New gym/different program/heavier kilos?

J

jmm

New Member
Started at a new gym, with different kit. Am therefore going to need to make some changes to my programme. I was doing:

A: olympic squats, bench, cable rows, standing OH press, weighted crunches, back raises
B: deadlift, dips, pull-ups or pulldowns, standing OH press, weighted crunches, back raises

There's also no assisted dips machine - will do pulldowns to replace chins, but any suggestions for a replacement for dips, or am I best just doing what I can without assistance?

I'm tempted to drop the crunches and back raises (there's a lack of space at new gym, and it didn't feel like I was getting much out of them) assuming other excercises with work my abs? That'd let me do a single workout - one set of each exercise for 10s, and 2 sets of one, one of the other for 5s - and still leave gym inside 1hr
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. Doing: olympic squats, bench, cable rows, standing OH press, deadlift, dips (?), pulldowns, standing OH press

Does that sound reasonable to do every other day?
 
which version of dips are you doing, there are a few? Either way, just do as many as you can until you reach your total rep target, as mentioned before. Do them..haha


pulldowns suck, find a tree limb, roof overhand or rig up something but do pullups.  
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cable rows suck too, can you do bar or dumbell rows?


Reason I say they suck, I never had any luck with doing the movements, I could in most cases max out the machines with good form, yet still never looked like someone that exercised, dips and chins, its amazing what bodyweight alone has done for me, now weighted, its great.  
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Thanks. Re. the cable rows - the machine goes up to 200kg, so I'm nowhere near the max yet
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Figured I'd try to get the weight up a bit, then look at using free weights at some points.

Re. chins/dips - the gym does have a bar I could use, but unassisted (so wouldn't be able to make 15, and would need to add weights when I drop down to fives or tens...) Am sufficiently clumsy that the idea of dangling from a bar with weights attached to myself makes me nervous, but if dips/chins are much better than using machines, I guess I could try getting a weights belt...

Oh yeah, one other thing I was going to ask at the start - how accurate are the measurements on weights, generally? The kilos at the new gym seem heaver
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to the extent that a weight I could do fifteen reps with at the old gym I can do a couple at the new one...
 
If in doubt, weigh them! I put a few dbs on the scales at my gym and found they were all around 4kgs heavier than marked as no weight had been allowed for the handles.

Plates should be fairly accurate. When I switched gyms, the new weights seemed heavier too but they definitely weren't (yeah, I weighed 'em
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). All I can suggest is that different surroundings can slightly alter your concentration and maybe the groove that you get in for an exercise. It affected my squats for a while but now I am used to the different set-up and my poundages are increasing again. It's weird but it must be a neural thing if everything else is in check.
 
There is nothing wrong with pulldowns and cable rows...they work the back excellently.
Don't listen to guys who tell you otherwise.  They are just trying to be macho. (Old and Grey, need2eat...those guys have way too much testosterone!
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As soon as you get strong enough you can go back to chins.  I actually wish I had a cable row machine, it is an excellent exercise, if form is strict it works the rhomboids better than anything else and the lats get worked as well.  
Decline bench pressing is similar to dips.
 
I think with a pullup, there's less inclination and/or ability to get a momentum rep. So therefore, you can't cheat yourself as you could with pulldowns. I feel like the body position is slightly different too, depending on the machine. Whatever rocks your boat, though, differences are slight, but grabbing something and lifting it; grabbing something and pulling yourself up; that's a different mentality than just yanking on a machine IMO. But yank if you must.
As far as weights, a pound is a pound, and a kilo is a kilo. Are you asking about different machines, or freeweights? Machines are different by leverage and pulley factors as well as some college boy's interpretation of a weight stack, even though he's probably never lifted in his life. So some machines are 1:1 ratios to the stack, and others have mechanical advantages. (a DISadvantage to you) If you pull 10" and that stack raises 10", it's 1:1 and you are lifting exactly whatever is on the stack, if the stack weights are correctly marked.
I don't trust machines. CURSE tha machines. Machines are EVIL.
 
Thanks. Right, will probably try yanking when I get down to ten reps (when I'd need to start adding weights) and see how that works. Maybe do incline and decline bench then, instead of adding a decline bench when I'm already doing a flat bench.

Nope, it's the free weights that seem heavier
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I think part of it might be heavier bars at the new place, and Lol may have a point about psychological factors. I didn't weigh the weights at the old gym, so weighing the new ones probably won't help too much. Will try again tomorrow, and see if my weights are still down...
 
Im not trying to be macho
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Im just stronger in some areas than others and found machines in general to suck the big one, within a month of doing pullups, I noticed muscles in my back~lats~rear delt that had hidden for all these years.  
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Good luck with whatever you decide, just incorporate dips and pullups into your workout somehow, even if its every couple cycles or something, you'll be glad you did.
 
Yah - what he said.
Even if you could only do one pullup, it would be one rep, then jump up and do negatives for the rest....and in six months you find yourself doing a full set and buying new shirts. I'm not making this up! Same thing for form. Do stuff right even if you have to drop the weights. Before ya know it, BAM! Your warmup weights are your old maxes.
 
When I started out, I couldn't do a single pullup, not even one.

When I'd do my daily cardio (which was just a 4 mile walk at the time) I'd take a break at the 2 mile point at a little playground and my kid who was going along with me would play while I tried to do pullups.

I did exactly what quad just described. Pretty soon, I was able to do one, then three, then five... Eventually when I reached 100 doing sets of 20 it was time to start doing them weighted.

So yes, you can do pullups eventually from starting with controlled negatives (and my early negs weren't exactly controlled either).

Wanna use the lat pulldown, sure go ahead, they work too. I just didn't have one at the time.
 
interesting - I seem to have built up my chinups the other way. I could do one at a few months ago, but by upping the weight I used for lat pulldowns I'd got up to 7-10 by the time I started HST
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Might mix and match chins/pulldowns and see how that goes... Maybe for the 15 rep part of a cycle...

Anyway, dropping crunches/back raises certainly means I'm feeling the training more. Hopefully the DOMS is doing me some good, at least ;)
 
Remember that chins work the biceps, so you are adding load to them, and if that's a bit close to overtraining, you might want to do slightly less other work with them. Of course, it all depends on how your biceps personally respond to whatever training you're putting them through.
 
Yep, it would be either/or on chins or other bicep exercises.

Am about to switch to tens, but cause my weights are relatively low if I planned on adding 5kg per session (minimum increment at the new gym) then to get up to my ten rep max I'd be dropping the weights used below what I'm lifting for 15 reps now. Is this intentional - it seems to go against the idea of progressive overload?
What I'm thinking of doing is switching to tens and just adding 5kg every 2 or 3 workouts, to continue with progressive overload. Does that seem sensible?
 
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