good chest and arm workouts?

Most of the women I've dated have told me that a well toned back/shoulders is second only to abs as the most desirable physical feature on a man. (muscle wise, pervs)

Having big biceps and triceps is good for short sleeved shirts, but I think the back is where it's at. It's also really easy to see results with work too.

 

I need some advice for back workouts actually. I've had a really bad back for a few years now and am just starting to get back into working out. I work full time and go to night school so my gym capabilities are not high, but I can buy whatever I need in terms of weights, resistance bands, etc. for the house. I really need to strengthen by back and my core muscles. I'm not concerned about getting big right now as much as I'm concerned about just strengthening my back, shoulders, core muscles.

 

If you can't go to the gym, invest in a pull up bar.

 

I bought this book last week.

"Men's Health Power Training: Build Bigger, Stronger Muscles with through Performance-based Conditioning"

It is packed with different exercises you can do to bulk up.

 

I'm a personal trainer and I teach my clients bodybuilding. I'll come back in a couple hours and give you some good advice...

 

you got chicken legs, huh?

you always want to be proportionate. i've gotten more compliments on my legs than my arms. but as weird as it sounds, by working out your legs, it helps with your arms.

 

The biceps are an assisting muscle for any back exercise, and the deadlift works out the entire body for the most part except for the chest. If you train your back with enough intensity, you really won't need much isolation work on the biceps. Same goes with chest with the triceps assisting. All "push" movements hit the triceps in some manner and all "pull" movements hit the biceps in some manner.

For the sake of edification, there's different heads to the biceps and triceps which should be stimulated in different manners by different movements/angles but if you are a beginner, you shouldn't be worrying about this. Just get big first, get your form down correctly, and then you can move on later. The funniest thing I see is when beginners come in doing these elaborate arm and ab exercises and then wonder why they aren't growing.

If you're a beginner, which the thread starter is based on the sound of his routine, you need to be focusing on compound lifts (bench, deadlift, squat). Too many douchebags wonder why they don't get any bigger when they go to the gym and do 100 sets of curls and neglect the biggest muscles in the body.

For anyone looking to put on some mass, do a search for Bill Starr's 5X5 workout. It's one of the most well-known programs out there for gaining size and strength. It focuses on developing your core muscles so that you have a base to build upon before you start nitpicking over the size of your arms.

 

thank you sit n' be fit lady

 

hmm....
Try bodybuilding.com

They have excellent information on what different supplements and excercises do.

or you could try googling...Google never fails.

 

Im waiting for this as well...

Jello77 had good info though i agree

 

Thanks for the office work out tips! I got some cool airplane stretching exercises in case you were interested..

 

The office work out is really amazing, I have seen great results using that + stress relief squeeze balls. I also take an extra round around the office in the mornings to get an explosive cardio workout in. I am in the best shape of my life!

Sincerely,

Spoiler

 

Good advice.

Here is some more:

When I weight train myself or a client, I teach them splits. Splitting the body up into its different parts to be: chest,bis,tris,shoulders,back,legs,core/abs
Then you need to develop a routine to work the entire body as hard as you can but allow there to be enough rest for each group so they can grow. Your current regimen allows neither. My personal splits would be:
monday: legs tuesday chest/bis/core wed: back, thurs shoulders/tris/core
That is my four day split. Now if you go more often then you can repeat a little more often but I've found personally that my best gains come when I give each specific group a week to rest though you technically will be working most groups a couple times in there as somebody mentioned with the assisting muscle statement. So now, for the exercises.
I don't believe in routines. I believe in splits, but not routines. For exercises, you have several different ways to do the exercise. Machines, iso machines, cables, bars and dumbbells. Then, you have several different angles (like incline vs flat bench) and grips (reverse, overhand or neutral) to do the exercies in. The more you change it up, the better growth you'll see. This goes for your sets too. Sometimes I do a straight 3 sets of 10 or 12. Sometimes I do a reverse pyramid or pyramid set, sometimes I superset with a burnout. Whatever exercises you do, always change up the order and the routine. That is my workout advice without getting too specific as that could get very complicated and long quickly.

