Need help with improving my workout routine and diet

[shadow goat]

I am currently 17 (almost 18) and moving away from home for Uni in less than a week. At the moment I live in a small town without a gym so I only have access to a weight bench in my garage, dumbbells, a barbell and different sized weight plates totaling 140KG. As I am about to start Uni I will have access to the gym at the school and so I was intending to get more serious about lifting and improving my general health, and to do so I was looking to improve my current routine and diet, which is what I need help with.

I am currently overweight and weigh about 110KG, and am 187cm tall. I have some muscle from lifting over the last year or so, but not a lot since I haven't had any sort of a routine until recently. My diet hasn't been very healthy either but I am looking to change this as I will have a lot more control over the food I eat once I have moved out of home.

My main goal for this year is to be able to bench 100KG. Any advice on whether or not this goal is set too high or too low to achieve by the end of this year would be appreciated.

I can currently bench 88.5KG and deadlift 140KG (could deadlift more but I don't have any more weight plates).

My workout routine for the past month has been like this:
Monday (exercise, setsxreps)
Shoulder barbell presses 3x6
Barbell upright row 3x6
Dumbbell side lateral raises 3x6

Tuesday
Barbell curls with wider grip 3x6
Barbell curls with closer grip 3x6
Barbell curls with normal grip 3x6
Grip squeeze things 3 sets of however many I can

Wednesday off

Thursday
Incline bench press 3x5
Flat bench press 3x5
Decline bench press 3x5

Friday
Deadlift 3x5
Bent over rows 3x6

Saturday and Sunday off

I know that there are probably a bunch of problems with this routine (I just made it up mainly from friends advice/experience), which is why I am asking for help. Now that I am going to have access to a full gym I was hoping for advice on what I should change about it (such as different exercises, different numbers of sets and reps etc.).

Since I will have more control over my diet I am looking for suggestions of cheapish meals that would be good for getting stronger. Losing some weight would be good but I don't really mind too much if I keep about the same amount of fat. I am thinking that I should be able to afford to buy protein powder but I was wondering how negatively it would effect my progress if I was unable to afford it for a couple of weeks. I was thinking of making some of the bars that were linked to in a thread here for morning and afternoon tea, but unsure of the other meals.

Thanks for any help at all and if you need any more details on anything please ask.

 

[Kniteman77]

Your weight routine is very heavily concentrated on two areas, pecks and biceps, also with on your shoulders and upper back, although it would appear with slightly less emphasis.

Two things your workout is missing or severely deficient in, lower body and core body. I'm going to just take a minute here to outline a couple points, all of this is IMHO and IANAL and all the other disclaimers you can put on it too. Now while I may not be a lawyer, I am a locksmith . . . so here goes.

Ditch the bicep workout. Biceps are more or less a useless muscle to focus on, in terms of building actual strength biceps get you nowhere. Now that's not to say you shouldn't work the muscle, but it's a muscle group you will use in many other lifts for stabilizing and so on and by no means needs to be targeted at all. Some people may disagree with me, but I've played American football, trained as a boxer, and rock climb as a hobby and in none of these situations did doing a single dumbbell curl help me out at all. Other lifts were more than enough to get me by in terms of bicep strength. If you want to show off, do bicep curls. If you want to build strength, forget about it.

The second point, start doing far more exercises that work your whole body!!!! Having an inclined bench, or a declined bench here and there is great, but why not do dips? In that situation you're directly working your Pecks, Triceps, Upper Back and Shoulders, while your Abs, lower back and Legs have to stabilize your lower body. The same thing goes for pull-ups as well. Dead lifts are good for this as well as the bent over rows. Look into learning how to do Power Cleans as well, by far and beyond my favorite lift you work more or less every muscle in your whole body in some way or another. Either way, don't short yourself man, get some lower body strength building in there. Squats as well are essential. Both of these exercises require incredibly good form to do properly and get the full benefit from and in the case of power cleans, I've seen people snap their forearms in half due to bad form. Don't be afraid to take it slow and look like the weak guy just to get the form right, It will pay for itself tenfold later.

Which brings me to another point, never use a machine for something you can do with free weights. By using the machine you're robbing your body of the opportunity to do more work by using all those other muscles to stabilize the weight you're lifting. This is how your hip flexors, abs, lower back, and countless other muscles get a good workout.

Other than that . . . I guess the final point is more of a mental thing.

Don't lie to yourself, life is all about habit. Lying to others, while morally gray at times (or outright black), at least serves a purpose. Lying to yourself is just folly. You're not going to have any more or less control over what you eat when you move out than you do now. Monetary constraints, possibly, different options, probably . . . but don't sell yourself short man. Unless you make a conscious mental effort, nothing will change. Know what you want, know what you need to do to get it, and start building the habits that get you towards your goal one step at a time. And I don't mean for this to sound preachy or anything, because I'm guilty of lying to myself all the time. Just food for thought.

Questions/Comments/Clarifications I'm all ears.

EDIT : Oh and as for the dietary concerns, protein is always good. The consensus seems to be about 1g per LB of body weight per day. Diets can vary widely from person to person.

EDIT 2 : Always Always ALWAYS put the form of a lift before the amount of weight you're lifting. Always. Not only is one good lift worth far more than a bad one could possibly be, but it will keep you from injuring yourself.

 

[shadow goat]

Thanks for the advice Kniteman.

One question I have is about the 1g of protein per LB of body weight. Is the amount of protein that I should be having each day effected by the amount of fat I have? What I mean is that if I put on 5LBs of fat but no more muscle, should I increase the amount of protein I have each day by 5g's or not?

 

[KoolDrew]

Originally posted by: shadow goat
Thanks for the advice Kniteman.

One question I have is about the 1g of protein per LB of body weight. Is the amount of protein that I should be having each day effected by the amount of fat I have? What I mean is that if I put on 5LBs of fat but no more muscle, should I increase the amount of protein I have each day by 5g's or not?

No. The 1g per pound figure is based off of LBM, or lean body mass. In other words, you're whole body's weight minus your fat. So say you're 225 pounds at 8% bodyfat, you'd want to get AT LEAST 207g of protein (225 x 0.92).

It obviously doesn't have to be exact, but it's a good number to shoot for.