Need my weight-lifting routine re-vamping!

Holliehearts
Holliehearts Posts: 9 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hey,

I'm new to my fitness pal and I'm looking to pick the brains of people who have been weightlifting for a while. I've not been lifting long, about 2 months. At the moment this is my general routine:

3 sets of 6 reps for each...

overhead lift
deadlift
tricep press
bench press
barbell glute bridge
squats
lunge squats
bicep curls

I don't think I've forgotten anything...

Anyway, I'm having a lot of trouble with my overhead lifts, I seem to be stuck on the weight I can lift now, which is pretty small anyway (15kg).

I'm also really interested in strength exercises that only involve my own body weight. At the moment I do push ups, dips etc.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Replies

  • Troublemonster
    Troublemonster Posts: 223 Member
    How many times per week are you performing that routine and what are your goals?
  • Holliehearts
    Holliehearts Posts: 9 Member
    3 times a week at the moment, I'm wanting to increase it soon. I was only allowed to do it 3 times a week until I got my calories up a bit. I've had an eating disorder in the past and it was limited so I wouldn't do too much. Now that I'm eating well I'm looking to gain some muscle.
  • geebusuk
    geebusuk Posts: 3,348 Member
    What's the next weight you can go up to after 15kg?

    If it's 17.5kg say, that's a pretty big jump.

    Are you able to do 3x6 of 15kg?

    If so, can you do any at the next weight up?

    If you're eating on a deficit, you're more likely to have trouble improving - consider looking at 'leangains', for which a lot of people report gains in muscle simultaneously with loss in fat.
  • Holliehearts
    Holliehearts Posts: 9 Member
    It's an even bigger jump to 20kg! I can do a couple at 20kg but that's me wiped after. Maybe I just need to keep pushing it. I can do 3x6 at 15kg with quite a bit of effort. Yeah I am eating at a deficit a lot of the time to be honest with you...
  • BackTatJIM
    BackTatJIM Posts: 1,140 Member
    one of my favorite overhead press videos:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWeRuB9uWNE
    The OHP can be tough and if you have to stay at the same weight for a few weeks that is fine, and when you do add weight and can only do 3 reps instead of 6 , that is still great. Keep at it and you will be adding weight in no time.
  • BackTatJIM
    BackTatJIM Posts: 1,140 Member
    I also found that a push day, pull day, and leg day works great if you lift 3 days a week.
    Push day = bench press, ohp, any thing pressing ;-)
    Pull day = dead lift, bent rows, pretty much back and bicep workouts
    Legs= well I think you already know
  • Holliehearts
    Holliehearts Posts: 9 Member
    Thanks!! That's really helpful.

    Pleased I signed up to this! x
  • haroon_awan
    haroon_awan Posts: 1,208 Member
    Hi, I would also suggest a good 3 day routine like push/pull/leg. You can also do another training split like:

    Day 1 Chest and Back
    Day 2 Legs
    Day 3 Rest
    Day 4 Shoulders and Arms
    or
    Day 1 Back and Shoulders
    Day 2 Legs
    Day 3 Rest
    Day 4 Chest and Arms

    Once you begin doing 4 workouts a week I would highly suggest doing this routine
    http://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/phul-workout
    It's by Brandon Campbell, who also has a YouTube channel that is one of the best fitness channels on YouTube:
    http://www.youtube.com/user/CampbellFitnessTV
    You can of course do anything else, eg Wendler 531, PHAT, German Volume Training etc
  • Holliehearts
    Holliehearts Posts: 9 Member
    Thank you!! I'm going to take a look now. I want to eventually get up to taking just one rest day, but I need to eat a bit more before I do that xx
  • geebusuk
    geebusuk Posts: 3,348 Member
    Are you using fixed barbells?

    Appreciate if it's at a gym the lowest weight olympic barbell might be 20kg.

    Some fixed barbells still let you add extra weights to them.

    If you have no 'easy' option - you could consider making some weights to hang off it. A couple of bags weighed at 500g (a 500ml bottle of coke filled with water, say) for each side, to hang off the bar, say. Then up to 1l bottles.
    Could even get fancy and make them 'properly' with a hook on a bottle or whatever.

    I ran out of space on the bar for weights on my 'home gym' barbell; I upped my reps until I got more weights; which meant I could fairly quickly progress back on reps set to 5.
  • Holliehearts
    Holliehearts Posts: 9 Member
    Thtat's such a good idea! I'm definitely going to give the water bottles a try. It's just my home gym stuff, I only actually get to a proper gym about once a week at the moment, which makes everything that bit harder!
  • Brosepius
    Brosepius Posts: 3
    Are you eating a deficit or surplus? You can't make progress forever without a surplus of calories. Have you considered running a prewritten routine? OHP is very hard for women to progress on. I would recommend using a barbell and fractional plates to microload and\or try a mix of rep and weight progression.

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