Need advice with gym routine and progress

itagmedia12

New member
I am 33 years old, measuring 1.67 cm and weighting 95 Kg (about 5’.6” and 198 lbs), and my body fat looks around 335%. I also have plantar fasciitis and asthma, which make it hard for me to do certain types of cardio such as running, but fan bikes and rowing machines are manageable. Most cardio I do is actually walking, I get 10k steps almost every single day. I haven’t had a problem with weightlifting that wouldn’t pass with a minute of resting.

A couple of years ago I started going to the gym in order to get fitter and lose weight. However, I wasn’t that motivated and only went once or twice per week until I simply stopped going to the gym. I also went to a nutritionist who gave me a diet plan and same story. Nevertheless, before absolutely dropping, I managed to lose almost 10 Kg, which demonstrated to me that my goals are achievable.

This year I started taking it more seriously and I’ve been attending a lot more. I started going twice, then thrice, and since February I’ve attended a minimum of five times a week, with some weeks going six days and one week going seven days. I take the rest days between days, (e.g., 2 days gym, 1 rest, 3 days gym, 1 rest; or some variation of that). I’ve noticed that although I tend to be tired, I’m not exhausted. I’m more active, happier and sleeping better (and more), and I’ve noticed that the first weights I lifted are now a walk in the park and thus upgraded to the next “tier”. I’m falling in love with the gym and the days I rest sometimes I actually have to fight myself NOT to go there. I’m still failing to lose fat weight because although my general diet is good and balanced, I snack a lot, mainly at night while watching a series or whatnot. I also take 5 g/day of creatine.

My current workout routine is the same that my past gym instructor gave me, with a couple of changes here and there. Usually, I complete it twice per week, with either rest days or mobility or functional exercises in between. My objective is weight loss through muscle gain.

Anyway, here’s my workout routine. I like it, I’ve been progressing through it (for example, I started the barbell squat at 30 Kg, the bench press at just the bar, the cable pulldown at 30…), and even added some exercises (wrist curls, shrugs, calf press).

Is this a good routine? What could I do better? What am I doing wrong? What could I add?
 
@itagmedia12 I would say, unless you are looking to win some arm-size competitions, you don't need 3 arm exercises in a single workout. But that's just me, and I'm no expert.
 
@itagmedia12 You could add, subtract, or substitute a lot. There’s many ways to add strength. Honestly it looks like a program chat gpt could make. Not terrible. How is progressive overload and deloading handled? A premade program for free will have this built in.
 
@tonyangiano
How is progressive overload and deloading handled?

As you can see, for a given exercise I have a number of sets that grow on weight with fewer reps. For instance, the first exercise of the first day, the cable lat pulldown, is as follows:

1240
1045
850
655

Reps
Kg

When I started, I could do the first set with 30 Kg and so on, and as I felt it getting easier, I simply "upgraded" the weights to the next 5 kg tier. So from 12x30 I went to 12x35, and I am now at 12x40. What criteria do I use? If the first set feels like a piece of cake, I challenge myself to add 2 reps for the following three sets, and if by the last set (in which I would have done 8 reps) I feel confident, I try to do a 6 reps extra set with the next weight. If I can take the six reps, I upgrade the whole exercise for the next day; if I can't finish it (i.e., I fail short of six reps), I keep training with the same configuration until I can take the six reps and advance.

RE: Deloading, between rest days and mobility/functional days, I take at the very least 2-3 days before repeating a muscle group. I try to day 3 days of plan + 1 day of mob/func, repeat, and full 2 days rest.

Mainly my more pressing question would be about how good this plan looks for hypertrophy and what could I do better for that.
 
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