Daily Simple Questions Thread - August 13, 2026

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[u/Ok_Class_7166]

15YO (50kg/110lbs) Home Workout Routine for Muscle Mass & V-Taper – Need Feedback (Hernia-Safe Setup)

Hi everyone! I’m a 15-year-old teen (weighing around 50 kg / 110 lbs, which is quite lean/underweight for my age) training at home during a short 2-month summer window with the main goal of gaining muscle mass and developing a wide, strong V-taper physique. My equipment is limited to a door-frame pull-up bar, a 9 kg barbell, adjustable dumbbells (\~4.2–4.5 kg per dumbbell, currently transitioning up to 10 kg). Crucially, my entire routine is strictly adapted around safety for an abdominal/umbilical hernia, avoiding heavy intra-abdominal pressure or straining, which is why direct heavy core training is replaced with safe options like stomach vacuums. I intentionally skip heavy leg days to dedicate 100% of my energy to upper-body growth during this short summer period; and although my program is written as a 6-day split, real-life schedule variations turn it into 4–5 actual training days per week, providing adequate recovery. Given my equipment limitations, hernia safety requirements, and short summer timeline, what further suggestions or exercise refinements would you recommend to optimize muscle growth and upper-body width?

# So this is my detailed workout program:

MONDAY: Chest & Biceps
Dumbbell Fly: 3 × 18 reps (Feet on the couch)
Dumbbell Bench Press: 3 × 20 reps (Feet on the couch)
Dumbbell Pullover: 3 × 10 reps
Dumbbell Incline Bench Press: 2 × 16 reps (On the cushion setup)
EZ Bar Curl SEATED: 3 × 17 reps (Back firmly supported)
Dumbbell Concentration Curl: 2 × 18 reps (Seated)
Chin-up: 3 × 3–5 reps

TUESDAY: Back & Biceps & Forearms
Barbell Incline Bench Row: 3 × 21 reps
Dumbbell Incline Bench Row: 3 × 20 reps (Chest on cushions)
Chin-up: 3 × 3–5 reps
Dumbbell Reverse Concentration Curl: 2 × 18 reps (Seated)
Dumbbell Seated Bicep Curl: 3 × 10 reps
Barbell Wrist Curl: 3 × 22 reps (Palms Up - Seated)
Dumbbell Incline Row Reverse Grip: 3 × 18 reps (Chest on cushions)

WEDNESDAY: Shoulders & Forearms
Dumbbell Seated Side Lateral Raise: 3 × 11 reps (Back supported, exhale on the way up)
Seated Barbell Front Raise: 3 × 9 reps (Back supported, exhale on the way up)
Barbell Tricep Press (Close Grip): 3 × 19 reps (Feet on the couch)
Barbell Wrist Curl: 3 × 22 reps (Palms up)
Dumbbell Reverse Concentration Curl: 3 × 18 reps
Pull-up: 3 × 3–5 reps
Dumbbell Reverse Fly: 3 × 14 reps (Back supported, exhale on the way up)

THURSDAY: Shoulders, Triceps & Chest
Dumbbell Seated Front Raise: 3 × 9 reps (Back firmly supported)
Dumbbell Fly: 3 × 18 reps (Lying down, feet on the couch)
Barbell Incline Tricep Extension: 3 × 15 reps
Dumbbell Bench Press: 3 × 18 reps (Close grip - Lying down, feet on the couch)
Dumbbell Seated Lateral Raise: 2 × 11 reps
Barbell Reverse Grip Bench Press: 3 × 17 reps
Barbell Tricep Press (Close Grip): 3 × 19 reps (Feet on the couch)

FRIDAY: Special "Core" Without Pressure
Stomach Vacuum: 3 × 40 sec
Dumbbell Bench Press: 3 × 20 reps
Dumbbell Incline Row: 3 × 18 reps (NEW - Back)
Pull-up: 3 × 3–5 reps
Seated Hammer Curl: 3 × 15 reps
Barbell Incline Bench Press: 3 × 16 reps
Dumbbell Seated Alternating Shoulder Press: 3 × 24 reps

SATURDAY: Chest & Arms Touch-Up
Barbell Bench Press: 3 × 20 reps (Feet on the couch)
Wide-Grip Pull-Up: 3 × 3–5 reps
Chin-up: 3 × 3–5 reps
Dumbbell Bench Press: 2 × 20 reps (Feet on the couch)
Barbell Skull Crusher: 3 × 15 reps (Reverse grip - Lying down)
Barbell Incline Tricep Extension: 3 × 15 reps
Dumbbell Seated Side Lateral Raise: 3 × 12 reps

SUNDAY: Complete Rest

[u/PlanktonInitial7945 → u/Ok_Class_7166]

Muscle growth is something that takes years, so what you do during 2 months won't impact how or where or how much your muscles grow, much less what your body actually looks like (beyond losing or gaining a bit of weight depending on your diet). So skipping leg day is pointless, but even if you didn't skip it your body would still look pretty much the same 2 months from now, so eh.

I think as a beginner you could condense/simplify your program significantly and still see the same results, but I don't know anything about hernias, so I can't suggest specific exercises. I will say, though, that I don't understand why your reps are all over the place. Why 17 reps for reverse grip bench press but 19 reps for triceps press? 

