An Exercise Selection Question

Training Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Im starting a new routine, and have room for one more exercise and cant decide what to choose.

Currently its an A-B split.

Workout A:

DB split snatch
CG decline bench
Pullups
Standing calves
Seated calves

Workout B:

Front squat
BW row (or seated cable row)
**_________________________
Skull crushers
zottman curls

** so I haven’t decided what to put here. I was tempted to do a vertical press, but am thinking my tris and shoulders will get enough from bench and snatch.

Should I just throw an abdominal exercise in here, or what do you guys think would fit well?

Oh and this exercise will be supersetted with the BW rows, and done either for 3 sets of max reps, or 10 minutes done EDT style.

2

If you’re going to superset it with a rowing movement and do it EDT-style, then I’d pick an antagonistic movement. Either a horizontal push or a tricep movement, but since you already have a tri/bi pairing after, I’d go with a push movement.

Are you alternating your A/B split every other day? You would have to take that into account too. If do workout A, rest a day, then workout B, then I wouldn’t worry as much about doing a pressing movement, but if you’re doing A and B on consecutive days, then you might not be able to do presses back to back like that.

3

Thanks vader… Its 3x per week on non-consecutive days.

I think i’ll either do 45 degree incline DB bench, or an abdominal exercise.

The incline bench would be nice, but with the equipment in the area for that pairing, im probably stuck with a BW move.

I was doing mountain climber pushups, but the resistance wasn’t high enough.

Thanks again for the advice vader.

4

Another idea is to do dumbbell rows instead of seated rows and that might be a little easier to pair with incline db presses.

I know what a pain it can be sometimes pair exercises in an EDT-style if you have a small or busy gym and limited equipment.

5

you should have at least have one shoulder exercise in there …military presses would be good… without direct shoulder development; you program is out of balance. While it is true that you do get shoulder work from bench press, if you dont do direct shoulder work; it can lead to an injury during a bench press movement.

6

[quote]dankid wrote:
Im starting a new routine, and have room for one more exercise and cant decide what to choose.

Currently its an A-B split.

Workout A:

DB split snatch
CG decline bench
Pullups
Standing calves
Seated calves

Workout B:

Front squat
BW row (or seated cable row)
**_________________________
Skull crushers
zottman curls

** so I haven’t decided what to put here. I was tempted to do a vertical press, but am thinking my tris and shoulders will get enough from bench and snatch.

Should I just throw an abdominal exercise in here, or what do you guys think would fit well?

Oh and this exercise will be supersetted with the BW rows, and done either for 3 sets of max reps, or 10 minutes done EDT style.[/quote]

First off, I’m pleased to see that you’re doing DB snatches… one of my absolute favorite exercises.

That said, it’s kind of hard to evaluate your program because I don’t know how much volume you’re getting in, your level of conditioning, level of experience, if you play any other sports, if you’re supersetting, your goals, etc.

If you’re really intent on doing an A-B split 3x/week, I’d do something like this:

Workout A:
A1. Back squat… 4-5 sets, 8-10 reps
A2. Seated calves… 4-5 sets, 10-15 reps
B1. Incline DB press
B2. Pullups/Assisted Pullups
C1. Lateral raise… 3-4 sets, 8-10 reps
C2. Low to high choppers… 3-4 sets, 8-15 reps
D1. Leg curl… 3-4 sets, 6-8 reps
D2. DB hammer curls… 3-4 sets, 6-10 reps
D3. DB tricep extensions… 3-4 sets, 6-10 reps

*superset A1, A2; EDT style B1, B2; superset C1, C2; superset D1, D2, D3

Workout B:
A. one-arm DB snatches… 5-6 sets, 5-8 reps
B1. Leg press… 4-5 sets, 8-10 reps
B2. High to low choppers… 4-5 sets, 8-15 reps
C1. T-bar row… 3-4 sets, 6-8 reps
C2. One-arm DB rows… 3-4 sets, 8-10 reps
D1. Explosive push-ups… 3-4 sets, max reps
D2. Dips… 3-4 sets, max reps
E. Deadlifts… 3-4 sets, 6-8 reps

*superset B1, B2; superset C1, C2; superset D1, D2

Note: I have no idea what your level of conditioning and experience is, and I’ve made a ton of assumptions thereof, but this is what I would do if I could only train 3 times/week and my goal was hypertrophy.

7

Thanks for the help guys, here is the actual plan im doing.

-Workout A-

A) DB SPLIT SNATCH
7+ sets of 3 reps with 60 seconds rest between sets.

Weeks 1 & 3
B1) HIGH INCLINE NEUTRAL GRIP PRESS 3 X AMRAP*
B2) PULLUPS 3 X AMRAP
Perform B1 and then without rest perform B2. Then rest 60 seconds.

*AMRAP= As many reps as possible.

Weeks 2 & 4
B1) HIGH INCILNE NEUTRAL GRIP PRESS
B2) PULLUPS
Perform as many sets as possible in 10 minutes. Start with about half of your AMRAP number from the previous week.

C1) SEATED CALF RAISE 4 X 5-15
C2) ABS 4 X 5-15

-Workout B-

A) FRONT SQUAT
7+ sets of 3 reps with 60 seconds rest between sets.

Weeks 1 & 3
B1) TRICEP PUSHUPS 3 X AMRAP*
B2) BODY-WEIGHT ROWS 3 X AMRAP
Perform B1 and then without rest perform B2. Then rest 60 seconds.

*AMRAP= As many reps as possible.

Weeks 2 & 4
B1) TRICEP PUSHUPS
B2) BODY-WEIGHT ROWS
Perform as many sets as possible in 10 minutes. Start with about half of your AMRAP number from the previous week.

C1) TRICEP EXTENSIONS 4 X 6-10
C2) ZOTTMAN CURLS 4 X 6-10

My strength days, are Sun, Tues, and Thur. and my “cardio” days are Monday, and Friday.

For “cardio” days,

I also have an “A” and “B” workout.

Workout A

Tabata Bw squats (add weight if neccessary) 8 sets 20w/10r

Incline treadmill interval 6 sets of 30w/60r

Workout B

Tabata Biking, 8 sets of 20w/10r

Stairstepper intervals 6 sets of 30w/60r

***I’ll keep the tabata intervals the same each week, but up the intensity, by adding resistance.

***For the 30/60 intervals, each week I’ll add +5 seconds to the working portion and -5 seconds from the recovery portion. So next week will be 35W/55R

***Other than all of that, I may throw in some Rowing ergometer work.

So I decided to drop the decline cg bench, and replace it with diamond pushups, and then throw in incline db bench. We’ll see how it goes.

Also, it seems like my plan lacks balance in lower body exercises, but im trying to keep my legs fresh for the various “cardio” exercise. Also, i’ll only be following this for 4-5 weeks, so im thinking this will be fine.

8

i really like ovalpline’s workout…it’s much more complete - i mean you don’t have ANY hip-dominant exercises, and you do back exercises on both days…something definitely wrong there.