Ok, noone has ever actually said that to me before, but the point is that I've been lifting for about 2 years, but I still look like I don't even know what a barbell looks like. Now that is partly due to my genetics as I've always
been tall and skinny. But I definitely think I could perhaps have gotten more out of my lifting.

Background
Stats: 27 years old, 1.94m (6.4"), 86kg (190lbs)
So like I said I started lifting almost 2 years ago. The first couple of months I lifted on my own in the gym attached to my appartment complex, but I had no idea wtf I was doing so I didn't see any results. After that I decided to join
an online coaching program where you get help with nutrition, training routines, habits etc. With their help I went from skinny-fat to just really really skinny at 76kg (167lbs) at 1.94cm (I know right) Looking back at photos from that time it was honestly a bit scary how skinny I was.
So then it was time to try and put on some muscle mass, in which I definitely partly succeeded. I'm 10kg heavier now and a lot stronger, but definitely not nearly where I want to be strenght and appearance wise.

While I learned a lot about training and nutricion etc. following that program, the main "problem" was that their training routines completely changed up every 5 weeks, like completely different rep ranges, exercises, different methods
and stuff like that. While that did make sure I didn't get bored I never got to really learn and progress in the main lifts, which looking back I think is a shame.

Last month I noticed I started getting less motivated, mostly due to me getting tired of the training routines and slow progress, so decided it was time to go about it myself. I've been following a Push/Pull/Legs split since then and
really loving it so far, and once again super motivated to workout and get stronger and bigger.

Routine

My current routine looks like this
Push
BB Bench: 4x5
BB Overhead press: 4x5
BB Incline bench: 3x8
Incline cable flye: 3x10-12
DB Lateral raise: 3x10-12
Lying Tricep extension: 3x10-12
Tricep overhead extension: 3x10-12

Pull
Deadlift: 4x5
(Weighted) Pull-up: 4x5
Pendlay row: 3x7-8
Seated machine row: 3x7-8
Rear deltoid flye: 3x10-12
Facepull: 3x10-12
Drag curl: 3x10-12
Seated Incline Hammer curl: 3x10-12

Legs
BB Back Squat (Low bar): 4x5
Romanian Deadlift: 3x7-8
Bulgarian Split Squat: 3x7-8
Seated leg curl: 3x10-12
Leg Press: 3x10-12
Standing Calf Raise: 3x12-15
Kneeling Cable Crunch: 3x12-15

On the lower body lifts I will be putting an additional 5lbs on the bar every week. On the upper body lifts I will also put 5lbs per week, but the first time upping the weight I will hit the lower rep range, the training after that I will
hit the higher rep range, and if I manage to hit the higher rep range for all sets I will increase the weight again next training. For Iso exercises I will increase the weight once I am able to do all sets in the higher rep range.
I will be lifting 5-6 times a week, but mostly 5 times and cycling through the routine going P/P/L/rest/Repeat, meaning mostly I will hit all muscles twice every 8 days.

Current goals, lifts and diet

Lifts
So like I said I haven't been practicing the main lifts as much as I would have like, so that's why I really want to focus on getting the form right before attempting to lift significantly more weight. Starting out at pretty conservative
weights.
Benchpress: 4x5x70kg (155lbs)
OHP: 4x5x42,5kg (94lbs)
Squat: 4x5x107,5kg (237lbs)
Deadlift: 4x5x115kg (254lbs)

Diet
Currently eating 3150 calories per day, tracking my macro's but as long as I my protein and calorie intake right I'm not too worried because I usually get decent numbers for fats and carbs with my current diet. On this diet I'm gaining
weight at around 1kg per month.

Goals
- Get form nailed down on all lifts
- Get to 90kg bodyweight
- Keep progressing in weight on all the main lifts
- Start looking like I actually pick up a weight sometimes

So it's gotten a bit TL;DR already. Thanks for reading everyone, will post some logs and form video's soon. Any comments, advice or whatever is very welcome.

Calories seem pretty low for your size and the insane amount of volume you're planning to do. How are you planning to recover from all of this?

As a side note, are you doing all of these lifts like a circuit with barely any rest between sets? Because it seems like deadlift 4x5 alone would take me 40 minutes and probably cause me to collapse into a heap of flesh. I'd probably spend 4 hours minimum to get through one of your workouts, assuming I could produce the energy to make it that far.