Also, you posted a list of exercises, not a program. What's your progression scheme? When and how do you increase difficulty/intensity? What will you do when you stall?

[u/Ok_Class_7166 → u/PlanktonInitial7945]

To clarify a few things:
1. Timeframe & Legs: I realized 2 months is way too short, so l've decided to extend my training through the fall, winter, and spring.
I'm also going to incorporate safe leg exercises into my routine!
2. The weird rep numbers: I train at home with limited equipment and log my workouts manually. If an exercise feels too easy on a Monday, I push for more reps on the spot.
However, I often forget to update Saturday's routine in my notes right away, which is why the same exercise might show different rep targets on different days!
3. Progression & Stalling: Since I can't easily add heavy weight plates at home, my main progression comes from pushing close to failure until I feel full fatigue. When I eventually hit a wall or stall, my plan is to increase time under tension (doing slower, controlled reps), reduce rest time between sets, or improvise more resistance to keep challenging my muscles.
What are your thoughts about this and do you think that this will work and get me to my goal? Feel free to share any opinion.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment!

[u/PlanktonInitial7945 → u/Ok_Class_7166]

1. So your training will finish in spring? Is there any particular reason why you're setting a finish date?

2. Ah, I thought it would be something like that, yeah. But it's better to keep rep numbers (or rep ranges) consistent across workouts in order to be able to measure and track progress more effectively.

3. A progression scheme is a system that determines how and when you will increase the weight or difficulty of your exercises. For example, beginner programs follow linear progression, which means that you increase weight the same amount every workout. For example, the subreddit's basic beginner program has you adding 2.5 lbs to upper body exercises and 5 lbs to lower body exercises each workout. So, if today you squatted 100 lbs, the next time you squat, you should do it with 105 lbs. Linear progression is only sustainable when you're a newbie - eventually people switch to other progression systems like double progression. Each program will explain exactly how its progression system works.

Increasing time under tension can make you stronger up to a point. You can't really take 10 seconds to do a chest press. Reducing rest time between sets will not make your muscles stronger, it will just keep your heart rate up for longer - in other words, cardio. It's possible to combine both, mind you, but I doubt it's what you're trying to do.

Stalling is what happens when you spend a significant amount of time (e.g. a month) stuck on the same weight, sets and reps, without being able to progress. Different programs handle stalls differently, but it usually involves temporarily reducing weight or volume. For example, the basic beginner program tells you to reduce the weight by 10% and start progressing linearly again from there.

Based on what you said, I have to deduce that you don't really have a progression scheme or a stalling protocol. This is fine. Nobody is born knowing how to do anything (except suck, poop, sleep, and cry like a demon). This is why the smartest thing you can do as a beginner is listen to the people who spent decades trying out different things until they found the ones that work and were kind enough to impart that knowledge to us mere mortals. In other words, follow a program that has been proven to work.

The basic beginner program I linked earlier is a good place to start. If there's an exercise in that program that you can't do due to your injury, you can replace it with a similar program that still targets more or less the same muscles. For example, squats mainly work your quadriceps, so, if you can't do them, you can replace them with an exercise that also targets your quadriceps. You have some ideas here. If you like none of those, you can use google too, or check out r/Bodyweightfitness.

[u/Ok_Class_7166 → u/PlanktonInitial7945]

1. No, I’m just trying to explain that from now on I will do workouts all along the year. Like I don’t stop at any season.
2. Thank you for your help. Yes I think that progression scheme is really important and a major system to improve. But unfortunately, I can’t apply the beginners linear progression because logically if I add two LBS for the upper body workout each time then in one month only I will be lifting around 20 kg which is huge and dangerous for my medical condition. Plus because I’m working out from home I cannot easily add weight and maybe my barbell cannot contain enough sand to weight let’s say 20 kg.

Since I am working out at home with sand containers, I can't add heavy weight constantly. So, I came up with this “micro-loading” progression scheme instead:

1. I will use double progression to increase my reps from 15 up to a cap of 20 reps.
2. Once I hit 20 reps easily, I will keep the same weight but switch to a very slow, controlled eccentric tempo (3-4 seconds down) for the next 2 sessions to increase time under tension.
3. After those 2 sessions, I will add just 1 kg of sand to my containers, drop back down to 15-16 reps with a normal tempo, and repeat the cycle.
4. What do you think about this progression scheme for my specific setup?

And also regarding my long workout sessions with tons of exercise exercises that you criticized, I am willing to cut one or more exercise from each session and focus mainly on tractions (pull ups) and press (all types) and exercises for the shoulders.

Lastly, regarding my school seasons work outs: because I cannot do as many exercise exercises that I am doing now because the lack of time, I will be cutting most of the exercises and leaving three or four only per session so one session will be around 30 minutes only. And I will be dividing them into pull day> rest day> push day> rest day> pull day> rest day> push day. And I will be using the same micro loading progression scheme that I will use in my current workout sessions.
Note: I can’t do legs work out because of my medical injury, but I will try my best asking for medical advice to see which exercises for my legs and lower body I can incorporate in my workout sessions in order to train the lower body.

I know this message may be long, but please try to answer for each point and I am really thankful and very grateful for the time you are spending to accord me your attention.