I've been working out for a year and 4 months now, Diet advice?

[arcgremlin]

My last year and 4 months of working out:

* - lost about 10% bodyfat
* - weigh about 50 more pounds or something like that
* - I've gained something people call ABs. Not defined at all, but i can see muscle with a line down the middle... Wewt i guess
* - I've gone from not knowing what deltoid or cardio meant, to being able to do cleans, deadlifts, squats, presses, dips, pull ups, etc
* - I've doubled what I could lift a year ago(at least)
* - I've gone from being able to only hang from a bar, to being able to do 22 pullups
* - I've gone from a hand strength of 45 pounds, to 165 pounds of squeezing power
* - My lifts:

Deadlift - 300
Squat - 265
Clean - 200
Bench - 200

(I struggled with 100lbs on the bench when I started)




But even with all those great gains; I still feel like I am not making the gains I could be lately. I've slowed down BIG TIME.



So here is my fit day typed out since I don't know how to export stuff to word or anything:



Breakfast

Avocado
3 Hard boiled eggs
Cottage Cheese
Orange
720epa 480dha
vitamin c 500mg
multi vitamin
taurine 4g


Snack

Nitrean
Banana
Metamucil


Snack

Nitrean
vit c 500mg


Lunch 1hr or 1.5hr before workout

Chicken Breast
Peanut Butter Sandwich
Caesar Salad
vit c 500mg


Snack 15-20mins before workout

Nitrean
Dextrose
Olive Oil
Creatine 4g
caffeine 100mg
coke (lol every day)


Drink during workout

ON Whey double chocolate
Dextrose


Drink after workout

ON Whey double chocolate
Dextrose


Dinner

Tuna can drained
2 eggs
metamucil
vit c 500mg
multi vit
720epa 480dha




This comes out as around

3441 Calories
150g Fat 37g Sat Fat
250g Carbs
286g Protein
32g Fiber

I'm just posting this now so that maybe I can find out is there something wrong with my diet

My workout(for today at least) is here since I think I should have them both together so you can see the whole picture

warmed up by
sprinting 30 seconds, resting 30 second for 7 reps at about 75% intensity

squats
warm up set of 15
2 sets of 11 reps
1 set of 7 reps(to failure)


good mornings
3 sets of 10


dead lifts next
2 sets of 10
1 set of 8(to failure)


clean and press
2 sets of 10
1 set of 8(to failure)


calve raises
3 sets of 10


leg presses
2 sets of 10
1 set of 7(to failure)


leg curls
2 sets of 10
1 set of 8(to failure)


Then I went to the track and ran/sprint for 24 minutes
2 minute run
30 seconds sprint
30 seconds jog
repeat 7 more times

Then I stretched


my other workout pretty much goes like this:

pullups
dips
bench press
dumbbell shoulder press
dumbbell lateral raise
dumbbell rear delt row
curl
wrist curls
hand grips
eliptical machine X 30mins

i just go back and forth between those two lately

I've done all the wbb workouts for a while
but I change my workout every month so I don't get bored

so critique away if you have anything to say

oh yea, i work out about 4 times a week, then i have a day of pure cardio, and a day where i spend about 2 hours pretending i'm an mma champ with a bunch of people at gym mats

gym/gym/off/mma/gym/gym/cardio

i also do abs twice a week when i wake up

[Unreal]

Sounds like tons of volume and not enough rest. I would adjust your routine.

[Mr. D]

I wouldnt do the HIIT before the leg training, do it AFTER. Warmup for squats by doing squats.

And maybe you need to eat a little more to keep up with your body/activities.

[Unholy]

I would switch up the routine and put in more rest days. Split the body up a bit more and get focused on weak points.

[arcgremlin]

"I wouldnt do the HIIT before the leg training, do it AFTER. Warmup for squats by doing squats."

Why is that may I ask?
I just do the sprints for a bit to get my blood flowing and stuff.
Do you think it is impairing my workout?






"I would switch up the routine and put in more rest days. Split the body up a bit more and get focused on weak points."


something like

gym/gym/rest/mma/gym/gym/rest ?

or are you thinking i need to only go to the gym 3 times a week?

something like

gym/gym/rest/mma/rest/gym/rest ?



and either way, I have no idea what my weaknesses are to be honest
i'm not saying that I don't have them, because I think I need massive improvement in all areas.