Next, nutrition. How you eat determines if you're storing your food as bodyfat or if you're burning it off along with fat as energy. The ideal thing to do is not worry so much about your diet as you bulk (gain as much muscle as possible and not worry about the fat by eating a bunch) or reduce your caloric intake to drop bodyfat knowing the whole time that you will lose some muscle mass as you drop weight. It's hard to do them both at the same time unless you're heavy already. Let's say you want to cut because you're at 17-18% bf. You first need to figure out how many calories you burn in a day. At your height and weight without knowing your job, I bet you need 2700 calories at least to cut in order to make sure you don't loose too much muscle or plateau early. I wouldn't know that # for sure without knowing more about your personal life. You need to split those calories up almost evenly throughout the day but a little heavier emphasis on breakfast and take the amount away from the avg meal that you added to breakfast from your last meal. Eat clean calories. No modified sugars, no artificial sweetners such as aspartame, or sucralose(splenda), and no convenince foods. Just eat organically all the foods that are on the food pyramid and look for as much fiber in your carbs as possible. 3g of fiber per serving is the minimum in your complex carbs (cereal,oatmeal,rice,pasta,tortillas,pitas). If you get to a plateau in your weight loss quest, I 97% guarantee you that it is the result of not eating enough. Sounds weird right? But technically, if you want desirable results, you have to eat yourself thin with good foods timed out evenly throughout the day. You burn a constant stream of energy all day (unless its in a workout) and you have to replace that energy at a constant rate and at the end of the day end up with a caloric intake deficit of 500-800 calories for sustanable weight loss. Your body burns a lot more calories after a workout so you need to make sure you offset that with more calories than you would have in a typical meal. Make sure you eat all catagories of foods but stick to clean protein, complex carbs (fiber count atleast 3g) and healthy fats (unsaturated fats mainly) and try to drink atleast 20oz of water at every meal and drink water before during and after your workout. Be in a routine with your diet like you are with work 6 days a week and cheat on the 7th to speed your metabolism back up. Hope this helps you. Bodybuilding.com as somebody mentioned is a great reference point for information. Good luck. That was a lot of typing so sorry if there are any typos, but i don't feel like going back through all that.

 

Sorry forgot I was going to elaborate a little more on the splits:

Legs: 5 exercises usually consisting of deadlifts, press, lunge, squats, leg ext, leg curl. So choose different ways to do all those exercises. Don't neglect your legs. Bigger your legs, the bigger everything else is.

Chest: All different angles (incline, flat, decline) with all different machines, bars, dumbbells and calbes to do them in. Choose 4 different ways each time.

Bis/tris: Lots of different ways to curls/tri ext. I do atleast 3 different exercises for each one.

Back: Huge muscle group, don't neglect. Rear delt flies, pulldowns/ups, rows, and pullovers. Many different hand grips and ways to do all these exercises. I do 5 back exercies like legs typically.

Shoulders: Lateral/front raises, upright rows, military press, shrugs. Typically do atleast 4 of these exercises.

Abs: I don't really do my abs individually a whole lot, I like to integrate my core workout into my workouts by doing a lot of standing exercises and dumbbells. You may need to do a lot of core work till you have a better idea of how to do that but crunches are the staple. Lots of different ways to crunch. Try using weighted medicine balls to enhance your workout.

Calves: Do them sometimes but my calves have good form so I don't do them too much. I like the donkey calf raise and seated calf raise with as much weight as I can stand for like 6 sets of 12 on each one.

Wheww, hope this helps. If all else fails, hire a trainer who knows all this stuff. Beware though, because most trainers just have certifications and don't know all this and you'd be wasting your money.

 

roughly translated to abs and back. the midsection of your body

 

Classic or anyone else, I have a question in regards to rest days.

Since switching my workout around, my muscles are constantly sore. I work out 4 days a week, but was wondering whether to change my routine like take 3 days rest one week and then the next week take 4 days rest, and alternate?

Or is it better to take nearly a full week off and let everything heal, and then continue my workout routine of 4 days a week as usual?

 

My outside J is 20x better ever since I stopped the chest & arm workouts