burning___bush
New member
Like some of you, I recently became interested in changing my routine to a full-body workout, 5 days per week. I was worried that I couldn’t handle 5 days of lifting in a row, but I watched the videos and read some posts in this sub and decided to give it a shot. As requested by at least one person, I’ve decided to make the workout routine I came up with available for review and (constructive) critique. As you might imagine, this is rather personal, so I want to include some other personal details.
I’m 44 years old and have been working out seriously for just over 2 years. Although I worked out and studied weightlifting from an early age, I spent all of my 20’s and most of my 30’s drinking and eating like a pig and smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. I was overweight and out of shape and developed pain in my wrists and elbows when just doing ordinary things around the house. The doctor prescribed some wrist and forearm exercises, and that rekindled my enjoyment of weightlifting.
I also took the opportunity to change my diet and lost about 40 pounds. I haven’t had a drink in 5 years and quit smoking 3 years ago.
I have no access to a gym. My equipment includes adjustable dumbbells, a bench and some elastic tubes. With work and 3 small kids at home, my schedule is pretty tight, and I workout while I work from home. I’m fortunate to be able to work from home almost 100% of the time. Up until last week, I was doing a PPL split with push on Monday, Legs on Tuesday and Pull in Wednesday. On Thursdays I stretched and rolled and did extended LISS cardio. On Fridays, I did some sort of full-body challenge routine, like Jeff Cavaliere’s 12-Minute Workout. It’s hard to carve out time on the weekends to exercise, and I normally take those days completely off. I started the 5-day routine early in the week because of the holidays and because I was motivated.
I didn’t feel like I was progressing from week to week and always felt tired and worn out (all day, every day). The only times I didn’t feel physically exhausted were during the workouts. This probably has something to do with the aforementioned 3 small children and the inherent uneven sleep, but I was still concerned about my lifting routine.
For food, I eat pretty well now, but there is still room for improvement. After months-long experiments with keto and IF, I’ve realized two things: I need to eat before working out in order to get anything productive done, and I need at least 1g protein per 1 pound of body weight. For me, if I eat less than about 200g of protein a day I feel even more lethargic and wasted. By biggest nutritional challenges currently are eating too much (I'm always hungry) and having protein bars make up too much of my diet. I consume about 3500 calories and 2-3 bars each day.
Here is the workout I came up with.
Feel free to look at the workout I made up to fulfill the 5-day lifting routine. I didn’t get it from anywhere; I just made it up. On the other end of it now, I can say that I’m pleasantly surprised at how good I feel. I was ready to work hard every day, with minimal soreness and almost no joint pain. And I feel much better during the rest of the day too. I might even sneak in an extra arm day tomorrow to finish out the week. I’ll definitely be doing this again, M-F, as my new weekly routine.
I’m 44 years old and have been working out seriously for just over 2 years. Although I worked out and studied weightlifting from an early age, I spent all of my 20’s and most of my 30’s drinking and eating like a pig and smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. I was overweight and out of shape and developed pain in my wrists and elbows when just doing ordinary things around the house. The doctor prescribed some wrist and forearm exercises, and that rekindled my enjoyment of weightlifting.
I also took the opportunity to change my diet and lost about 40 pounds. I haven’t had a drink in 5 years and quit smoking 3 years ago.
I have no access to a gym. My equipment includes adjustable dumbbells, a bench and some elastic tubes. With work and 3 small kids at home, my schedule is pretty tight, and I workout while I work from home. I’m fortunate to be able to work from home almost 100% of the time. Up until last week, I was doing a PPL split with push on Monday, Legs on Tuesday and Pull in Wednesday. On Thursdays I stretched and rolled and did extended LISS cardio. On Fridays, I did some sort of full-body challenge routine, like Jeff Cavaliere’s 12-Minute Workout. It’s hard to carve out time on the weekends to exercise, and I normally take those days completely off. I started the 5-day routine early in the week because of the holidays and because I was motivated.
I didn’t feel like I was progressing from week to week and always felt tired and worn out (all day, every day). The only times I didn’t feel physically exhausted were during the workouts. This probably has something to do with the aforementioned 3 small children and the inherent uneven sleep, but I was still concerned about my lifting routine.
For food, I eat pretty well now, but there is still room for improvement. After months-long experiments with keto and IF, I’ve realized two things: I need to eat before working out in order to get anything productive done, and I need at least 1g protein per 1 pound of body weight. For me, if I eat less than about 200g of protein a day I feel even more lethargic and wasted. By biggest nutritional challenges currently are eating too much (I'm always hungry) and having protein bars make up too much of my diet. I consume about 3500 calories and 2-3 bars each day.
Here is the workout I came up with.
Feel free to look at the workout I made up to fulfill the 5-day lifting routine. I didn’t get it from anywhere; I just made it up. On the other end of it now, I can say that I’m pleasantly surprised at how good I feel. I was ready to work hard every day, with minimal soreness and almost no joint pain. And I feel much better during the rest of the day too. I might even sneak in an extra arm day tomorrow to finish out the week. I’ll definitely be doing this again, M-F, as my new weekly routine.