FITNESS THREAD - I went to the gym for the first time in 2 years

[Vibe]

1. I know what Xant means, and in general cardio directly before or after weightlifting is not beneficial for muscle growth and regeneration, while light 30-60 minutes of cardio at the "no workout" days is beneficial for regenration.

But it's totally fine to do 15 minutes of light cardio before and/or after a workout, as long as it really is light and short.

I personally only do 5-10 minutes "cardio" to warm up the whole body before my workout, then rotator cuffs with stretch bands and local/muscle specific warm up with light weights. In total not more than 15 minutes of warming up. 45-60 minutes of light cardio a week, sometimes less, depending on time and whim.

2. A 3 day split is only a thing for intermediate lifters/bodybuilders with advanced strenght and some experience.
Also a 3 day split would mean at least 5, preferably 6 workouts per week, which is pretty heavy and only doable by advanced gym goers, if optimal muscle and strenght growth is your goal.

If you just want to get in shape and get/stay fit a 3 day split with only 3 workouts per week is fine, but you won't make any noticable strenght or muscle gains after getting the "noob gainz", because the frequency is way to low.

Protein-bio-synthesis only lasts between 24 and 72 hours after hitting your muscles, so for getting otpimal strenght and muscle gains a 2 day split with 4 workouts per week (A B A B ) is the optimum for intermediate lifters, total beginners should always start with a whole body workout 3 times a week.

Ok thanks for all the advice, appreciate it. I posted because I'm at the start with the gym thing (disregarding I visited gym somewhat regularly for 1-2 years about 2-3 years ago), so the routine is not yet established and I can easily adjust it. The general goal is to stay fit yeah, but I do want some strength and muscle gain as well. When is one considered to be an intermediate lifter and ready to advance beyond a full body workout?
With a full body workout, should I only be doing 1 exercise per muscle group (3 sets / 12 reps per exercise)? I feel like more than one would take too much time.

[Xant]

Weights are for amateurs, pros train bodyweight:

[WarLord]

Ok thanks for all the advice, appreciate it. I posted because I'm at the start with the gym thing (disregarding I visited gym somewhat regularly for 1-2 years about 2-3 years ago), so the routine is not yet established and I can easily adjust it. The general goal is to stay fit yeah, but I do want some strength and muscle gain as well. When is one considered to be an intermediate lifter and ready to advance beyond a full body workout?
With a full body workout, should I only be doing 1 exercise per muscle group (3 sets / 12 reps per exercise)? I feel like more than one would take too much time.

Answering all that satisfying for you would prbably take me too long and my poor english make it a strain to type that much.

This may help you with the question of when is one intermediate/beginner/advanced http://www.strengthstandards.co/#/
Bascially what is your body weight and body fat and how strong are you in the big compound lifts determines if you are intermediate.
You can see this also isolated per compound lift/movement.

For example I am good intermediate in benchpress, scratching at inermediate with my deadlift and I am novice with my squat, because I hate that one and I got a terrible mobilty and week core (thats what I am working on currently).

And for a qhole body workout, yeah, it normally contains just the big compound movements, squat OR deadlift (alternatively), Benchpress, Military Press (overhead/shoulder press), one big rowing exercise and maybe (not necessarily) arms and 1 shoulder assistance movement.

[WITCHCRAFT]

so for getting otpimal strenght and muscle gains a 2 day split with 4 workouts per week (A B A B ) is the optimum for intermediate lifters, total beginners should always start with a whole body workout 3 times a week.

I find that a two day split is easy to stick with, upper body day and lower body day with some situps or curls thrown in wherever you have a chance. The only problem is that weeks are 7 days so you need to plan your sessions in two week chunks to make sure you can get to the gym every other day.

Or you can make each week the same, like so:

1)Upper body
2)Free day
3)Lower body
4)Free day
5)Cardio Day
6)Weekend
7)Weekend

Not as optimal, but when I was just getting started that's what I did and I think it's really easy to stick with. That's the most important part, finding a schedule that doesn't make you jump through hoops just to get to the gym.

