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A scrawny guy workout Anonymous
This is my 3-day split for skinny hard-gainer guys who want to add some size.

The leg and lower body exercises are focused on building core strength, and stimulating overall growth changes in your metabolism. The squats cannot be skipped or done with light weight.

The upper body and arm exercises are more focused on gaining size, with special emphasis on the shoulders for improving your visible size and creating a good support system for safely building the back and chest. Often the shoulders end up being the weak link, both visibly and strength-wise, so the special shoulder day addresses that problem.

The basic routine is to start off with core strengthening, just like a traditional 5x5 program, then go from compound upper body movements into higher reps of isolation movements solely for growth.

This of course should be paired with a high-calorie, protein rich diet, big breakfasts, post-workout shakes, and vitamin B & fish oil supplements.

Questions or Suggestions are welcome.
>> Anonymous
Looks good, should I be doing cardio on the tue/thur/sat/sun?
>> Anonymous
If you are skinny or even mildly skinnyfat, lay off the cardio entirely and rest on off days. If you concentrate on adding bulk for a few months, you will be able to easily shed the fat once you have added some muscle to burn it with, or you might lose the fat without trying.
>> Anonymous
looks bad to me, you are only hitting certain body parts once a week, and you aren't even hitting them very hard.

I would stick with a 3x a week fullbody based primarily upon compound lifts (squats, bench, rows/chins, military press, and deads) I know doing both squats and deads might be a bit much, but I think chad waterbury's TBT routine is a lot better than yours. Hell, make up your own rep scheme if you want.
>> Anonymous
Add in standing overhead presses and powercleans. Switch Wednesday's and Friday's workout. Doing dips and bench press, then shoulder work two days later might be a bit much on the shoulder joints of new lifters. Why are deadlifts where they are and not in pull day?
>> Anonymous
OP here.

>>236711
I'm not familiar with Chad Waterbury's TBT routine. Is it for skinny guys needing to add size over strength? Please provide more specifics on how your suggestions pertain to the goal of this split.

>>236734
Excellent ideas. I want to definitely switch Wed and Fri workouts for that same reason. With shoulder press, I mean the same as overhead press.Would you say to move deadlifts to the pull day, then add powercleans to the shoulder day?
>> Anonymous
>>236786
>>Would you say to move deadlifts to the pull day, then add powercleans to the shoulder day?

Yes
>> Anonymous
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>>236798
Here's a revised version. Thanks for the suggestions.
>> Anonymous
>>236686
Wouldn't you wanna do overhead presses first? Lateral raise and front lateral raise can come after overhead presses are done, no?
>> Anonymous
Seems like a lot of squatz. My legs need at least a few days to recover after a deadly squat day.
>> Anonymous
would 5x5 mean 5 sets of 5?
>> Anonymous
>>236831
For a beginner, it might be a bit much. However, it's doable for more advanced lifters. Not sure how well the OP will tolerate it.
>> Anonymous
5x5 means 5 sets of 5. I think 5x5 squats 3-days a week is fine for a beginner. It's in other beginning workouts like stronglifts.
>> Anonymous
>>236856
Yeah. I actually stopped being sore from squatting once I started squatting 3 times a week. Not sure why
>> Anonymous
>>236856

alright, thanks. any generally you would do one set of one thing, then move onto one set of another? or like do a set, put down the bar and rest for a sec, and do another set, etc?
>> Anonymous
>>236888
....
You do your 5 sets of an exercise, then do 5 sets of another exercise.
>> Anonymous
>>236898
Resting for a few seconds is good as well, afaik.
>> Anonymous
Correct. Do all 5 or 3 sets of each exercise then move on to the next. Use enough weight to make the last reps almost-fail. Increase the weight by a small amount as the exercises get easy to do. This is a slower strength progression than 5x5 beginner programs, but it should give more bulk.

One exception, the shoulder day is based loosely on a "superset" where you do one set of each of the three exercises (1x8 lateral raise, 1x8 front lateral raise, 1x10 overhead press) back to back without rest. Then wait for about 90 seconds, and repeat. When done right, it should be pretty intensive, and hard to lift the protein shake to your mouth afterwards. You will get a good 'pump' from this, and it will give some moderate strength gains to all three of the major shoulder areas.

Its important to get these shoulders big because they will give a visible size increase, but they will also help keep the shoulder ligaments and joints safe as you progress to higher weights on the bench press.