Hey Scott,

I have been watching your YouTube videos for quite some time and have found them to be really helpful. 

I started going to the gym religiously in November 2017  and then I had a gap from gym for around 3 months since June 2018 and have recently started again. Previously, I have followed quite a few 6-8 week plans but didn't find any huge muscular gains which I have heard beginners have. What i mean by that, is that after around 6 months of training, I didn't grow huge but I definitely saw improvements in my strength over time.

The reason I am looking for a new plan or validation of my current plan is because, there are so many different types of advice on the internet and on YouTube which confuses me in terms of what to do and what not to do. Like, some say that we must target each kind of muscle for one muscle group to have an aesthetic and uniform body, and I feel the excercises I do don't seem to cover most muscle groups. There are a few videos saying that we must target each muscle group at least twice whereas some say that it's okay to train the same muscle groups every 7 days.

I am not sure if my routine is okay or not. Please let me know if I should make any changes in the routine.

I am looking for plan which I can do on 5 week days Monday - Friday (without any rest days between Monday and Friday).

I workout in the morning for 45 minutes to 1 hour before going to work. Since, my workout is time bound, I do only one Large Muscle group each day. I have tried mutiple muscle groups but with those routines, the other muscle groups (except the first) always suffer due to time constraints. 

I currently follow the following plan: 

Monday - Shoulders

Barbell Military Press -4 x 6 reps 

Dumbbell Shoulder Press – 4 x 6 reps

Dumbbell Side Laterals – 4 x 6 reps

Dumbbell Rear Delt Fly – 3 x 6 reps

Tuesday - Legs

Barbell Squats – 4 x 6 reps

Leg Extensions – 4 x 6 reps

Standing Calf Raises – 4 x 20 reps (I do this along with Leg Extensions)

Walking Dumbbell Lunge - 4 X 10 lunges

Wednesday - Back

Deadlifts – 4 x 6 reps

One Arm Dumbbell Row – 4 x 12 reps

Upper back machine - 4 x 8 reps

Lat Pull down - 4 x 8 reps

Thursday - Chest

Barbell Bench Press – 4 x 6 reps

Incline Dumbbell Press – 4 x 6 reps

Chest Dips (Machine assisted) – 4 x failure

Machine Fly (Cables at chest height) – 4 x 6 reps

Friday - Arms

Ez-bar Biceps Curl – 4 x 8 reps

Dumbbell Hammer Curl – 4 x 8 reps

Alternative Dumbbell Curl - 4 x 8 reps

Triceps Bench Dips – 4 x 10 reps

Rope Pushdown – 4 x 8 reps

Overhead Dumbbell Triceps Extension – 4 x 6 reps 

I am a 29 year old male, height 5'10" weight 163 lbs. I usually check my bodyfat using Renpho weighing machine which indicates it to be 12% but i feel it's not accurate and it would be around 20%.

@animax001 Your current routine doesn't look bad in terms of exercise choices. But the overall volume might be lacking a little bit given you're only training everything once per week.

I'd suggest getting on a program where you can train everything twice a week. If you want to train Monday - Friday, then something like an Upper / Lower split would be good. You can repeat that twice, and then on the 5th day you can use that for weak point training.

What do you think?

Also, if you haven't noticed much growth, it might be because you aren't eating enough. What are your current macros and calories?

Hey Scott,

Thanks a ton for the reply. I am open to trying out Upper/Lower split programs.

What do you think about the 12 week home program on the site?

https://muscularstrength.com/12-Week-Home-Program

It has Upper Body, Lower Body and Abs workouts and I was thinking of doing

Monday - Upper Body 1

Tuesday - Lower Body 1

Wednesday - Abs

Thursday - Upper Body 1

Friday - Lower Body 1

Or if you think, I should try someother program, please let me know.

Regarding, calories and macros earlier, I believe it was not upto the mark. I was seeing your Youtube videos on the calorie requirement and I realized that I was making huge mistakes there. My calorie intakes were all over the place earlier.

I initially had started with a meal plan 2,568 calories daily with the macros being 322g of carbs 85g of fat 128g of protein and I used to try to keep my intake more than the requirement by around 150 to 200 calories.

But then someone in the gym told me that if I have a body fat of 24% and I am planning to lose fat then I should be in calorie deficit and I started cutting down to take around 2100 calories at that time with 210g carbs, 70g of fat and 158g of Protein and at this point of time, I used to try to keep my intake lower than the requirement.

I recently used the Meal Planner on the website and it showed that for my weight of 162lbs and height of 5'10" along with moderate excercise for 4-5 days, my BMR at rest is 1767.06 calories per day and BMR in motion is 2738.94 calories per day.

For Lean Muscle gain, app gave me these numbers

Calorie Goal : 2989

Protien Intake Goal : 246

Fat Intake Goal : 68

Carbohydrate Intake Goal : 348

Let me know your thoughts about it?

@animax001 You can definitely do the home program like that man! Maybe add a little bit of ab work to the end of LOWER BODY 1 as well so you hit the abs a bit more?

Your macros from the calculator look like a solid starting point. Probably just adjust the carbs and fat a little bit. Try increasing fats to more like 80g - 90g, and bring the carbs down a little bit to maybe 300g.

The only reason I say that is because you think you're possibly around the 20% bf mark. If that is true, then keeping the carbs a bit lower, I think, will help you keep the gains a bit leaner.

I have been working on the home program for almost a couple of weeks and must say that it's much tougher than what it looks like when you are doing it. I am usually destroyed by round 2 and my body and my mind gets extremely challenged in the next rounds. But it's a great program.

For the abs, I take a tiny break and then do 15 minutes of Quick-Hit Abs on the Nike Training app.

About the nutrition, I have been doing approximately around 2989 Calories a day with

Calorie Goal : 2989

Protien Intake Goal : 262g

Fat Intake Goal : 83g

Carbohydrate Intake Goal : 299g

Although, I was hitting the calorie intake and staying close to my macro goals, I noticed that I was consuming a lot of my carbohydrates from Sugar based sources and my sugar intake in a day was quite high.

For my pre workout meal, I make a smoothie out of 1 Banana, 1 cup of Low fat Milk, 4 oz Blueberries,1 apple and 1 Scoop of Whey Protein and 1 cup of Oats and used to have it along with 2 slices of wheat bread,around 1 hour before workout so that I don't feel light headed during workout.

Whereas, post workout, I used to have 2 scoop of protein and half an hour later 1 banana and 1 apple.

That adds up to like 150g of carbs out of which around 79g is all sugar.

So since past two days, I tried experimenting by reducing the amount of fruits to just one banana before workout (instead of 1 banana, 1 Apple and Blueberries) and one banana after workout.

But due to that, I felt slightly less energetic during the workout and after workout I felt very low on energy.

Now I am not really sure what to do. If I eat more fruits in the morning, I consume most of my carbs in the day and am left out with less carbs to consume rest of the day and start searching for alternatives without carbs. Also, my sugar intake goes very high. Around 150g or so in the day.

Whereas if I reduce the amount of fruits, I feel low on energy.

Let me know your thoughts about it.

@animax001 If the majority of your sugar consumption is coming from fruit, I wouldn't worry about it too much man. If that's the case, it's a lot of natural sugar. It's the refined sugar in processed foods you have to worry about.

Unless you felt like you were holding onto more fat with all the sugar from all your fruit, you can keep eating those 4-5 servings each day.

But if you do want to cut them out, then you just have to give your body a few days or a week or so to adjust to not having all that added energy. If you cut the fruit out completely and don't replace it with anything, then it makes sense you don't feel as energetic, because you're literally not getting as much energy in during the day.