Is this a good workout

you should do at least 4 sets of 8 reps but yeah that's pretty good but you should be increasing the weight as the reps get lower

 

That's a pretty limited workout as is- you aren't getting your legs, back, or abs at all during lifting. What kind of stuff is in your gym? Also, what are your fitness goals? That can help to determine how many reps you should be doing.

 

for that goal i would say 6 days a week exercising, 3 lifting days and 3 cardio days. Cut out almost all carbs except from oatmeal(or similar), fruits & vegs and eat a high amount of protien including whey powder.

A set is a set of X number of repetitions without break, A repetition is one movement. One pushup would be an example of a repitition, so 4 sets of 8 reps would be doing, 8 pushups 4 times

 

no offense but this isnt very good advice although you should definitely listen to your body and no you dont want your body to adapt otherwise youll just level out.

its called muscle confusion and if your really serious about getting ripped you should map out your goals and what you do. Instead of just doing whatever you feel like set goals and increase your weight every week, instead of having a set week schedule you repeat have 3-4 and switch them up alot. Switch up your workouts alot and always make sure your increasing your weight and pushing your self. If your not sore your not pushing yourself enough (most of the time)

Yes sets and reps matter like i said at least 4 sets of 8 reps, you can switch your rep range anywhere from ~6 - ~12 but the lower the rep the higher the weight.

Finally its fine to work out 6 days a week, if your young your body heals fast and can take it.

 

try a high intensity workout. google menshealth HIT. to sum it all up you perform one lifting exercise IMMEDIATELY after the other, so its going to be extremely hard hence the name high intensity but if you choose to do it the standard way like you described, with breaks in between like everyone nowadays go for it. But know its not going to give you the results that HIT will. Man up and do HIT!

 

Always alternate your lifting and your cardio by every other day. As for lifting, if your going for endurance, do a reasonable weight for yourself with about 3 sets of 15-20 reps (or once you feel a burn, do three reps following that). If your going for strength, I suggest take the weight you feel comfortable with, divide it by 2 and add it to the weight you felt comfortable with. Do 3 sets of 5-10 reps, once again, once you feel the burn, do three reps after that. If you arn't feeling a burn within those amount of reps I suggest increasing/ decreasing your weight. Also, DON'T FORGET TO BREATHE! As for cardio, I would slowly build up your pace/ amount of time running every week. For example, run at XX mph for XX time for one week, then next week up the pace, just make sure you can handle it.
Good luck!

 

1. Make sure you keep up your diet. Since you already managed to lose 25 pounds, it sounds like you know what you are doing. Keep trying to eat foods that you consider healthy in a caloric deficit (eating fewer calories than you use).
2. Since your goal is primarily to lose fat (a lot of definition will come just from losing fat), your lifting routine should focus on sparing muscle loss. Cardio and eating in a caloric deficit can make you lose muscle mass, which reduces your base metabolic rate (calories you burn in a day) and makes it harder to lose fat.
3. To this end, it is helpful to lift heavy weight for a small number of repetitions. Make sure you are warmed up first! Between 3 and 6 repetitions of an exercise is right around ideal. Try to do between 2 and 5 sets of any exercise that you do. Try to keep your total number of sets for a workout below 15 and your overall workout time below 45 minutes. Take between 90-180 seconds to recover. Again, these are all things that help to preserve muscle mass while dieting down.
4. Do not lift to failure. For example, on the bench press machine, instead of stopping when you can't push the weight off your chest, stop when you have a couple of reps left in you. Specifically, you should stop your set when the speed of the weight slows down (i.e you can't push it fast enough to match the speed you had on your previous rep). By doing this, you will be MUCH less sore, recover very fast, and have enough energy to get through cardio/dieting.
5. Try to start working toward a one-legged squat. This is a great article on how to get better at it, starting from zero:
Beast Skills - Tutorials
6. The workout scheme I described is specific to your current goals. It will not build a ton of muscle mass (especially in a caloric deficit), but it will increase muscle density significantly if you do it right. What I mean by that is that your muscles will feel much harder. In addition, you can build massive amounts of strength this way without gaining much size.
7. Try to record each workout you do so you can track your progress.

