good follow ups, except the no homo thing, which drives me crazy.
Thanks LBSS, I love you (no homo). All I ask now is please bear with my one hundred followup questions lol.
As for the workout routine - looks great. I've never done a 2 workout rotation, so should be fun (and more flexible). A few quick questions just to quench my personal curiosity - I'm not an expert, but doesn't the plan look a little weak on shoulders without any lateral deltoid work? And for the Pulldown/Chinup combination: this is just something that Lance would stress before - shouldn't the rotation be do pulldowns until you can't hit 10 reps then move to chinups (the more bicep isolating exercise)?
OHP ought to be good enough for shoulders for right now. on chin ups, my reasoning is that you start with the more challenging exercise and move to the less challenging one. pull downs can be supinated or pronated grip -- actually, i should have put pull ups instead of chins.
A more important question: how strict should those set intervals be? Should I physically time myself in between sets to maintain the 3' or 2' rest times?
yep, use a timer.
Also with the intervals you gave, one of those workouts would end up taking about 50 minutes of rest time alone. I'm not sure if I have that much time at the gym. Over summer it'll be easier, but as of now there's going to be times where I need to get out within 1hr or so. In that case, how should I approach everything - should I shorten rest times, take out exercises, etc?
if you don't have enough time, just cut off exercises, starting from the bottom and working your way up. they're roughly in declining order of importance. just make sure to always balance pushes with pulls on your upper day.
One other thing - for example on the Bench Press. I know many people that are about to do a 3x8 and have a max of 145x10 like me would stagger the weights or something kind of like this: 105x8, 135x8, 145x8. I've never ever in the past 3 years of lifting done something like that, even though it's so common. I would instead just do 145x8, 145x6, 145x5 or something instead. Which of these is the proper way (or if there's another way, what is it)?
do sets across. 3x8x145.
Now about the fat loss (exercise part) - do I need cardio like running/sprints/basketball/etc? How often and of what and when?
low-intensity steady state cardio is where it's at. rowing, biking, elliptical, step mill. you can even just go for a really long walk on your rest days, if you want. or in a different part of the day from your main workout. just make sure the intensity is low enough that you're not tiring yourself out for the gym stuff.
For the diet, I usually hate bodybuilding.com but I thought this might be a good look for estimating my caloric intake need: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=156380183 . But the more pressing matter to me is - do I need to micromanage like this? And if I do, say I need 3000 kcal /day. If I hit 3000, should I hesitate to go above? I'm a terrible eater as of now and that needs to change because I can see the ugly effects, but I also need to gain weight - it's a dilemma.
yeah that's a good post. you're gonna be getting moderate activity so start with like 16kcal x 153lbs = 2448kcal/day. you should micromanage for a couple of weeks, although not to the extent of freaking out if you go a bit over or below your daily target. unless you want to start weighing food you're going to be using estimates anyway.
And lastly, IF I should track my caloric intake, should I also track macros? That would be painstaking as hell, but as a vegetarian I know I'm gonna be tracking my protein for sure. I don't eat eggs but I'm gonna hit 180-200g protein daily for sure through mostly protein shakes. Unfortunately I end up loading up on carbs and other crap with the food I eat around here.
track everything for a couple of weeks, but ESPECIALLY protein. also, track how much vegetables you eat. good way to keep yourself in check in terms of overall diet, IME. everything is better for me if i'm eating enough veggies. once you get a sense of how to get a good amount of calories and a good amount of protein in per day, then you can just keep an eye on things and don't have to track as much. but set protein at, say, 1.2g/lb. that gives you a target of 180g of protein every day, or roughly 720kcal from protein. the rest of your needs can come from a mix of carbs and fat. refined sugar intake should be limited but don't beat yourself up over the occasional donut or coke or whatever.
here's a sample day's diet:
breakfast:
4-egg omelette with 2 oz. cheddar and 1 cup chopped spinach; glass of milk (614kcal, 41g protein)
lunch:
chipotle burrito with sour cream, cheese, pinto beans, lettuce, pico, corn (920kcal, 26g protein)
post-workout:
protein shake with 2 cups milk, 2 tbsp chocolate syrup and 60g whey protein concentrate (516kcal, 63g protein)
dinner:
1 cup brown rice and 2 cup black beans with 0.5 cup greek yogurt, couple scoops of salsa; romaine lettuce with a bit of dressing; glass of milk (904kcal, 53g protein)
that gives you a daily total of 3063kcal and 183g protein. that's a pretty good target for a workout day. on non-workout days, just skip the protein shake. if you can replace some of those carbs and fats with more protein, all to the good.
don't fret too much about your bf level. sounds like you're pretty lean and if you get obsessed with leaning out while you bulk you run the risk of shortchanging yourself. much easier to do that if you're already super fat. just weigh yourself and check the mirror from time to time to make sure you're not getting pudgier.
are you full-on veg or do you eat fish?
