Beginners thinking too complicated

Lol, I'm doing 8 pull-ups, feeling the pain in the muscles, yelling "This is Spar-Ta!" or smth else stupid and trying to do 2 more.... ext set I'm doing only 4-3.... cuz muscles just don't wanna work.. they send me to hell instead...

U know the best, my dutch friend ^_^!!

Let me put it like this: I used to have French at school and my grades were ok, but I didn't make much use of it for years. Should I now get right into reading Camus' "L'Étranger" or should I brush up my grammar and vocabulary first?

No doubt you would develop strength. But would the workouts be as effective? Right now your stabilizers may not be up for the job and you might get yourself a pretty good case of overtraining or even an injury.

Because of your previous experience you may be able to progress faster, but I'd nonetheless still start off at the beginning again with those good ole bodyweight exercises.

guys, I have an important question, I have been doing push ups, pull ups, chin ups, sit ups, crunches, bench presses, dumbbell curls, and tricep dips everyday. I'm 17 years old and I have been working out for maybe over a month idk, and I saw your teen workout vid and I was wondering if I should just stick to that 3 days a week or if i should keep doing my workout everyday plus the stuff i wasnt doing which was on the teen workout 3 days a week

Hi, people

I've been scanning everything Scooby has to say for 3 months now, so I suppose I've done my "rookie-internship-of-reading-all-posts-before-asking-a-yet-non-existing-question" and qualify for asking direct questions. this is going to be a long one, and I would really appreciate an answer, since I have a dilemma I can not resolve by myself.

I set off 3 months ago as a complete beginner with a set of dumbbells adding on the intermediate exercises, doing a regular bike cardio and doing push-ups. In the beginning, I was training everyday, since I was really thrilled about my everyday progress (I was quite skinny, so I was able to notice every little change). I had no opportunity of doing pull-ups, however.

So, as I said, I was noticing a lot of progress, started to add weight as I was getting stronger and improving my form, and started separating the exercises to a chest/triceps day and a back/biceps one, still working out every day. I was eating poorly (VERY low budget, and very, VERY little time, was managing to have one meal a day, and not until 10pm (yes, no breakfast)). So of course, I plateau. Now I started eating 6 little meals a day and I went back to the beginner's plan (introducing the negative chin-up strategy as well, since I can only do one chin-up, and a pretty lame one, too), combining it with the intermediate plan (MON - entire beginner's plan+chest+triceps; WED - entire beginner's plan + back + biceps; FRI - complete beginner's plan + shoulders + legs).

I do all the exercises with an excellent form, so I have learned to suppress the desire to do another push-up by cheating (making it easier), and rather drop on my knees and do some extra maintaining the good form until I really drop dead.

We come to my question:

Even though I was eating poorly and been overtraining, I was able to notice progress. Now that I have consulted Scoobysworkshop more thoroughly, I decide to thrust him for obvious reasons; so here's what it looks like now:

Push-ups:

1. set - 12 (2 sec down, 2 sec up) + 4-5 on my knees
60 sec rest
2. set - 7 + 4 on my knees
3. set - 6 + 3 on my knees

note: for some reason, I'm really hurting my fists and fingers, using a pair of boxing gloves for the time being to ease the injuries till I collect money for a pair of push-up stands. AND my body keeps shaking even on the first rep of the first set, I suppose that's normal...?

Chin-ups:

1. set - 1 + 5 negative ones (just installed a pull-up bar)
2. set - 6 negative chin - ups
3. set - 6 negative chin - ups

note: hard as hell, I force myself to do them for 2-3 seconds

For all the other exercises from the intermediate section, I use a weight varying between 10 lbs (for triceps isolated exercises) and 25 lbs (chest, biceps...) per hand.

So, the notification is - I've tryed just doing the beginner's plan for 2 weeks, and I've actually REgressed! that's why I reintegrated my regular intermediate exercises, while understanding that I need to fulfill the 30 push-ups/7 pull-ups-on-the-last-set rule if I want to trully advance to the next level.

Finally:

question 1: is it ok to combine the 2 of those?

question 2: I've been feeling much stronger doing the exercises every day, instead of having 4 whole days a week of doing only cardio (the rule of the beginner's, as well as the intermediate plan). Is it still a rule of thumb, or in case it's ok to make a fusion of intermediate and beginner's plan - should I have them around the whole week, having a day of intermediate, and then tomorrow going for beginner's exercises, without the "gaps"?

question 3: I don't feel like I'm really giving my best, doing just the beginner's plan, and e.g. my shoulders weaken rapidly, since they're really not that busy...in case you advise me to stick to the beginners plan and shut my blabber - is there a way I can maintain that beautiful feeling of "I worked really hard today" by increasing the number of sets per day? e.g. adding a 4th and 5th set of push-ups whilst maintaining the 60 sec rest rule? Or doing the whole beginner's routine twice a day on my work-out day? Or doing them every day of the week?

question 4: this could easily be the very reason of my dissatisfaction - sometimes I make really long pauses between different exercises, e.g. I finish the chest, and then have a 5-15 minutes pause before moving on to the triceps. I've never found any rule on the duration on resting time between single exercises, should I lessen it? I mean, I take my time for a whole intermediate work-out, and I still feel as I've really worked hard, but I don't know, you do, and that's why I ask - should I shorten my resting time in order to be positive about giving 110% even if it will lessen my efficiency (in terms of reps on each set) on the following exercises of other muscle groups?

thanks for reading, I would appreciate any answer, but I'm really looking forward to an answer from someone who has passed the zero phase and made it safely to the next one.

greets

I think it would be great if the beginner teen workout was accessible from the main webpage.  I came across this only after a lot of searching.  I liked the teen workout for my son, but as I'm sure you've noticed with others, he's not ready for some of the exercises in the teen workout, and this workout is a better start for him.

Thanks.