Hey guys,
I’d just like to thank you all in advance for any help/advice you could give. This is my first post, so I apologize if this is in the wrong forum. If it is, let me know and I will post it in the correct place.
I’m a 40 year-old guy that’s been regularly going to the gym since I was 15, and while you might think that’s plenty of time to get all of this sorted out, it seems like the more I read or try to learn, the more confused I get. Over the years I’ve been through just about every physique type, from very lean to very strong for my size (I’m 5’6, 160 currently), and I remember the days when I was playing with the dumbbells that stayed in the exact same place I left them last. I was an ox, but those days are long gone. Just like drinking, I can’t do it like I used to.
Since the beginning, I used the bro split for many years; back, chest, legs, arms, & shoulders all got their own days with roughly 4 sets of 4 exercises per bodypart, and virtually every set was taken to near absolute failure, which is what I ignorantly thought you were supposed to do. These days that would kill me, so now I try to apply 1-2 RIR on every set in what is an asynchronous PPL split that looks something like this:
Monday: Pull
Tuesday: Push
Wednesday: Legs
Thursday: Rest
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Pull days: 3 sets of one pull up/down movement, 3 sets of one vertical pulling movement, 2 sets DB pullover or straight-arm lat pulldown movement, 2 sets trap exercise variant, 2 sets rear delt movement, 2 exercises @ 3 sets each for biceps (typically a hammer/neutral grip variant along with regular grip)
Push days: Same principle; one exercise for upper chest @ 3 sets, one for mid/lower chest @ 3 sets, 2 shoulder exercises @ 3 sets each (vertical press or front delt movement, then a lateral delt movement), followed by 2 tricep exercises @ 3 sets each (overhead movement, then either a pressdown or close-grip pressing movement).
Legs: 3 sets squats/leg press, 3 sets lunge movement, 3 sets hamstring movement, 3 sets standing calf movement, 3 sets sitting calf movement.
I’ve recently added a hex bar to my home gym, and I was looking to incorporating some deadlifts, farmer carries, etc into my workouts, but I have no idea on how to incorporate these awesome lifts into my routine. For some reason, I have this idea that there is a very fine line (or sweet spot) between overtraining and undertraining, and I was hoping some of you might have a little advice. For example, what, if anything, should be eliminated from my routine by incorporating these lifts? Sure, I could just add them to my routine (say, back day?), but I’m worried that it might just destroy my ability to recover. Just FYI, I’m not talking about going super heavy on the deadlifts…something in the 8-12 rep range. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated!