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What's your goal ? Strength, size , or some of both ?
I'm sure you've already read up on this, workouts that stimulate hypertrophy will be better for increasing size. So 10-12 rep range per set. 3-6 reps per set will get you stronger, but not necessarily big / swole.
A good mid point, i.e. some size and some strength would be a powerbuilding routine. Mike Matthews has some good ones, I had good success with his programs . Its also a good fit for your plan in terms of rep ranges
If you're skinny, eat more ! In terms of avoiding burnout, eat well and enough, get your macros about right. Rest and recover properly. Get enough sleep . Be consistent with diet and rest.
If you're going heavy and pushing yourself week in week out, have a deload week once in a while . I've always found big jumps in weight problematic, slow and steady has always suited me better, may not be the case for you. Better to start relatively light even at lower reps and build up (as stronglifts recommends ), rather than smash an extra plate on the bar week 1 and get injured
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I've always been 'skinny'. My plan for the next few months is to drop the sets and reps to 3x 6-8,
Hypertrophy requires more reps, not less. So you might want stick to the 3 x 8-12 for most of your exercises and focus on eating more/better.
Also, I don't know your program, but you may be wrong about muscles being underrepresented. Unless the author of the program explicitely tells you to add exercises of your own I would think a decent sequence of compound exercises should be all you need at this stage. My personal experience has been that with a longer list of things to get through I may have subconsciously held back on the main lifts at the beginning of the session. These days I try to smash out all I've got in 30 t0 max 40 min sessions. Just looking at the calories used it's pretty much the same amount of effort as for a 1 hour session, and visible muscle growth has been noticeably higher.
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Avoiding injury and burnout is a really complex question and it basically comes down to building experience. If you're training hard, you ARE going to get tweaks, niggles and dings. Knowing what's an injury and what's just sore is important. Don't be afraid to deviate from the plan if something is actively hurting but do make sure you do something, you'll come back much quicker. If you've got knee pain from squatting what happens if you drop the weight? Still hurts, what about leg press? Ok, knee extensions or hamstring curls?
With burnout, it's almost always mental before its physical (although physical overuse/overtraining is a real thing, it's usually more like under-recovery). One technique is to rotate exercises. If you're stalling on bench press and driving into a brick wall, consistently feeling little tweaks or tightness as form breaks down, reset with close grip bench press, or low incline bench, and keep going until you reach 'burnout' then swap back to standard bench press where you'll have room to grow again.
Hope that helps.
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chrismanc
starfish&coffee
Ptown
@Tenners
Newbie question if I may;
Since early October I've been doing a 3 day/week split (usually) of push, pull and core/legs. Originally I based this off a plan I found online and added in a few exercises to target the muscles I felt were underrepresented in the plan. Having done that for a few months, I've found some definite gains and have not yet started to plateau as far as I can tell.
The plan I started on was 3x 8-12 of each exercise with a few specific movements maxing at 6-8 reps. I quite quickly changed this to be 4 sets instead of 3 and found that was more bang for my buck.
I'm not so fussed about outright strength or competing etc, but am keen to build some more muscle as I've always been 'skinny'. My plan for the next few months is to drop the sets and reps to 3x 6-8, and lift commensurately heavier, all using the same exercises.
I understand that form is crucial when substantially jumping in weight, but what else should I be looking out for or doing to avoid injury/burnout?