safe progression depends on the person. Go as much as you can handle until you feel pain. When you feel pain, back off for a while before you start again.

as for knees hurting, get some knee wraps and wrap up before squats.

for smoking...it actually decreases appetite...so it can lead to catabolism by not eating...besides that, not really.

Protein is the most important macronutrient for the body, found in all meats, dairy, eggs, fish, etc.

Comparing protein to creatine is like comparing Oxygen to a mailbox.


If you are asking what is better..."PROTEIN SHAKES OR CREATINE SUPPLEMENTS" - then I will advise you.


Protein shakes are obviously more important...either before and after, or just after a workout especially.


However, creatine is very important as well, and should be taken daily to maximize muscular gains at the gym.

you should be hitting each major muscle group ONCE per week for maximum strength gains.

example:

mon-chest
tues-back
weds-legs
thurs-shoulders
fri-arms


If you are seeing lack of gains, you aren't training nearly hard enough...or way too hard (but I'm guessing its definitely the first of the two)


My advice is to hit these muscle groups MUCH harder than you have been doing.

Second to that, try doing splits and see if that makes you feel any better...always try to experiment with new things and see how your body reacts.

Question on that,

I suppose this is what you're getting at, but just want to clarify for myself.

Are you saying that hitting each muscle group VERY hard once a week (like mentioned above by you) is better than hitting them twice a week pretty good? I suppose it definitely makes sense.

I personally think I lift each muscle group pretty damned hard, but I do it twice a week.

You mentioned for stregnth gains, would hypertrophy be different?

Thanks in advance.

hey there -

yes...the key is intensity with enough days of rest between those workouts to allow the muscle to build and recuperate.

As for hypertrophy...these are VERY different workout from pure strength workouts - the difference being the introduction of massive amounts of failure sets, drop sets, break downs, etc. Overall weight isn't a necessity here, but rather intensity and pump.

my current split looks like this

Chest - tri's
Legs
Shoulders - traps
Back - bi's
Rest
Start over

As you can see that's only 4 days of rest versus 6 days and i'm pretty sure i hit it hard enough but you never know let me tell you what it looks like

I do 2 weeks strength training (5 rep range) 2 weeks hypertrohpy (8 rep range) 1 week I guess you could say endurance (13 rep range) i hear the 12+ rep range hits a different part of the muscle cell so you should do some work there but not too much
well here's what it says 12+ rep training does: facilitate the development of slow twitch muscle fiber, build mitochondrial density and increase capillarization. so yeah but my excercises look like this

This is what it looks like on strength week EDIT: for hypertophy just change most of them to 3x8 and for endurance 3x13

Chest - tri's:
Flat bb bench: 2 warm up sets 3x5 work sets
Incline db press: 1 warm up 3x5 work sets
Flat Pec flies: 2x8 ( more of an isolation so i don't do 5 reps as i always use low weight for this)
Incline pec flies: 2x8 (" ")
Skull crushers: 3x5
Rope pushdowns: 3x5
Some isolation work: 3x8

Legs:
Squats: 2 warm up sets 3x5 work sets
Leg extensions: 3x5
Lying leg curls: 3x5
Leg presses: 3x5
Sitting calf raises: 3x5

Shoulder - traps:
Db shoulder presses: 2 warm up sets 3x5 work sets
Shrugs: 3x5
bb shoulder presses: 3x5
Upright rows: 3x5
Front raises: 3x5
Reverse flys: 3x5

Back - bi's:
Deadlifts: 2 warm up sets 3x5 work sets
Chin ups: 2x8
Pullups: 2x8
Alt db curls: 3x5 (sitting or standing depends)
Db rows: 3x5
Ez bar curls: 3x5
Bb rows: 3x5
Conc curls: 3x8

That's what i do lmk what i should change in my workout and my split.

This post was edited by shakeandbake47 on Mar 25 2009 06:09pm

Before I say anything...does this plan WORK for you? if its showing you great gains...then why mess with a good thing? But maybe you're having problems and need me to adjust things...

let me know if this is the case.

Ok - for wall-breakers on these exercises try the following:


Squats -

1. Hack Squats
2. Squat Press Machine
3. Smith Machine Squats ASS-TO-FLOOR (literally) failure sets


Bench Press -

1. Floor Press
2. Lock-Outs
3. Negatives


Deadlifts -

1. Laying Leg curls (hammys)
2. Good-Mornings (lower back)
3. T-Bar Rows (Upper/Mid back)
4. Super-Heavy Cable Rows (negatives)

I literally just started training like this strength - hypetrophy - endurance so i dunno how this is going to work

I was just wondering if you think it's pointless to train in the fashion by switching my reps every 2 weeks and if it is lmk what i should be doind.