I’ve been training full-body now for almost 2 years (Staring Strength and Texas Method). I want to start a 3 day split, but I’m a little unsure of how to go about it. I was thinking a Chest/Tri, Back/Bi, and Leg/Shoulder.
Heres what I’ve thought up just now:
MONDAY - Chest / Triceps
Bench press 4 x 6
Incline Bench press 2 x 8
Dips 3 x Failure
Close-grip Bench 3 x 8
Lying Tricep Extensions
WEDNESDAY â?? Back / Biceps
Deadlift 1 x 5
Rows 3 x 5
Pull ups 3 x Failure
Chin ups 2 x failure
Barbell Curls 3 x 8
FRIDAY â?? Legs / Shoulders
Squat 3 x 5
Press 3 x 5
Front Squat 2 x 10
Push-press 2 x 6
Barbell Curls 2 x 10
How does that look? Any advice/criticism welcome. I’ve made good gains on TBT, I’m a solid 220lbs at the moment. But I’ve plateaued and want to try a split.
[EDIT] Forgot to mention that I only have access to Squat rack, Benchpress, Barbell, Bench, Dip bars, Chin up bar. No dumbells or machines.
I’d read up on the Cephalic_Carnage thread if I were you, link is in the “best of T-Nation” sticky. He has a couple of good 3-way splits in there, and a lot of good info on exercise selection and so on. The 3-way is also pretty flexible and easy to adjust if you should want to train more than 3 times some weeks.
If you’ve plateaued using straight sets I would start ramping up to one top set instead. Easier strength progression that way. Cephalic covers all of that in is thread.
Day 1: Delts+Tris
you can switch the order if you like
some kind of close grip press - make it what you want
some variation of overhead press - can be machine, bar, dumbbell, etc.
something to target the long head of the tricep - extension of some sort - there are a bunch of them
side laterals - again can be machine or free weights
something for the rear delts
Day 2: Bis+Legs
any 2-3 bicep exercises or you can do these after legs but you’d be doing them injustice
calve exercise(s)
hamstring exercise - pick any that targets them like GH raises, leg curl, SLDL, leg press etc)
quad exercise - squat (back, front, hack, whatever)
Day 3 : Chest+Back
Incline
Flat (or you can do flat then incline) - can be db, machine, barbell, etc.
+/- flyes - depending on how I feel
Backwidth (can do pullups, lat pulls, rack-chins or any other lat dominant exercise)
Backthickness (any variation of a row - there are tons of them)
facepulls or something similar
you can throw in abs twice a week at the end.
sets, reps, schemes can be whatever you want but since you are only hitting the each bodypart once every 7 days it would be ideal to go hard. this is just an idea and obviously you can tweak it to your needs.