24/M ~175# I work out on odd days, no exceptions, and alternate A-day and B-day. Even days are rest days.
I lift after work, which due to my job is about midnight. Each workout takes about 2 hours but I'm certainly in no rush. Since the gym is dead at this time anyways I don't feel I need to; I can take my time and be careful to watch my form, and I can take adequate rests between sets without feeling guilty for tying up equipment. It's very zen, and I enjoy it all around.
Sticking to odd days has really made it easier for me to stick with it and hold myself responsible so I don't get lazy, skip a few days, and fall off the wagon completely; this had happened a couple times before when my workout days were more arbitrary. This does indeed mean that I end up working out on the 31st of one month, and the 1st of the next. It's not a big deal.
Currently I've been working out consistently since 09 March, and have noticed a decent amount of progress in the past two months. Most importantly to me though, is that I've stuck to it and now actively look forward to gym days. Primarily my goals at the moment are to just get strong. I don't really care about looking lean, so I plan on moderately bulking all throughout the summer and likely the winter as well. However I am monitoring my body fat percentage and will go on a cut if it gets too high in the meantime. I recognize that higher body fat is linked to health risks and will mitigate that when it gets high enough.
I do one upper body and one lower body warm-up per day, and all working sets (with the exception of deadlift) are my 5RM. I rest at least two minutes between working sets, but for deadlift and farmers walk it's closer to 3 or 4 minutes.
If I complete the full 5 sets of 5 of my 5RM, then the next time I do that exercise I increase the weight. For example, on 5/11 I achieved 95# 5x5 on my OHP, so on 5/15 I upped the weight to 100# and my sets ended up like this:
100x5 100x5 100x5 100x1 100x2
I'll keep working at 100x5 until I can complete the full 5 sets, then I'll increase to 105x5. I used to increase the weight each set, but since I've kept the weight consistent throughout I've noticed better strength progress.
My routine itself currently looks like this:
A-day
Bench Press Warm-up 5x5
Pull Up (assisted) 5x5
Dip (weighted) 5x5
Back Squat Warm-up 5x5
Barbell Curl 5x5
Chest Flies (machine) 5x5
Chest Press (machine) 5x5
B-day
Leg Press (machine) (this used to be Front Squat, but [Doctor verified] shitty hip anatomy lead to a very low plateau compared to back squat) Warm-up 5x5
Pendlay Row Warm-up 5x5
Overhead Press 5x5
Deadlift 80% 5RM x5 90% 5RM x5 5RM x5
Chin Up (assisted) added 21 April 3x5
Farmers Walk 5x1 lap around free-weight area
My main questions I suppose would be, is this balanced? Am I neglecting anything in particular? Is this roughly an okay routine? It's working for me so far, and I'm still making progress on every exercise in both strength and muscle size. Is this rate of progress slow/average?
For reference this is my progress so far
03/09 est 1RM Back Squat: 100# Dip: 52.5# (assisted) Pull-up: 52.5# (assisted) Bench: 140# Deadlift: 152.5# Front Squat: 100# OHP: 87.5# Pendlay Row: 122.5#
04/09 est 1RM Back Squat: 140# Dip: 40# (assisted) Pull-up: 40# (assisted) Bench: 152.5# Deadlift: 180# Front Squat: 142.5# OHP: 95# Pendlay Row: 135#
05/09 est 1RM Chin-up: 15# (weighted) Back Squat: 167.5# Dip: 57.5# (weighted) Pull-up: bodyweight Bench: 167.5# Deadlift: 270# Leg Press: 180# OHP: 110# Pendlay Row: 145#
I've made the most progress in the past few weeks when I calculated my TDEE and was barely eating at maintenance, now I aim for at least 400kcal extra per day while getting at least my minimum fat and protein requirements. If I go over, that's fine; I noticed the days I eat up to 750kcal extra are generally the days I set new PR's, but it's hard for me to eat that much consistently.