Balancing This Three Day Program

Little background:

I’m 28, 5’10" 170 lb’s looking to continue gaining strength (lean muscle)

Here’s what I have right now:

(Monday)

-squats
-dips
-pullups/chin ups
-close grip press
-leg raises (on power tower)

(wednesday)

-Flat BB bench
-Deadlift
-Shoulder Press
-Standing Calve raises
-(db) lateral raises
-(BB) curls
-Regular crunch (w/ weight on chest)

(Friday)

-bent over BB rows
-incline db press
-seated calve raises
-lunges
-leg curls
-shrugs
-(db) side bends

Sets- 2/3
reps- 6-8

*Any advice (exercises I should remove/add)that would make this a more balanced/quality routine? I plan on doing something like this for 4-6 weeks and than changine things up(due to my schedule 3 day programs work best)

Mike

I like these kind of full body routines.

It looks pretty good, If it were my routine I would drop the leg curls and leg extensions and replace them with leg press.

I’m not sure where you see leg extention’s but I don’t have those listed here (maybe you were looking at leg lifts but that is an ab workout on a power tower)? I was doing the lunges paired with leg curls to balance out the squat/lunges and deadlift/leg curl groupings for ham’s and quad’s.

thanks for the comment…I appreciate any info/advice as far as improvements and balance

oops! my mistake.

It sounds like you have given this routine lots of thought, it may be perfect as is.

I would advise you to just find a routine here at T-Nation because its guaranteed to be effective and you won’t have to do worry. I’ve been fucking about the past few years trying to make my own routines, and I’ve made more progress in the last 6 months since I’ve been using Waterbury’s various routines.

Is there a particular reason you picked these excercises, or is there some specific goal you are trying to achieve?

I workout at my house so equipment is limited to the following:

-olympic bench/ w leg curl and preacher attachments…also has squat rack

-dumbells (up to 60 lb’s)

-EZ curl bar

-power tower (pullup/dip station)

*so the only reason I chose the exercises I did was convienance and lack of some other equipment a gym might have.

The thing that jumps out at me as something to fix is the amount of presses to pulls mainly on the first two days the first day ahving two press I(two internal rotation) exercises, and one pull. the second day its all presses and shoulders no pulls ( external rotation) your setting your self up for some major imbalances in the long run and if your training has been like this for a while I would say you’d be better off to trun the tables limit the pressing to one a day and Up the puls external rotation for a bit to get them up toi par which will actually help the pressing and health in the loing run.’

other than that looks OK. Might think about some variety in reps sets and loads.

Hope that helps,’
Phill

[quote]Phill wrote:
The thing that jumps out at me as something to fix is the amount of presses to pulls mainly on the first two days the first day ahving two press I(two internal rotation) exercises, and one pull. the second day its all presses and shoulders no pulls ( external rotation) your setting your self up for some major imbalances in the long run and if your training has been like this for a while I would say you’d be better off to trun the tables limit the pressing to one a day and Up the puls external rotation for a bit to get them up toi par which will actually help the pressing and health in the loing run.’

other than that looks OK. Might think about some variety in reps sets and loads.

Hope that helps,’
Phill[/quote]

other than that ginormous paragraph about how bad it looks, it looks OK.

classic Phil!

some good information so far…that’s what I wanted to better balance ther routine. So how would you arrange the order and exercises per day to accomplish this?

well not to give you a quick example of what I would think about, which also depends on like I was saying what you have done in the past. I will assume you have been doing twice as much pressing as pulls/external rotation. so need to fix that, make adjustment to stop the imbalance you have buitl over time

drop the close grip press keep the dips as the only press and add say cable external rotations

drop the shoulder press and eep the flat Bench press. add a row/pull and be sure on the lat raises to lean forward a bit and tilt that DB to target the rear delts.

On this day I would drop the inc db press and bring back the standing OH press DB would be great to go unilateral and attack imbalances. this will top off the pushing with one day verticle plane down pressing (dips) one verticle up pressing (oh press) and on horizontal (BP)

maybe some excess rowing here as well. like an Upright DB row but its pretty good with one and the other additions above.

then I would vary the reps, sets, loads different each day. ranging from high rep low sets to low rep high sets.

thats about it,
Phill