Is this a good workout plan for creating v taper as well as overall good muscle mass?

[rlaguisma]

Chest:

Incline/flat dumbbell press 4 x 12 (2 sets each)
Pec deck 4 x 8-12
Chest - dips 4 x 6-8
Incline/flat Bench press 4 x 6-8

Shoulders:
Military dumbbell press 4 x 12
Barbell military shoulder press 2 x 6-8
Lateral raises 4 x 10-15 CD.
Leaning lateral cable raise 4 x 8-12

Triceps:
Triceps push down 4 x 8-12

Pull:

Back:
pull ups 4 x 8-12 ,
lat pull downs 2 x 8-12(close grip & wide grip) Reverse Pec Deck 2 x 12
Biceps: Bicep Curl 4 x 8-12
Traps: Shoulder Shrugs 4 x 10-14
Forearms: Forearm Curls 4 x 12-15

Legs:

Leg Extensions 3 x 8-12
Running 1km

Abs:

Russian Twists 2 x 10-15
Bicycles 2 x 10-15
Side pump each side 1 x 10-15
Crunch Reach through 2 x 10-15
Flutter kicks 2 x 10-15
Leg Raises 2 x 10-15
Seated in and outs 2 x 10-15

 

[blagadarenia]

@rlaguisma This split is pretty bad in general. Especially that leg day. Find a routine online or hire a trainer, this is not it.

 

[spirito]

@rlaguisma This is ass Ngl. I can elaborate when I’m off work. This reeks of overthinking and not understanding proper volume.

Edit: wasn’t actually ass tbh. My comment kinda comes off as judgy rather than sarcastic. Has a solid foundation to it.

 

[rlaguisma]

@spirito Ok, I would really appreciate if you can help!

 

[spirito]

@rlaguisma Sorry, I forgot to elaborate after work.

First off, is this a bro split where you hit each of these one muscle group per day? You can do this but it’s better to hit each muscle group twice a week.

Secondly:

Chest
These 4 exercises are really all you need. Do two on one day and another two on another. Like for me, (I do a PPL split) on push day 1 I do flat bench and dips, the next I do incline bench and pec dec.

As a beginner, you can do a lot and build muscle mass no matter what so if you want to you can do 2 sets of incline then 2 sets of flat and vice verse. I personally just do one or the other depending on the day. Your decision to do different rep ranges depending on the day is beneficial as well. You don’t have to yet but it’s beneficial.

Shoulders
Solid selection but same thing as before. Do dumbbell press and lateral raise one day then leaning lateral raise and standing shoulder press on another.

Triceps
I’d have 2 different Tricep exercises. Pushdown is outstanding but add an overhead tricep extension as well. I like to use cables for mine personally though lately I’ve been doing skullcrushers. (Most exercise selection just comes down to how much fun you have doing it)

I just noticed it says pull above chest so I’m assuming you’re wanting to do a PPL split. I’d say have 2 push days organized like this:

Push 1

•Flat dumbbell bench 4x8-12

•Dips 3x6-8

•Military dumbbell press 3x8-12

•Lateral raise 4x10-15

•Tricep Pushdown 4x8-12 (could superset triceps and lateral raises to save time as well)

Push 2

•Incline barbell bench 4x6-8

•Pec deck 3x8-12

•Overhead press 3x6-8

•Leaning cable lateral raise 4x15-20 (lateral raises are easy to cheat on so you’ll want low weight. Cables especially because of the constant tension are incredibly challenging)

•Tricep overhead extension 4x6-10

Part I over

 

[spirito]

Part II Pull

You need three things for back: a vertical pull, horizontal pull, and a pull from below. Each of these works a different section a bit more but most rowing movements, for example, really work all of your back. Just a little bit will take over more depending on elbow position (elbows at your sides work lats a lot, elbows at 45 degrees bring in more rear delt and at 90 degrees works upper back, but they’re still all activated in rows). On that note you need horizontal rows in this. As you do it, bring your shoulder blades in to hit upper back (upper back brings your shoulder blades in basically. That’s what is meant by retract your scapula)

You can alternate between pull ups or lat pulldowns as you please for lats (pull ups work more of your back overall than lat pulldowns but still work as much lats as the lat pulldown). Alternate between them on different days though. Grip for either does not matter. A lot of TikTok and influencers always talk about wide grip or narrow grip to hit this part of the lag or yada yada but it’s just bro science. You’re using your lats. That’s it. I admit technically it can matter to someone like Arnold who has top tier genetics competing with the other top tier people in the world and is trying to squeeze out an extra .04% of growth to beat the other top tier competitors. So just use whichever grip is more comfortable. I think hypothetically a neutral grip hits lats the most (goes back to what I mentioned where lats are activated a lot with elbows at your side) but again, it really doesn’t matter. Whatever just feels most comfortable.

Back, overall, can take a lot of volume but as a beginner always start with the lower amount of volume (volume is how many sets you do per week pretty much). You’ll eventually have to add more sets and it’s easier to add to say 12 total sets hitting back per week than to add to 20 obviously. Except that’s when you’re way past the beginner stage so don’t worry about that and once you’re at that point you’ll know all this anyway.

