Help required for 40 year old newbie

N

Nosaj

New Member
Hi all,

Have been lurking so will pop in now and say Hi as I am about to establish my maxes for my first cycle and need a critique of my proposed workout.

Although I am 40 I am really a newbie and have not really done much weight lifting wise in the past.

I am just about to come off SL 5x5 (after about 8 weeks) as whilst I have made some good gains I have found that squatting 3x a week and adding 5 pounds each and every workout has been quite brutal add in the warm up sets and the volume is huge. I really need to stop before I injure myself as I keep forgetting I am 40 and not 20 anymore.

I have gone for an A and B alternate and I figure that my Abs will have enough of a workout with the big compounds although I can add in some if this would benefit. I do not have the strength to do pull ups / chins ups yet for 15 reps but will add them in on my negatives and hopefully I can build in on my second cycle.

Other information that may or may not be relevant:
I undertook a strength training programme first as a couple of years ago I had a prolapsed and in Jan this year I fractured my elbow so I wanted to do a little strength training to prepare me for HST
Goals are Hypertrophy and not power lifting/strength training (I am shallow aesthetics are the goal)
Diet is OK but still a work in progress as I need to work on my Macros and ensure that I am getting enough calories as it was apparant when I first started SL I wasn't eating anywhere near enough
My set up is at home power rack with high/low pully, good bench with preacher and leg attachments Olympic and standard barbell as well as dumb bells. No Dip attachment for the rack I can add bench dips in or use the two barbells if dips are a necessity
Will be doing 15s/10s/5s and for the last two fives will be doing negs for the pull ups/chins

My questions are as follows:
Is this OK, too much too little, Do I have a body part gap or an exercise that I should really build in. What order should I do should I perform my squats and deads after I have a bit of a warm up on the other exercises.

Any help/feedback would be much appreciated

Thanks


[TABLE="width: 381"]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]a[/TD]
[TD]b[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Legs [/TD]
[TD]Squat[/TD]
[TD]Deadlift[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]leg curl[/TD]
[TD]leg curl[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Calf [/TD]
[TD]Standing Calf Raise[/TD]
[TD]Standing Calf Raise[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Shoulders[/TD]
[TD]Standing OHP[/TD]
[TD]Standing OHP[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Biceps [/TD]
[TD]Barbell curl[/TD]
[TD]Pully Curl[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Back [/TD]
[TD]Lat Pull down (wide grip)[/TD]
[TD]Lat Pull down (narrow grip)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Traps [/TD]
[TD]Shrug[/TD]
[TD]Shrug[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Triceps [/TD]
[TD]Close Grip Bench Press[/TD]
[TD]Triceps Push down[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Chest [/TD]
[TD]Incline Bench & bench
dips[/TD]
[TD]Incline Bench & Bench dips[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
 
Welcome to the forum. As an over 50 lifter I can say that HST will do your body good.

Overall you have a good exercise selection but I do have a couple of suggestions.

First I think you can dump the Triceps work since you already have 3 other pressing movements each workout. I think adding a fourth exercises just for your Triceps is overkill. If you must do a triceps movement change over to something overhead to hit the long head of the Triceps as opposed to Close Grip Bench or Press Downs which I would recommend if you were Powerlifting.

I would consider changing the Lat Pull Downs in your “A” routine for a type of row so you have both a vertical and horizontal back exercise and move the Wide Grip Pull Down to the “B” routine. You might even consider doing both Lat Pulls and Rows each workout since a big back will make you look thicker and more solid. The biggest part of your chest measurement is actually your back and not your chest and back is a neglected area which generally should get even more volume than chest. Trust me a big back makes you look big even when you’re wearing cloths.

Since astetics is your major interest I would add some side delt exercise like Lateral Raises or Upright Rows if your shoulders can tolerate them, reason being is that the wider your shoulders the bigger you will look and wide shoulders show no matter if you have a shirt on or not.
 
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Thanks Grunt 11 that makes sense, as I am dropping tri work I have the scope to add in in a set of bent over rows. I was actually considering that I didn't have enough shoulder work in there as Shoulders are my weakest point. I really struggle on OHP so will add in some lateral raises if it is too much I will soon get to know about it.

Thanks
 
Nosaj said:
Diet is OK but still a work in progress as I need to work on my Macros and ensure that I am getting enough calories as it was apparant when I first started SL I wasn't eating anywhere near enough
Click to expand...

To add 2,000+ calories and reach my protein targets I pre-prepare a quadruple meal for the fridge in a big bowl made from 200 g of dried rice, effortless with a rice cooker, 400 g lamb or beef mince fried in its own fats in around 10 mins, 20 g of coconut oil and 20 g of butter stirred in. I have each quarter serving with a portion of veg, e.g. brussel sprouts made at the same time in the rice cooker, tomato, spinach, etc. The 500+ kcal meal sizes are actually modest and easy to get down. I filled my freezer with packets of mince and bought a sack of rice. Costs me about £3 a day.
 
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400g lean meat ~ 120g protein per day, I'd be looking to increase that to 200 if possible/over time.
 
Thanks for the additional feedback, I need to measure exactly what Protein intake I am getting but as a rough guide I eat 2 large Chicken Breasts a day - every day If I don't eat Chicken its eggs or Red meat./mince Say they are 150 grammes and Protein Content about 25 grammes per chicken breast that would give me 50.
I have two Bulk gain shakes per day 40g Protein 60g Carbs from Oatmeal each (about 530 calories a shake), on top of that I mix my shakes with Milk so there must be some casein protein in there as well I would guess my protein intake is about 150g a day and on workout days I add another Protein shake post workout that has about 23g.

I am 159 pounds (or about 72kg) after dropping from a whopping and very fat 230 pounds (100 odd kilos)

The rest of my diet is made up of fruit & Veg, Rice, wholewheat pasta, wholewheat noodles, salad after making loads of small tweaks to my diet to lose weight over a very long period of time (approx 2 years) I really find it hard now not to eat clean hence the bulk gain shakes as a way of getting calories in
 
OK so Final Workout looks like this

A: Squat, Standing Calf Raise, leg curl, OHP, Barbell Curl, Lateral Raise, Barbell row, Incline Bench, Shrugs
B: Standing Calf Raise, leg curl, Regular DL, OHP, Pully Curl, Lateral Raise, Lat pull down wide grip , Incline Bench, Shrugs

This is my first cycle so I am sure that there will be tweaks I intend to do chins and pull ups (dropping the rows and Pull downs) on my last two weeks of fives

Hopefully the workout plan is OK I just need to work out my maxes.....and eat

Many thanks for all your input much appreciated
 
Do the compound exercises first and the isolations last, e.g. Rows, bench, pulldown, incline all before any form of curl
 
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