
21:30 Protein Shake with water after training
00:00 Protein Shake with milk before bed

Wednesday
08:00 Protein Shake with water after waking
08:00 Cycle 6 miles to work, mostly downhill
12.15 Creatine mixed with a Rubex
12.30 Gym - Triceps, Back, Lats - workout is mostly 5 x 5 reps

Cable Pushdown
Bench Dip
Dumbbell Bent-over Row
Cable Pulldown
Seated Row
Skull Crusher
Tricep Bar Close Grip Press
Chin-Up

13.20 Protein Shake with water after workout
17.00 Protein Shake with water before cycle home
17.00 Cycle 6 miles home, mostly uphill
00:00 Protein Shake with milk before bed

Thursday
08:00 Protein Shake with water after waking
19:15 Football training - 2 hours soccer specific
21:30 Protein Shake with water after training
00:00 Protein Shake with milk before bed

Friday
08:00 Protein Shake with water after waking
08:00 Cycle 6 miles to work, mostly downhill
12.15 Creatine mixed with a Rubex
12.30 Gym - Shoulders, Delts - workout is mostly 5 x 5 reps

Smith Shoulder Press
Barbell Upright Row
Barbell Lateral Raise
Barbell Military Shoulder Press

13.20 Protein Shake with water after workout
17.00 Protein Shake with water before cycle home
17.00 Cycle 6 miles home, mostly uphill
00:00 Protein Shake with milk before bed

Saturday
11:00 Protein Shake with water after waking
14:30 Football Match - 1.5 hours
17:00 Protein Shake with water after match

Sunday
12:00 Protein Shake with water after waking
00:00 Protein Shake with milk before bed

daveirl

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joker77

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Yea I purposely didn't include diet as I've a good idea of what I should be eating (even though it doesn't always work out that way!), and am looking for advice on the training regime rather than nutrition. I eat breakfast when I get into work, a wrap with chicked at 11 if I'm going to gym, hot dinner at lunchtime (canteen food), evening meal (brown rice, fish, veg). Add some fruit, tea, coffee onto that.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

joker77

Cheers for the input, if you take a look and reckon I should cut down on them I'll definitely take that on board. Thanks

topdog8

you seem to be focusing alot on your protien intake. you want to gain upper body strenght etc etc... where is ur carbs man. you need to be adding carbs there just as important for building muscle as protien. you take in protein only in the morn take carbs in aswell for ur energy source for the day. ur breakdown of nutriton for gaining mass shoul be around 45% carb 45% protien and 10% fats (efa)...

Ur workout dont look to bad except i cant see when u actuall train legs which are ver important for building an upper body aswell. abs workout i cant see either not that there very important as they are the stabilising muscle and will get somewhat of a workout anyway

joker77

I get my carbs from porridge oats, brown rice etc. I've starting changing the morning shake when I'm cycling to a mix - protein, porridge oats, wheatgerm, linseeds, peanut butter, banana, milk + water.

I know what you mean about legs, but where do you think I could fit them in?? The short answer is I can't, not with the cycling/football training as I just don't have the recovery time to be doing squats and leg press. If I don't have a match on Saturdays I try to do them Fridays, which gives me the weekend off to recover. I do Abs the odd day in the gym - sit-ups, crunchs + leg raises, plus we do a bit of Ab work in the football training.

g'em

joker77 wrote:

Smith Press
Barbell Curl
Press-ups
Dumbbell Curl
Dumbbell Press
Cable Curl
Dumbbell Fly
Hammer Curl

Cable Pushdown
Bench Dip
Dumbbell Bent-over Row
Cable Pulldown
Seated Row
Skull Crusher
Tricep Bar Close Grip Press
Chin-Up

Smith Shoulder Press
Barbell Upright Row
Barbell Lateral Raise
Barbell Military Shoulder Press

you're doing an awful lot of isolation work and not very much compound. If you want to gain functional strength and bulk up at the same time compound work is the way to go- you'll work multiple muscle groups more effectively and in a shorter time-frame. For example if you're doing all those exercises in one session for biceps that's 5 exercises for biceps alone, when chins would work biceps and back all in one go, and you vary your grip to hit both bicep muscles. Where's your bench (smith bench doesn't count!!), deadlifts and squats? Or indeed leg work in general? Deadlifts and squats are killer compound exercises for working a huge number of muscles, especially the core, all in one go- there's some posting about squats and sports here .

By basing a workout around compound lifts you should gain strength and size better- (deadlifts- lower back + traps + hamstrings + glutes; squats- quads + hams + glutes; bench - pecs + shoulders + triceps) an then you can use isolation work to hypertrophy the parts you feel need extra attention.

topdog8

yeah i get u man. its not ideal but why dont u train arms all in one with something else this will free up a day to get legs in prob sunday cos u dont have training till tuesday

joker77

Cheers for the input g'em. As I said above in response to topdog8's post, I can't really fit legs into my routine because of the recovery time I need. I'm using legs cycling Mon, Wed, Fri and for football Tues, Thurs, Sat - so during the season if we have a match on a Saturday, the only day would be Sunday (when my gym is closed!). Also, there's no squat rack in my gym (SV Fitness, IFSC), so it would have to be Smith. We've covered this ground before, the conclusion is I need to change gym! The thing is I need to use the gym lunchtimes, and this is the only accessible one for me, so I have to work with what's there. I want to have a life outside work/training as well, so if it's football on Tues, Thurs, Sat afternoon, don't think the missus would be too impressed if I was in the gym Mon, Wed, Fri evenings and Sundays!

The reason I use the Smith for bench is to load the weight, don't have a spotter. However, I know that I'm not building the support I should be with this, so you've convinced me to go back to the regular bench.

I have a chin up bar at home, so I'm trying to use this any time I can doing chin-ups + pull-ups, if I'm doing biceps/chest lunchtime I'll try to remember to do pull-ups that night, if I'm doing triceps/back I'll try to do chins.

As for the compound/isolation question, again, this is just due to the amount of training I do outside the gym, and the recovery time needed.

As I say though, thanks for the input, I'll take it on board

topdog8 - my gym is only open weekdays - so that rules out Sundays! There doesn't seem to be any gym that's pay-as-you-go around Dublin 16 - I'll post another thread asking the question

justsomebloke

ye i have the same problem no squat rack, so i generally go with dumbell thrusters (these actaully suit me as i like my cardio aswell so i would focus more on doing reps anyway) so i will generally go with heavy sets at the start of my routine with one arm thrusters at the end of the routine.
I have only being doing them a couple of months but If i only had access to dumbells and could only do one exercise ever again dumbell thrusters would be my choice

Vegeta

jsb wrote:

ye i have the same problem no squat rack, so i generally go with dumbell thrusters (these actaully suit me as i like my cardio aswell so i would focus more on doing reps anyway) so i will generally go with heavy sets at the start of my routine with one arm thrusters at the end of the routine.
I have only being doing them a couple of months but If i only had access to dumbells and could only do one exercise ever again dumbell thrusters would be my choice

just tried a few of them there and they are class

joker77

jsb wrote:

i will generally go with heavy sets at the start of my routine with one arm thrusters at the end of the routine.

Cheers jsb - do you have any links to these exercises - not really getting what the one arm thrusters would be