Rangers,
Sorry to hear you are all getting so terribly old and frail :)
I am a few weeks from sitting for my personal trainer certification with the American Council on Exercise (ACE). I currently lift on a 4 day split focusing exclusively on strength gains, my routine looks like this:
Day 1: Chest/Biceps/Forearms/Abs
Dumbbell Flat Bench
Dumbbell Floor Press
Cable Cross-Overs
Weighted Push-ups (Bringing my IBA to the gym and shoving 10lb plates into the SAPI plate holders)
Incline Bench Alternating Dumbbell Curls
Standing Dumbbell Hammer Curls
One-arm dumbbell curls on the preacher bench
Standing ez-bar drag curls
Standing barbell forearm extensions
Seated barbell forearm curls
Weighted decline crunches
Incline leg raises
30 min. on the elliptical
Day 2: Quadriceps/Shoulders
Barbell squat
Bulgarian (one leg) lunges
Cable step-ups
Machine hack squats
Standing Arnold Press
Barbell shrugs
Barbell upright rows
Bent-over dumbbell flys
30 min. on the elliptical
Day 3: Back/Triceps/Forearms/Abs
Straight-leg deadlifts
Chin-ups
Seated cable rows
One-arm bent-over dumbbell rows
Close-grip bench press
Dips
One-arm cable pressdowns
Overhead dumbbell tricep press
Standing barbell forearm extensions
Seated barbell forearm curls
Weighted decline crunches
Incline leg raises
30 min. on the elliptical
Day 4: Hamstring/Calves
Machine hamstring curls
Lying machine hamstring curls
Glute-ham raises
Cable hamstring curls
Standing barbell calve raises
Seated calve raises
Donkey calve raises
30 min. on the elliptical
Day 5: Off or start again at day 1
I employ morning cardio; either an endurance run, 30/60s, or sprints incorporated into a pyramid workout. After the run or 30/60s, I do calisthenics as well. I lift after work/class in the late afternoon/early evening. I find 5 sets of 5 reps each really helps my strength more than 1 or 2 sets of 8-12 reps. Obviously I wouldn't recommend you guys jump right into this, but I find the heavy volume of exercises (4 per muscle group or 20 sets) combined with a lean diet really shocks the body into rebuilding only lean muscle for pure strength gains. I've gained some muscle but obviously not as much if I lifted a more traditional 2-3 sets of 8-12 reps for mass. I've been following this since I got back from OSUT this past winter and have packed on about 30lbs of lean muscle mass. I supplement with a multi-vitamin, calcium, creatine, and some whey protein before and after weight lifting, eating 6 times throughout the day including the 2 protein shakes. A typical day looks like this for me, food wise:
Meal 1: 5 egg whites, 1 egg yolk, multi-vitamin, calcium
Meal 2: Can of white tuna or white chicken breast with some natural peanut butter
Meal 3: whey protein shake or white chicken breast (preworkout)
Meal 4: whey protein shake (post workout)
Meal 5: ground sirloin or white chicken breast with brown rice or baked potato
Meal 6: whey protein shake or white chicken breast or natural peanut butter (right before bed, consume only health fats like peanut butter or protein before bed, will cause protein synthesis instead of conversion to body fat as a heavy carb meal would)
this is about 1500-2000 calories a day, with about 100g fat, 200-250g protein and 50-100g of carbs a day. To really pack on the muscle this diet would simply be doubled.
These are my big three currently:
Flat barbell bench: 325lbs
Barbell squat: 415lbs
Straight-legged Deadlift: 335lbs
Obviously not the strongest joe on the planet, but considering before I started this, I'd never squatted or deadlifted before, it's going well.
I really love this site for showing folks how to do exercises, videos for almost every exercise in existence, including all the ones I list above:
http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html
