I haven’t posted the program of exercises that I follow. I started a somewhat changed program this week, but it’s pretty similar to the previous one because it’s built on the big basic, compound exercises. According to the hard gainer philosophy, I should only be weight lifting once or twice a week, but have broken the work outs apart due to time. There’s no way I could squeeze in aerobic or ab work on the same day as lifting. Without having breaks during the week, I may have problems due to over training but there isn’t too much repetition of the major exercises.

Most consist of one warm up set followed by two work sets. When I am eventually moving more weight, I’ll need to add additional warm-up sets. In McRobert’s scheme, most exercises are done 2×8, except squats and deadlifts which are up to 2×20.

McRobert does not consider a number of exercises as useful, such as leg extensions, because the muscles are worked in other ways by the compounds. He also discounts other exercises as risky, e.g., behind the neck presses or pulldowns. He also prescribes such variations as shoulder-width, supinated (palm-facing body) pulldowns instead of the wide-grip pronated version. He’s conservative due to the potential for injuries.

The goal with the program is building strength, particularly back, so if for no other reason, squats, deadlifts, side bends, jumping, etc. are in there.

Comments:

where have you been mister????

All of this exercise talk... I'm just not in the loop. But now, I'm going to have to start somekind of program. Probably walking.

where have ya been???

so are you getting all buff now? I would love to get back to lifting weights, sounds similar to what you are doing now. keep us posted on how it is helping you with the osteo.

squats KILL my knees... sounds good otherwise!