What are your opinion on training twice a week the upper body, once a week the lower (bodybuilding for an average gym goer)?
Eg: mon (upper heavy), wed (legs), fri (upper light).
It’s fine if results match goals.
There are no magical routines. They can be optimized to favor a specific outcome but in general if you’re in the gym lifting weights you’re going to grow some muscles.
I am curious why you’re doing it this way though? Time constraints or difficulty recovering from leg day? Intentionally de-emphasizing leg development compared to upper body?
You could also try alternate weeks of 2 upper 1 lower then 2 lower and 1 upper. This allows for the same schedule and if it’s a recovery thing you only have to suffer every other week.
I’d argue PPL is most often that ratio
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Depends really, I mean, if you are doing push, lower, pull…sounds fine…if you are doing double the amount of training for everything on your upper body as opposed to your lower body, not so much.
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Because:
- I have time constraints
- I don’t like training legs as much
- Nor do I care about having legs matching exactly the size of my upper body (still don’t want to have tiny tiny legs either)
- My goal is to have a pleasant looking (beach body) physique, I don’t mind competing,
Why not (genuinely curious, not trying to be defiant)? I’d argue most bro splits go even futher than doubling that ratio
People do hinge movements on their pull day. You are going to try and fit everything into one day? Also, most people do not do PPL 3x a week it is 4x or 2on/1off.
Better to do U/L alternating or full body if training 3x a week.
What you are describing was laid out in Joe DeFranco’s “Westside Barbell for Skinny Bastards” version 1
It absolutely works. I would try to engage in some regular non-lifting exercise on another day, to get in some sneaky lower body volume. Running hills, weighted vest walks, sled work, some strongman fun, etc.
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A valid reason
A very poor reason. I liked training legs, but only did them on Wednesdays in my 40’s. And I brutalized them on that day.
When I started lifting weights my legs were my lagging body part. I my 40’s and only training legs once a week, but in many instances my legs allowed me to look better than many of my Masters competitors.
Also, I should add that for 3 days a week training I highly advise against a PPL approach, but prefer something along the lines of:
- Monday - Chest and Back (plus a little biceps pump)
- Wednesday - Legs and Abs
- Friday - Chest, Shoulders and Arms
Biceps, triceps, chest, and shoulders get stimulation twice a week, which they need. The larger muscles can grow with a single
stimulation
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Ok, I’ll explain what I mean by way of example:
10 sets of bench press week + 8 sets of triceps per week combined with 4 sets of squats and three sets of calf raises= unbalanced.
25 sets for your whole upper body (lets say you do half of these sets for chest/delts triceps and the rest for lats and biceps etc) combined with 12 sets for lower might be fine since, with your upper body has delts, pecs, traps, lats etc
Interesting reading!
And yeah, I play futsal or go running whenever/if I have time. I just don’t wanna try and do more workouts that I can fit regularly into my week
I feel like that plan was tailor made for you. The next closest could be his “Washed Up Meatheads” template from version 3 of the program
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Wonderful
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This.
I would add that his program Built like a Badass also follows a 2 Upper : 1 Lower template.
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