Gym or p90x

[j0n024]

...I wanted to ask something...and I'm being serious.

I know that it's good to doing chest/back/legs on different days but is it really that important to do them on different days? Right now I was doing full body workout's when I went to the gym but I wanted to know if doing chest/back and legs different days was really that important.

Right now I was really thinking about breaking it down and doing chest on Monday, back on Wednesday and legs on Friday...but I wanted to know what everyone else though.

 

[Captain Harlock]

Full body is a great workout method, a lot of powerlifters prefer it to split training.

 

[j0n024]

Ok I was thinking about this since Wednesday and I have finally decided.

I felt that I was over training and KNEW I was I just loved the feeling of training and didnt think about it that much...oh well. Then I went on Friday and did my warmup and was getting read to bench.....funny thing was I could barely bench 110! I am not saying I'm a monster yet that can bench 180 as his warmup but I use to be able to do 140 for 4 reps and now I could barely do 110!

I have decided to take a week off and come back on the first of Feb, with a different routine, I have decided to go with breaking it down with back monday, chest wedneday and legs friday. I have decided this way I can do deadlifts on monday chest..bench and then on friday I can squat and have at least 2 days to rest after the squat.

When I get back I am going to write down every exercise I am going to do and will keep an eye on it and maybe change it up again in April.


What I wanted to know...is how long should I workout? I LOVE to workout and feel my body get tired and always want to keep going...I just wanted to know what a good amount of time in the gym would be, thanks.

 

[Captain Harlock]

About an hour, but it depends on the intensity and what exactly you're exercising of course. An hour should be enough for a high intensity full body training. Training too much will be counter productive and may lead to injuries.

 

[Quiksilver]

...I wanted to ask something...and I'm being serious.

I know that it's good to doing chest/back/legs on different days but is it really that important to do them on different days? Right now I was doing full body workout's when I went to the gym but I wanted to know if doing chest/back and legs different days was really that important.

If you're lifting with 90-100% effort, your CNS can't support maxing out legs/back/chest in the same workout. You make far better strength gains with a split. Full body workouts are more for fitness/conditioning/cardio, or if you don't care about strength gains.

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About how long you should work out, usually an hour give or take is enough to get everything done but its silly to paint everyone with the same brush. A lot of advanced lifters work out for 2 hours+, because it takes so long to recover between sets/reps.
Take as long as you need, to be strong enough to complete your goal for the workout. If fat loss is a primary goal, tighten the workout a little to keep the heart rate up, if strength gains are your primary goal, stretch it out a little to make sure your muscles are ready to go each set. After a heavy lift set, it can take 5 minutes for your muscles to sufficiently recover for another set, so dont get into the habit of rushing. At the same time though, don't sit around staring at nothing either, tempo is somethng you'll have to work out for yourself, its very individual.

 

[j0n024]

I understand and usually instead of sitting down somewhere I usually jumprope between sets so I can keep my heart rate up so sitting around doing nothing isnt something I like doing in the gym.

I usually keep the "Tempo," Pretty high so it isnt that bad but when I go back I will try to make sure I can figure out when my muscles are rested enough to go again.

 

[Captain Harlock]

If you're lifting with 90-100% effort, your CNS can't support maxing out legs/back/chest in the same workout. You make far better strength gains with a split. Full body workouts are more for fitness/conditioning/cardio, or if you don't care about strength gains.

:crackup:

:nono:

 

[Quiksilver]

Nice response Harlock, it'd be cool if you explained yourself rather than post smileys. I don't really like deleting posts, but I make exceptions for immature ones.

--

Have you ever tried to max bench, max deadlift, and max squat in the same workout? I tried once and the last half of the workout was a mess. Just thinking about doing it again makes me sick.

 

[j0n024]

I understand that and I think when I saw something about overtraining and then on Friday when I was talking to a some guy in the gym about overtraining I think I let my self fall into the trap that I thought I WAS overtraining.

But I think I have been overtraining and I'm not making an excuse, I really love working out but for the past6 months I have been going in at 12PM and got out at 4PM....so take from that what you will.

On the 12-20 sets...I was thinking about splitting and doing 5x5, do you think that would be decent or should I change it up a little bit more?

 

[Captain Harlock]

Nice response Harlock, it'd be cool if you explained yourself rather than post smileys. I don't really like deleting posts, but I make exceptions for immature ones.

--

Have you ever tried to max bench, max deadlift, and max squat in the same workout? I tried once and the last half of the workout was a mess. Just thinking about doing it again makes me sick.

I just posted some smilies because the entire post didn't make sense. There's nothing to explain there.

About the second point. How are the deadlift and squat not fullbody exercises by themselves? Also there's nothing wrong with doing them all three in a single workout. Of course you have to adapt the amount of sets and reps to the amount of exercies. I personally like to switch between squat/deadlift on different workouts.

 

[Quiksilver]

How are the deadlift and squat not fullbody exercises by themselves? Also there's nothing wrong with doing them all three in a single workout. Of course you have to adapt the amount of sets and reps to the amount of exercies. I personally like to switch between squat/deadlift on different workouts.

Yeah okay squat/dead/bench are compound exercises but the day after i do heavy squats my chest isn't sore, my upper/lower back isnt sore. When I do deadlifts, my quads aren't sore, i dont have trouble walking on saturday b/c of deadlifts on friday. When I do bench press i dont have either of those problems.

