Weeks 1 Through 4.

By: Wayne Mercer

In one of my previous articles I said that I liked to put together 12 week workout routines, or cycles, changing up the exercises every three or four weeks, and here is a great starting routine to get you through the first four weeks. I'll first give you the routine and then some of the reasoning behind it.

A Routine For Big Guns
Here is the plan of attack for the first of a 5 day plan!

For the first cycle set up for working out five days a week. You'll be lifting four of these days and also doing cardio three of the five days. On the first day you'll be doing your chest workout and a cardio routine. For chest I recommend you do four sets, with reps of twelve, ten, eight, and then six.

As far as exercises I recommend starting with dumbbell bench press, then moving on to dumbbell incline presses, and then finally to flat bench flyes. After four sets of these three exercises your chest should be completely cashed, and you'll want to go home and cry.

I would recommend waiting to cry until you get at least to the car! Then, move along to your cardio routine, whatever that may be, and that is it for the first day. Short, sweet, and simple.

Best of all you'll see thinking of how this program works as a whole a little later.

Day 2
Target your back and abs!

On the next day you'll do your back, and your abs. Again, do the same sets and reps as for your chest, as far as exercises go, you should do wide-grip pull-downs, reverse grip pull-downs, and bent over rows. The most important thing when doing pull-downs is to make sure to use your back and not primarily your biceps, which is a flaw that's really easy to do.

To avoid doing this the best thing to do is to pay attention to what feels like is being worked, if you do that, then you should be able to tell if it is actually your back that's pulling most of the weight down or if its your biceps doing the labor.

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If you feel a lot of pain on the insides of your elbows then you know that you're using your biceps and not your back. You will use a little bicep in this exercise, which is a good thing, but make sure its not the only thing you're working. Then for your abs do crunches at three sets of thirty reps, and you've finished day number two.

Day 3
Strictly cardio and abs day!

The third day is a strictly cardio and abs day, go to the gym and go nuts on any cardio routine that you want to. This is also a great time to hang out at the gym, sit in the sauna or whirlpool, and talk to some people to pick up some pointers etc. Then get ready for the next day, which is usually the most painful of all of them.

Day 4
The most painful of all of them, leg day!

The fourth day is leg day! You'll do the same sets and reps as for all of the other workouts, and as far as exercises I recommend that you do leg presses, leg extensions, leg curls, and seated calf raises. Be sure on the leg extensions to pick a weight light enough to get a full extension, and also to only go down to about a forty-five degree angle when lowering the weight.

The added benefit of going down all the way isn't worth the excess strain put on your knee.

Day 5
Tie it all together by bombing your arms!

The fifth day is what really ties this entire routine together to build your arms. On the fifth day you'll do your arms and cardio. For your triceps you should do tricep cable extensions, and dumbbell extensions.

For biceps you'll do seated curls and preacher curls, with dumbbells. The best thing about using dumbbells while doing preacher curls is that if you do your arms individually then you can use your other arm to spot the active one when you begin to reach failure, it's a big help. Then once you finish that you can start your cardio routine and be out of the door to begin your weekend!

Check out this related video from muscle nerd:

3 Steps To Bigger Biceps!

Conclusion

This on the surface seems like any other workout routine you've seen, but its designed to concentrate on your arms. There is research that shows that the smaller muscles in your body (biceps, triceps) recover much faster than the larger muscles in the body (chest, legs).

This is why we begin the week with chest on the first day and then back on the second day. Both of these body parts inherently work some of your triceps and your biceps. This sets the stage for the rest of the workout. What the research tells us is that the larger muscles in our body need at least four days of recovery time where your smaller muscles, like triceps and biceps need only about two days.

So what this means is that on the first and second days that your arms are getting hit a little, and then on the last day they're getting hit a lot. Hitting your arms twice in a week gives you a big advantage in arm development. Also the pump you get from the arm workout will last you most of the weekend while you're out on the town, beach, or in the bathroom mirror looking at yourself!

Wayne Mercer
CMERCER@hot.rr.com

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