Back can take a lot of volume because you can’t really isolate any muscles in the back since they all work together.

Pull days typically have elbow flexors thrown in (the muscles that bring your elbow in like a bicep curl). The three muscles really to worry about in this case is the biceps, brachialis (hidden beneath bicep), and brachioradialis (meaty forearm muscle). What determines each one being used is just your hand position (palms facing up used biceps, palms facing neutral is brachialis and brachioradalis, and palms facing down is more brachioradialis and uses the least amount of bicep). So you’ll just want a bicep curl you like and a neutral or reverse grip curl. All you need for the elbow flexors.

Rear delts are not a big muscle so you’ll want more volume. I recommend 4 or 5 sets per each pull day.

You don’t really have to isolate traps tbh IF you’re doing a pull that comes up off the ground (deadlifts, RDLs, etc). Toss those on a leg day though because they’re more leg exercises that luckily also work portions of the back like upper traps and the spinal erectors.

Don’t bother with isolating forearms yet. When I started I wanted nice, sexy ass forearms and honestly they get hit with all of your rowing movements and hammer or reverse curls. Just gripping heavy shit works them since their purpose is gripping things or moving your hand position back and forth. You eventually can once you’re past beginner level. Forearms though are very specific to people I’ve noticed. I’ve done a lot of research into what works best and it is very personal-specific. Some people only need heavy lifting, others do farmer’s walks, others do wrist curls and reverse wrist curls. It just depends on the person for these.

Examples for Pull days are this:

Pull 1

Barbell row/chest supported T bar row/ iso lateral row (literally whatever horizontal row you like)
4x6-10

Pull up 4x8-12

Reverse pec dec/rear delt flys 4x8-12

Bicep curl 4x8-12

Hammer/reverse curl (whichever you wanna do) 4x8-12

Pull 2

Any of the above rows again. You can switch up grips to maybe bias different portions (previous day do elbows flared out to hit more upper back and this day do elbows at your side) Or do a cable row even 4x8-12

Lat pull down 3x6-10

Reverse pec deck 4x8-12

Bicep curl variation (you can just do the exact same one or switch it up if you just want variety or even go heavier this day if you want. Though I recommend waiting a couple months before doing this kinda thing and just keep it simple at first) 4x8-12

Hammer curl or reverse curl 4x8-12

Edit: added a bit about handles for lat pulldowns I forgot to put earlier.

 

[spirito]

Part III Legs

I hate leg day tbh though lately I’ve been enjoying the suffering.

You CANNOT just do leg extensions, trust me. You’ll look goofy. Leg day is decently simple though.

All you really need is a deadlift variation, something to hit hamstrings, quads, glutes and calves. If you really hate any of the above then you can choose to skip one of em. Like I hated squats so after a few months of doing them and getting to 235 for reps I said fuck it and stopped doing em and only recently started doing em again 7 months later. A lot of compound movements hit a lot of leg muscles.

You’ll want a squat variation, hip hinge movement, then something to isolate quads, hamstrings and calves.

Abs just toss into leg day. You do NOT need that much ab stuff. Most ab circuits you see online are bullshit. They’re just a muscle like anything else so progressively overload them. Their purpose is spinal flexion (bringing/curling your shoulders to your pelvis basically). Just toss em on leg day. All you need are cable crunches to upper abs a bit more and a hanging leg raise or leg raises on a captain’s chair to hit them fully. Most of those ab exercises just do the same thing. Do they work abs, assuming you’re doing it right? Yeah. But it’s like doing 4 different bicep curl variations to hit biceps when you could just do 1 curl. Sure, they all hit the bicep but you don’t need to do 4 variations to do the same thing.

Examples:

Legs I

Deadlift 1xAMRAP (as many reps as possible, at least 5)

Leg press 3x6-10

Hamstring curl 3x8-12

Calf raises 4x8-12

Cable crunches 4x10-15

Legs II

Romanian deadlifts 3x6-10

Squat variation 3x6-10

Hamstring curl 3x8-12

Calf raises 4x8-12

Captain’s chair 4x10-15

 

[spirito]

@rlaguisma let me know if you have any questions. The major things that matter is eating your macros (protein), consistency, progressive overloading (more weights or reps each week), and enough quality sleep (sleep is when your body actually builds the muscle. The point of lifting is subjecting your muscle to mechanical tension so it thinks it needs to grow to handle the load, hence hypertrophy when it rebuilds itself during sleep).

 

[rlaguisma]

@spirito Thank you so much man!

 

[spirito]

@rlaguisma Oh I forgot to actually answer the question. Yes, this would get overall good muscle mass. The V taper is highly dependent on genetics though. Your overall shoulder width and how thin your waist is is solely based on your bone structure really. But being low body fat percentage, having noticeable lats and getting wider shoulders from lateral raises would still help accentuate the v taper, regardless of genetics though.

 

[dch]

@rlaguisma Your leg day is pretty lacking