What tells YOU that you have a weak point? or is there somewhere i can look up my various lifts to see if one is weak compared to the rest?

and as for splitting things up, well, i've done so many different splits that a week ago i just decided to put everything into 2 different workouts and just hit up the main lifts to keep things simple

(or what i think are the main lifts, i could well be very mistaken or missing something important)

was that a mistake?
or am i just over training?

if you had to suggest a couple of different splits, which would you suggest for my particular situation?
i don't need you to type out a workout or anything, just list muscle groups or whatnot and i'll try and come up with something


i think my biggest problems are that i feel the need to change my workouts every month
(although i hear that this is a good thing from some people??)

and from reading this post, i guess i'm over training?

and maybe still under eating?

but since i didn't get any criticism over my diet, i assume it is good, just maybe lacking a few hundred calories
what type of food would you put them in as
meat? veggies? fruits? breads/grains/etc?

thanks

[Unholy]

Your diet looks good. If you are still having trouble putting on weight maybe bump up the cals by a few hundred a day and see how things go from there.
As far as weak points only you can tell. I know my shoulders and chest are weak. When you lift are there any exercises you avoid because you think your not doing well with them. For the first 4 months of my training i skipped almost every other shoulder workout because my shoulders sucked. Now I train my weak areas with as much intensity as I can and it has worked wonders.

As far as routine. A 2 day split is not ideal in my opinion. Doing legs/back on the same days is not the best way you could do it. Maybe try a 3 or 4 day split and see how you like it?

[Built]

:withstupi

Excellent advice from unholy.

[arcgremlin]

okay, is this good enough to work with?

Day 1

Squat
Leg Press
Leg Curl
Leg Extensions
Calf Raise
Incline Situps




Day 2

Dumbbell Bench Press
Dips
Shoulder Press
Incline Bench Press
Lateral Raise
Triceps Extension




Day 3

Deadlift
Power Cleans
Row
Stiff Leg Deadlift
Arm Curls
Crunches

[Unholy]

Drop the leg press and leg curls. Do SLDL's on leg day and Hack squats.

Other then that it looks pretty good. Oh I would add pull ups or lat pulldowns on back day.

[arcgremlin]

Okay I'll make those modifications, thank you so very much.

[Mr. D]

"I wouldnt do the HIIT before the leg training, do it AFTER. Warmup for squats by doing squats."

Why is that may I ask?
I just do the sprints for a bit to get my blood flowing and stuff.
Do you think it is impairing my workout?



Sprints are very taxing and your legs are probably shot after them. You then proceed to do squats and such, so your performance on those lifts will definitely suffer.

Excerpt from http://www.wannabebig.com/article.php?articleid=292
"If you must do it in the same session as your workout, do it right after, on a leg day. Although this may seem counterintuitive, HIIT is quite the leg workout. Doing HIIT on upper body days may compromise recovery since your legs will have less time to rest."


Drop the leg press and leg curls. Do SLDL's on leg day and Hack squats.

Other then that it looks pretty good. Oh I would add pull ups or lat pulldowns on back day.

I was going to suggest the same thing, move SLDL to leg day and drop the extensions and curls.

[cphafner]

I would lower the fats and up the carbs.

Why on earth are you taking 4g of taurine in the am, that is a ton of taurine.

[arcgremlin]

Sprints are very taxing and your legs are probably shot after them. You then proceed to do squats and such, so your performance on those lifts will definitely suffer.

Excerpt from http://www.wannabebig.com/article.php?articleid=292
"If you must do it in the same session as your workout, do it right after, on a leg day. Although this may seem counterintuitive, HIIT is quite the leg workout. Doing HIIT on upper body days may compromise recovery since your legs will have less time to rest."



I was going to suggest the same thing, move SLDL to leg day and drop the extensions and curls.

Okay, thankyou for this information. I actually didn't know what HIIT was before this thread, I've heard about it, but i had thought it meant jumping, just looked it all up and such, thanks.





I would lower the fats and up the carbs.

Why on earth are you taking 4g of taurine in the am, that is a ton of taurine.

Lower the fats by a lot? Up the carbs by a lot? I already kind of thought I ate a ton of carbs already. I guess not?

And I take taurine because I was getting massive cramps in my upper back and my calves after working out those areas, and then I read that some people who are on some of the body building drugs in the drug forum take taurine to get rid of cramps. So I bought some to try it out, and my cramps went away.

I stretch a lot, and I normally have a banana every day for potassium(i think lack of potassium can cause cramps?) hence why I jumped onto the taurine when I saw it mentioned.

Is that bad for me?

[Mr. D]

As for fats vs carbs, since you are definitely reaching your fats minimum, its basically what makes you feel better. Some people respond better to higher fats, lower carbs and some vice versa. Your fats are pretty high, but thats not neccessarily a bad thing at all.

You could try upping carbs, and lowering fat, and removing fat from your pre and post workout meals. See if that helps any.

[arcgremlin]

Hmm, I'll experiment with that after a few days on this new workout plan.
But I'll remove that olive oil from my pre-workout drink right now