Thanks for your input Renton
My calories are indeed low but i'm very sedentary outside of lifting at the moment. Once I notice I'm not gaining any more weight I will adjust upwards.

Do you think my volume is too high? What can I say I like lifting and enjoy spending time at the gym. My workouts take me around an hour and 15 minutes. That is with 2 minutes in between sets of the heavy compounds, 1,5 minutes for the rest.

At the moment i'm recovering fine from this. It's been almost a month on this routine. Probably because I'm not lifting very heavy yet. Once I notice I'm not recovering I will have to adjust my volume I guess

Continuing with the 4x5 deadlift example, your first 3 sets will have to be pretty easy weight for you to be able to do the next set with only a 2 minute rest. I guess I'm just not that familiar with bodybuilding-style training. It seems like most bb splits would avoid training the heavy compounds for sets of five in favor of doing things like leg press 4x10 that aren't nearly as taxing. A single heavy set of 5 deadlifts done at near your 5rm can take a week to recover from unless you're a very advanced lifter.

Who knows, though, maybe it's all fine assuming you don't work anywhere near max effort, but then you're blurring the lines between strength training and cardio.

Yes from what I understand it's pretty common in bb splits like this to train the main lifts in the lower rep range, and the assistance work in the higher hypertrophy rep range. But in either case there is a lot of overlap between strength and hypertrophy rep ranges.

And you're right, the point is to not come close to failure on the heavy work, especially when starting out with a routine. Point of this is you can realise progressive overload for a lot longer than when you go to failure or close to failure right away. This way you hopefully won't stall for months and don't need to deload too quickly. And yes it's also a lot harder to recover if you go to or close to failure.

Then with assistance work especially iso's it's more common to go to close to failure or to failure on the last set.

Edit: calling it cardio if you don't go to failure seems a bit much

There's definitely a cardio - strength continuum. I didn't say it was cardio, I said it blurs the lines. You don't have to necessarily train to failure, but you do have to accumulate muscle fatigue. If you're able to deadlift 4x5 on Wednesday and then stroll in on Thursday and do romanian deadlift 3x8, then I don't see how Wednesday's workout caused much fatigue to your glutes, hams, and erectors. Unless you're a superhuman who can recover from workouts in 24 hours. Or unless the aim is specifically to do the RDL's in a state of fatigue, which is a pretty advanced tactic and probably unnecessary at your physique level.

Alright well, at the moment no issues with recovery yet. Maybe it helps that due to my schedule I had to change a restday around and am now doing Legs/Push/Pull instead, so there's an extra day between Legday and deadlifts on pull day.

Deadlift from last Pull day. Anything I can improve on?

So embedding won't work. Anyone know how to embed?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjJayCDYxkw

I'm still learning the deadlift but it looks like your set up could be a lot tighter, with higher hips and more vertical shins. Maybe try to set your eye gaze forward instead of down, it makes it a bit easier to squeeze your chest up. Also if 112 is easy for you I'd just learn with 135 so the bar will be at the proper height off the floor.

for embedding you copy the part of the youtube url after the = sign
[.youtube]NjJayCDYxkw[./youtube]
so that's the code but without the periods

Might just be the angle, but your stance and hand position look very narrow. Do you find that you have more power pulling that way than with a wider stance?
idk **** about deadlifting so that's more a question than actual advice

Thanks. Stance is about hip width, which makes enough room for my arms to hang straight down. I dont really notice a diffence in power with standing wider

Thanks. I try to put the bar over mid foot and then just bending down until shins touch the bar.
Bar is at proper height, 10kg, 15kg, 20kg and 25kg are all the same diameter at my gym.
Ill try to experiment a bit with slightly higher hips.

Fwiw I think my hips are around that height (and I'm a fellow tall), and I think his set-up doesn't have any obvious leaks. Maybe getting a bit tighter everywhere, but that's hardly a unique issue among relative newcomers.

Cheers! What about the movement itself?

No real complaints about the form, although I am curious as to how you'd hold up at heavier weight, which tends to exacerbate technical weakness that may not be so evident at this weight.

I'm far from the DLing authority on these boards, though.

Allright thanks. Will see about that once I get to some higher weights

first off, the fact you couldn't just look at the bar and see that the #s are in kilos is lol.