They are compound exercises and require activation of more muscle groups but HARDLY full body exercises.

--

There's a reason why the overwhelming majority of strength athletes(I actually cant think of an exception) don't do squat/dead/bench in the same workout.

How much lifting experience do you have anyway? If we're talking novice or relatively new lifter sure you'll make strength gains off of anything, but when you get into advanced/elite levels... lol imagine doing a 400lb bench in the same workout as a 600lb squat... its just... nevermind dude.

 

[j0n024]

Thanks espi for the information....

I know what you mean about the varying mindset aparrently bodybuidling EVERYONE has different ways of doing things haha but it's not a bad thing.

I am going to try your way vary it up but maybe go with 6 sets and maybe
1-10-12
2=7-8
3=6-7
4=5-6
3-4-5
2=3-4
1= (back up to the lightest weight)

Thanks.....

oh and I was wondering IF spaghetti WAS bad for you, I have heard varying opinions of this and just checked a bag from my cupboard (My saturday cheat meal...going BIG meatballs, bread, sauce, cheese) and it was like 44g of carbs ...so I wanted to know what you guys thought..thanks.

 

[mrRuckus]

Yeah okay squat/dead/bench are compound exercises but the day after i do heavy squats my chest isn't sore, my upper/lower back isnt sore.

What are you getting at here?

What does soreness indicate? About nothing. I don't get sore much at all unless i haven't lifted for a while. My lower back isn't sore the day after deadlifts.

I don't know how you are keeping your chest lifted or your lower back in place if you aren't using your entire back on a squat. Those things are being worked isometrically. Next you'll tell me my hamstrings and calves aren't being worked either, I suppose. How about that the delts are used in a deadlift?

If you're lifting with 90-100% effort, your CNS can't support maxing out legs/back/chest in the same workout. You make far better strength gains with a split. Full body workouts are more for fitness/conditioning/cardio, or if you don't care about strength gains

Wow, dude. I've managed to do it for 36 weeks. In the Texas Method you do all 3 for a 1-5RM every Friday. One work set each. I've seen no difference in doing squats or deadlifts first either. I squat first if no one is in the rack and if not, which is frequent, i deadlift first. Am I special? I doubt it.

5x5 of all 3 on Mondays.

We're not advanced or elite in strength levels or in progression rates.

I'm no huge advocate of 5x5. It's just a simple system and one way to do things. Lots of methods of doing stuff works. You're supposed to tweak and change things as you progress. Add sets, remove sets, increase reps, decrease reps... whatever gets the numbers moving up again. 5x5 is intended as more of a starting point and adjusting from there... or for a point to return to to start adjusting again when you get lost.

The funny thing is that a lot of sites like the main DC site recommend getting as strong and as big as possible on systems like 5x5 before even touching DC.

 

[j0n024]

I know what you mean it seems easy on paper 10-12 reps but when I'm under the weight I will see just how easy it is hahaha.

But I was wondering why not do it this way? I mean wouldnt I be working out BOTH fibers the fast twitch and the slow twitch fibers so I would be getting a better overall workout?

I am doing pretty good at gaining weight I use fluctuate between 200 and 194 and now I am back up at 200 so that's good but I think I will keep my diet as clean as possible ...in a couple of minutes I'm going to eat some chicken..and just bought some cottage cheese for tonight to try.

 

[Captain Harlock]

How much lifting experience do you have anyway? If we're talking novice or relatively new lifter sure you'll make strength gains off of anything, but when you get into advanced/elite levels... lol imagine doing a 400lb bench in the same workout as a 600lb squat... its just... nevermind dude.

well I certainly never lifted those numbers. My max bench was 100 kg which pretty much destroyed my right shoulder to this day (thank you negative reps). That was more than 1,5 year ago, now I just play rugby. Can't even do pushups anymore because of my shoulder.

 

[j0n024]

Damn my sympathies Captain....sucks that your shoulder is messed up.

But what I wanted to know is how long till I see some progress in the dieting? I know it's only my second week but I dont look any different even though I am eating extremely healthy except for the couple of white bread slices I use for the tunafish.

How long give or take till you see results when you clean up your diet?

Oh and one other question....I've seen different responses to this...

When should I cardio? Right now I cardio BEFORE I weight train to warm up my body, should I also do cardio AFTER my workout now? Oh and I eat a little bit of cereal or eggs before I go out there.

 

[j0n024]

bump

 

[Ken88]

Check out this site for some Free P90x Guide downloads

Doesn't have the videos, but has the guides. You can see what p90x is about before you start. Anyways I am currently waiting for min to get here in the mail. Was thinking about getting it for a while and ones I saw some of the materials I was sold.

Site also has a pretty cool workout log you can download

 

[S.Y.L]

Drop the leg press and other machines, they're just stupid. Secondly, look up a proper training routine like Rippetoe's Starting Strength on the web. It's meant for beginners and there's no reason you shouldn't use it.

Rippetoes is awesome.

 

[xxpansion]

I agree Rippetoes is a great start. I have also seen some great results from people using P90x and P90. To each their own. What works for some doesn't work for others. I myself prefer working out at home.