[Leshma]

Flax seeds are the best
Just saying

Life saving

[jtobiasm]

If you're looking to build strength you should try ICF 5X5 or stronglift 5x5

ICF for dem aesthetics

[SixThumbs]

Just stick with whatever routine you've got going for now so long as it incorporates squats, bench, deadlifts, overhead-press and bent-over rows/power cleans in their somewhere and the rest will come with time once you've a good strength base to work off of. Eat until satiated and not more if you're trying to lose weight.

My routine was based off of Starting Strength (the only resource I think someone starting out needs) and was three days a week alternating between squats/bench/overhead press and squats/deadlift/power cleans with dips/pull-ups and decently long stretching sessions after the workouts. According to the link Warlord posted I'm somewhere between novice/intermediate depending on the lift but I think a good rule of thumb before worrying too much about a specific routine is being able to deadlift twice your body weight, bench your body weight and squat one and a half times your bodyweight.

[WarLord]

Starting Strenght by Mark Rippetoe is great. 

[SixThumbs]

Best resource once you get past the marketing of the fitness industry and realize the only thing you need is consistency and a foundation to build off.

[Rico]

Life saving

considering all the bullshit i'm ingesting on a regular basis you may be right
at worst, they are an inexpensive and easily available omega 3 source without the bad side effects of the contamination in other omega 3 sources. the fibers also clean the metabolism a little. just need some extra water so they won't dehydrate you

green tea is also epic

flax seeds and green tea basically make up for all the bad things i swallow
or so i hope

[Rico]

all the bad things i swallow

Wow that was pretty gay

[Paul]

Can't become admin without that anyway.

[Leshma]

Without eating flax seeds or without being gay?

[Vibe]

Just stick with whatever routine you've got going for now so long as it incorporates squats, bench, deadlifts, overhead-press and bent-over rows/power cleans in their somewhere and the rest will come with time once you've a good strength base to work off of. Eat until satiated and not more if you're trying to lose weight.

My routine was based off of Starting Strength (the only resource I think someone starting out needs) and was three days a week alternating between squats/bench/overhead press and squats/deadlift/power cleans with dips/pull-ups and decently long stretching sessions after the workouts. According to the link Warlord posted I'm somewhere between novice/intermediate depending on the lift but I think a good rule of thumb before worrying too much about a specific routine is being able to deadlift twice your body weight, bench your body weight and squat one and a half times your bodyweight.

Starting Strenght by Mark Rippetoe is great. 

Thanks, read up a lot on it now, seems like a good routine, I'm gonna use it, since maximum full body exercise is best reached with the exercises that this program uses (eg squats, deadlifts, bench presses, presses, etc). Kind of worried im gonna suck hard at it because I hardly ever did those apart from bench presses. My previous gym routines (if they can even be called that) were chaotic as fuck...

[WarLord]

I built up a pretty solid body over the years when I started going to the gym like 9-10 years ago without ever doing deadlifts, squats and overhead/military press for many years. Only thing I pretty much did from the beginning was benchpress (with horribly bad technique) and seated shoulder press with dumbbells (which pretty much hits the same muscles as overhead/military press standing, but without the benefits for legs, lower back, abs and general core muscles).

I just started doing deadlifts with proper technique like 2 years ago, benchpress, squats and overhead press even just like 1 year ago with proper technique. You easily can build up a "good looking" muscular body with machines, bad technique and without any compound movements, but I guess doing them (with proper technique) from the very beginning gives you the same results MUCH faster and without risk of muscular disbalances and injury. Also, dat strenght. You never gaina any strenght from doing machines, leg press or shoulder press seated. But man, my strenght skyrockened in the last ~ 2 years and it feels great, when you can say to people you can pick up 150-160 kg with your bare hands or benchpress your own bodyweight + 10 kg 4x8 times, slow and with proper form.