Renton, I don't mean to be overly critical, but consider your own progress over the years, your own spot on the learning curve, and then answer whether you should be giving out advice. At the very least, give a "why" when you do, to force yourself to think it through. Why higher hips and more vertical shins? I do agree with you on his gaze, fwiw.

rAv, your DL form is quite good. Of course you could tighten your setup, because everyone can tighten their setup, but your back position is stable and your scaps are over the bar. Your hip position is pretty much ideal. And the mechanics of your lift look great.

I agree with khan that your stance and grip are pretty narrow. A narrow stance isn't the end of the world and not really uncommon, quite a few people do it. Try some warm ups with an ~shoulder width stance and see how it feels. If it sucks and this feels better, stick with this. Regardless, your hands should be outside your legs at the very least, rather than dragging up your thighs.

Thanks kidcolin thats very helpful. I'm glad i'm not way off. Managed to sort a lot of it out myself watching video's, my form used to be pretty awful.

I will pay attention to headposition and play around with stance a bit next time out

Pull day today

DL 40x10, 80x5x2, 115x4
Pull up; BWx5x4
Pendlay; 62.5x7x3
Seated row; 190lbsx8x3
Rear delt flye; 20x12, 25x10x2
Face pull; 65lbsx12x3
Drag curl; 25x13x2, 25x10
Incline hammer curl; 40lbsx11x3

Having trouble progressing on pull ups. Once I start adding some light weight my form goes bad and usually can't complete 5 reps on the last set. Anyone have any tips on how to progress? Just keep doing loads of pullups?

Disclaimer: I'm weak and can't do pullups to save myself and this post is going to be mostly useless general chat, but I like your program and goals so I'm going to post...

...but those pullups look pretty good actually (as do your deads - kidcolin's post was on the money imo). However I do think you'll make only slow progress by doing only 5x4 pullups every four or five days.

Honestly, I don't know what the solution is, but I think it involves a bit of everything with pullups, so I just take a scatter gun approach and try everything. Do them more often. Maybe every second session instead of every third session. Mix up your set/rep ranges. Do 3x max reps instead of 5x4. Do 4x5. Do 5x3 weighted. Try and add something to each of those numbers as often as you can. i.e. One more rep in your 3x max reps. Add another set to 5x4. Another kg to weighted. Small increments every week.

On a slightly "philosophical" note, figure out why you want to improve your pullups at a faster rate than what you might by only doing them every third session. I mean, there are lots of reasons, but does it matter much in the context of your program? or do you just wan to be able to do heaps of pullups (which is cool too).

If you do start doing them more regularly, you might need to trim some other part of your program out. Are there lifts you can substitute for pullups on another day? I mean, personally I would snap dump the calf raises and leg curls on leg day and do a whole bunch of pullups instead and you probably wouldn't be losing much.

Frequency pullups is the answer to the question; buy a door mounted pullup bar and do a bunch of sets of 2 periodically throughout the day, then progress to sets of 3, and so on

Work towards 4 sets of 8-10 bodyweight on your pullup days at the gym, then add weight and try to get 5 or 6 across. When you do, add weight again. Worked for me.

Cheers for the input. General chat also very welcome in my thread Perhaps I will try to add some negatives to my sets and try to work up to sets of 8 or more that way. See if that works at all.

My reason for wanting to get better at them is the simplest, more pull-ups = more strength = bigger back. At least I hope so. And also it would indeed be cool to be able to do a lot of them. I always respect people who can throw out sets of 10 or more with good form. It's not easy.

When I started out I couldn't even do one though so that's something to be proud of already.

I'll see if I can find a decent pull-up bar online. Hope doing pull-ups every day won't interfere with recovery though. Did you notice any of that at all?

I wouldn't bother with negatives. I've also never done the pullup bar at home. You're the gym five or six days per week, just do them three or four times a week.

It probably will add to fatigue. You can't do more work and expect it not to. That doesn't necessarily mean it will ruin your recovery, but you need to figure out the balance.

Not if you're doing sub maximal sets spread out throughout the day

8 sets of 2 when your one set max is 8 isn't going to kill you, but doing that five times a week adds up quickly

At least ime

Yeah, I've got no idea tbh. The "grease the groove" thing never appealed to me (nor was it practical) so I never tried it.