A month into workout routine, looking for advice

Brother if you want to gain muscle keep it simple . Also gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time is difficult - but it depends on your current condition and body fat levels.

If building muscle is more important to you, I suggest

Keep the SAME routine with the SAME exercises for at least 3 months, to see if it works. Remember progress takes some time

1. Focus on maintaining good form and technique (not perfect )
2. Make sure u track every workout and try to do more reps or weight every week. (Most important is to gain strength weekly)
3. Keep in a calorie surplus daily, eat about 200 more calorie then u burn
4. You will gain muscle , it is not complicated it just requires discipline every
day

This is just a rough guide. I have no idea who u are , your lifestyle or what u look like. But keep things simple brother it is not
complicated

don’t give up , just stick with it and u will see results

ryan, you should be able to get some noob gains while in a small calorie deficit, i.e. losing fat and gaining muscle, provided your weights there is progressive overload and you are getting adequate protein.

If you are closer to obese though, your primary goal should be fat loss first, which means a higher calorie deficit. You can keep doing the weights program, it's very good for you, but maybe temper your expectations about muscle growth if you're losing weight at a faster pace.

That's a very good list of exercises, and a perfect amount of volume for a beginner. I might do the leg press before the two leg isolations, because you want max effort for compounds, but that's nitpicking.

You are missing a hip hinge though, which is a functional movement that's very good for you. That is typically something like deadlift or Romanian deadlift or dumbbell RDL, but if you don't want to deal with free weights for now I completely understand. You can do a cable pull-through. That's standing facing away from a low cable, and pull it through your legs while extending from bent over to standing. Good for glutes, lower back, posterior chain.

If you add that, and time becomes a factor, I'd suggest take off 2-4 sets from the legs, mostly from the isolations (extensions and curls, especially the curls since the hip hinge works the hams).

You should target at least 0.7g-1g per pound protein, sliding scale based on if you're obese (0.7g) to lean (1g).

Remember that progressive overload is key. My spidey sense tingles when I see mention of every set there being 10 reps. Each set should be about 1-2 RIR (reps in reserve before form failure), and new lifters often don't realize where their failure actually is. They bang out 10 reps casually, week after week, when perhaps they could do 16 reps. I would suggest for your leg/chest/shoulder press and row, once a week in your final workout do an AMRAP (as many reps as possible) on your final set, so you can gauge where failure really is and use that to judge moving up in weight.

Another option is look at dynamic double progression. That's about having a rep range, say 10-12. If you can do 10 reps one week, try to get to 11 next week, then 12. With simple progression you might say keep going until you can do 4x12 then raise weight next time. With DDP, if you get 12 on set 2 say, then on set 3 that day and also set 2 the next workout, increase the weight for that set. If you can't get 10 reps, lower the weight on the next set. This pushes up the volume faster, while also taking into account auto-regulation.

ryanq1864 wrote: »

Wow that's a response and half, but the information provided is outstanding! I've had a look on youtube for the cable pull-through, I'll add it to my workout. I've found the first 1/2 sets is usually quite easy but sets 3/4 I have to push for the 10.

Thanks for all the help, I'll put it to good use.

You're welcome.

Yeah, all of your tracked sets should be working sets. It sounds like your first set or two should be aiming for 11 or 12 reps, or be at a higher weight and still at 10 reps. If you can get 12 reps, raise the weight next set. If you can't get 10 reps, drop the weight next set. Remember to have 1-2 RIR though, don't go to failure except maybe your last set, and maybe not even that. As a beginner, you don't need to go to failure.

You'll probably need to track this stuff. I use a spreadsheet on my phone. For that, each row is a set of each exercise, and I track the weight and reps of each set that way. New workout, insert two columns near the left of the screen: one column for the weight in each set, one column for the reps. I can easily see progression this way. There are free aps on iPhone and Google for this stuff too.