When you say a multi-purpose machine, are you by any chance referring to a cable machine? Does it have various handles that you can attach? Does the end that you pull raise/lower? Are there two handles? You can do a lot with one of those if it's what I'm thinking of.


In response to some of the other posts:
I agree that workouts need to be changed occasionally, but they still should be recorded to track progress (or lack thereof). In addition, I've found that I always make more progress in performance from doing a workout consistently. That's just me personally though. I like to stick to four core lifts (squats, deadlifts, weighted chinups, bench press) as the basis of my workouts and play around more with the accessory lifts. While you do have to pay attention to how you feel on a certain day, it's good to go into the gym with a plan for what you want to get done. Basically what I'm advising is that the OP change up with workouts every couple months, but not every time he's in the gym.

HIT isn't a bad idea, but OP doesn't have much room/equipment to play around with in his gym. A couple of HIT/circuit workouts a week might do some good though.
How heavy do the dumbbells go?

 

I bet they do. Like I said before, the main reason to count reps and sets is to track one's progress in terms of performance. That way, training sessions are a path toward a specific performance goal. Aesthetic goals very often track performance goals (i.e you run an extra 5 minutes a day for a week- the week after you might find you have lost some fat).

 

Follow the exact opposite of this and ull be fine

 

Where are you getting this information about them having no established workout routine? I'm sure they have to push themselves each and every workout to get the crazy results that they do. In order to do that they must have some idea in their heads of how many pullups or pistol squats they can do. They're just limited in their selection of equipment, in a manner similar to the OP. That doesn't mean that they don't plan anything out at all.
[ame=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3349130914020546418]Powerlifting in Prison[/ame]


You think those guys got to squatting 5 plates and benching 415 without focusing on those powerlifts?

 

Because then you may be more inclined to tap out early.

Example:
You dont feel like working out today, but you know you need to so you do anyway. You know you need to do 4 sets of 8 reps each, and since you KNOW that you push yourself to do so. On the other hand you have no idea how much you need to do, so you start working out, your not into it because you didnt want to in the first place and you tap out early.

That was a simple example, and to be honest it shouldnt matter much if youre fully dedicated. Consider this though: in general as humans its smart to record what you do, and compare them to results. If we had never wrote down, or recorded what weve done then in the end we have no idea as to why we got certain results... so im sorry man, your advice isnt the best. Would it work out? probably. is it as bad as some people made it out to be? no. Are there better ways to work out? undoubtedly.

Simple as that man, dont need to take things so personally. (the irony of this statement is people seem to take it personally )

 

Unless you are an extremely advanced lifter, which im 99% sure descries nobody in this forum, you simply don't know your body well enough to lift in a way that will best cause progress. Although nobody has presented any factual info or statistics against your case, it would be pretty unnecessary since your argument is purely based on anecdotal evidence and personal experience.

How could u possibly know anything about the jacked people who work out in jail? In all likelihood, the biggest people in jail are the people who do best to follow a routine and track their progress, and u dont have any way to prove that I'm wrong since its completely hypothetical

As far as your personal experience goes, I'm at best skeptical. Good for you for continuing gaining experience at the best rate after 10 years of lifting. However, that statement in itself shows that you probably don't have much knowledge on lifting as you seem to show a misunderstanding of its basic principles.

A lifter is ranked as either beginner, intermediate, advanced, or elite based on quickly they can progress. Notice that this has nothing to do with overall weight but instead takes in to account one's genetic potential. So saying that you are making better progress after 10 years of lifting than you did in your first year shows that you havent even been able to break through beginner lifts in the entire 10 years you have been lifting.

And I dont understand how u think that a program could be fitting for a bodybuilder and not a person trying to get fit? Why would someone trying to get fit want to go through less efficient methods? Just because they might not want to look like ronnie coleman doesn't mean that they shouldnt use the quickest method possible to reach their goals...

Maybe you should read up on Rippetoes starting strength, start hittin PR's every day