critique, comment, tip my workout method

[Qigong]

ive recently started goin to the gym, but before i would do pushups and crunches and just do those exercises for a while to sort of get myself into workin out...at the gym, i have a routine that i try to change due to muscle injury, tightness, fatigue or just plain boredom....tell me what u think of this schedule and please leave some feedback...thanx:

(Mon, Thurs)

Legs/Abs:

10 minute Running(treadmill mostly, sometimes outside)
10 minute Exercycle
Hamstring Pullbacks
Quad Extensions
Hip Abduction
Medicine Ball Crunches
Penguins
Leg Lifts
Twisting Crunches

(stretching all my leg muscles before the workout is also a routine)

(Tuesday, Friday)

Chest/Triceps/Shoulders:

Running for 5 minutes
Pushups on Exercise Ball
Flyes on exercise ball
Dumbbell Press on exercise ball
Seated Flye Machine
Shrugs
Dips
Bentover Tricep Kickbacks

(Weds, Sat)

Back/Biceps/Abs/Forearms

Palm down curls(4arms)
Palm up curls(4arms)
Twisting w/ dumbbell(4 arms)
Pull-Ups
Rowing Machine
Preacher Curl
Reverse Situp
Lat Pulldown
Medicine Ball Crunches
Penguins
Leg Lifts
Twisting Crunches


thats a basic description of my workout, somtimes i do different things depending on how i feel...at home i also use the heavybag and shadow box as well as jump rope.....i am not aiming to get big, but more lean, strong, and cut like Bruce Lee....cuz my stature is more lean than big, like his....im 5'6" and weigh about 125-130.....lemme know some good workouts to get me to my goal please? thanx fer the help...

[CD Lee]

Overall, looks like a few too many excersices to me. However, you may really like spending time in the gym so I am not going to be absolute about it.

One huge thing you left out for proper analysis by poeple. How many sets are you performing per excersice? How heavy is the weight, your rep scheme? Do you go to failure every set?

Ok to the good stuff. Just initially:

1. It looks like you are using too many isolation movements. Not all, just seems like it.

2. On your back/arm day: You are pre-exhausting your bicecpts with two rounds of curls before you even get to the big back excersice, pullups. I would do pullups before any isolated arm movements. After doing pullups, why would you do lat pulldowns later, after the rows? Pullups should have worked this same muscle group already.

3. On arm day, you are doing six-seven different excersices that hit your bicepts. If you do even 2 sets of those excersices, you just did 14 sets using your bicepts, not to mention you pre-isolated them before the compound movement, where they are the weak link.

My suggestion is a program that uses more compound movements using more muscle groups, and cut the excersices in half at least. This will build much more core stength, and take less than half the time. For fuctional strength, do functional movements. When is the last time you picked up an object using the technique used to perform a preacher curl? Just some thoughts.

Stick with it, this is way better than sitting around. Even if you stay with this, make sure you don't overtrain with this routine. You are going to have to keep the weights light and sets few to make this one work for more than a few months.

[fa_jing]

As CD Lee said, you need to base your routine around the big compound movements. Furthermore you should choose the movements that allow you to lift the most weight at a given time. For this reason doing work on the exercise ball is better saved for the end of a workout. And do not start the workout with isolation movements.

You need to warmup properly, then hit your big exercise for the day.

Workout 1: Flat Bench press or Military press

Workout 2: Squat or Deadlift

Workout 3: Pullups or heavy Bent-over rows with good form

Then put all the other stuff (well the stuff that you decide to keep) afterwards.

My advice is not to train to failure - instead stop a couple reps short of failure, wait a few minutes, then do another set. You don't have to go to failure at any point to make gains - in fact it will interfere with your ability to recover. Good Luck! BTW there are alot of lifting sports that include your weight class.

[Cheese Dog]

CDLee and Fa-jing are both right. Drop all the isolation stuff and just work compound lifts.

Military press, bench press, bent rows and pullups for the upper body.
Squats, deadlifts, and straight leg deadlifts for the lower body.

Later on if you feel you need exercises for the smaller muscles, add a couple at the end of your workouts.

[abobo]

A common newbie mistake is to want to do every exercise under the sun. Quality means more than quantity, though.

[Qigong]

yo thanx for all the help wit everything....i also think im doing too much exercises....i want a schedule that works everything in a short time...but i might start body weight training instead of power training....but ill make a new schedule and ill post it, and u guys could lemme kno whats up wit that too ite? thanx everyone....this site is great...