Big 4 Lift Split

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Currently, i’m working on building myself a new program, and basically my goal is to improve olympic style lifts and compound lifts. What makes the most sense for me is a 4 day a week split, due to my class schedule (I am a 19 year old college student). My basic idea is this, I create 4 workouts, each centered around one of 4 major lifts, those being Bench, Row, Squats, and Deadlifts. Whether you want to call it some sort of motor unit specialization or some olympic style program, my main goal is to do as many compound movements as possible to hit the areas these exercises do, and some isolation if needed. For example, on Bench-centered Day, my workout might be something like

Bench (center) 4 x 6-8 reps
Incline Bench
Flys
Dips
Tricep Kickbacks

I’m thinking i’d like to use between 2 and 4 compound movements, and an isolation movement or two. Whether these lifts are olympic style, powerlifter style, or bodybuilding style is of no concern to me, just that I’m hitting the areas in question.

First off i’d like to ask if anyone has any ideas of exercises that complement these “centers” (Bench, Row, squat, dead) to use in the same workout, or if anyone with any training expertise could give me some good accessory lifts to go along with these. As of right now, I working on combining movements that emphasis these same motor units as the 4 centerpieces (such as pullups and rows on the same day).

A bit about my goals is probably in order. I have trained with a bodybuilding style since I learned what a weight bench was at age 12. I have no need of being at such a low body fat percentage that I could walk onto a bodybuilding stage, however that doesn’t mean i have a shitty diet either. I eat clean, I eat smart, and I split my meals up regularly just as one should. I perform cardio workouts 3-4 days a week in the morning and lift in the afternoons. With the summer coming up the more prominent goal in my mind is to lean out a little, however my diet changes should be alright for that.

Stats:
Weight: 266
Body Fat: 14.7% Caliper method
Height: 6 feet

Thanks alot guys and I look forward to the advice. Please don’t hesitate to give it even if you think this idea is completely off the deep end, however I would like an explanation as of what to change if thats the case.

2

hss 100 uses a core lift followed by 2 superset additional lifts, one more higher rep set and a set of 100 reps

check it out on the site. it follows a body part split rather then lift split

btw, none of the lifts you mentioned are olympic lifts. PL lifts more like

3

This is the template I’ve devised for myself:

Upper 1:
Main press (flat bench, incline barbell, pin press)
accessory press (DB press, dips, suspended pushups)
Chins
Heavy triceps press(reverse grip benches, rack lockouts, JM press)
High rep biceps-(barbell curls, DB curls, single arm EZ bar curls)

Lower 1:
Back squat
Quad dominant accesory (olympic squat, hack squat, leg press)
Low stress posterior (GHR, pullthough, single leg hypers)
Abs (leg raises, barbell rollout, weighted sit ups, cable crunches)
Calves (donkey calf, standing calf)
Grip (farmers walk, COC grippers, barbell holds)

Upper 2:
Overhead press (military, BTN press, DB overhead press)
Accessory press (same as above)
Rows (barbell-overhand or underhand, t-bar)
Heavy biceps (same as above)
Triceps ext (decline skullcrushers, lying DB ext, cable/band pressdowns)

Lower 2:
Deadlifts (sumo or conventional)
High stress posterior (SLDL, RDL-if conventional deads, good mornings-if sumo deads)
Single leg (reverse lunges, walking lunges, bulgarian split squats, stepups)
Traps (power shrug-this is pretty much all I do)
Abs (same as above)
Calves (same as above)
Grip (same as above)

I always do my pressing first on upper day, but if you want to you could row first on upper day 2. Rotate rep ranges on the first lift of each day. I like 3x8, 5x5, 8x3, and singles. Keep everything else between 6-12. 2-4 sets for accessory presses and accessory lower body moves, 5-8 sets for rows and chins, 2-5 for arms, whatever for calves, grip, traps, etc.

If you really want to focus on benching, you could do a second bench workout in place of the overhead work using close-grips, higher reps with your normal grip, or speed benches.

4

Thanks guys, I like the ideas so far. My intentions as far as olympic lifts go, I want to use certain ones to build up my strength overall. What I mean by this is maybe do hang cleans on squat day, and add in some shoulder exercises then. Once I finalize everything I’ll post what i’ve come up with.