The only problem is I can’t seem to fit in shoulders (maybe add military presses on leg day). Or I could leave out the dumbell flies and do military presses instead since I am a woman and chest is not that important to me (can’t see the the muscles anyway). Will I be okay leaving out arms? I also like to do calves 3-4 days per week. Maybe I could do body weight calf raises on my off days? What do y’all think?
I think that you would be fine leaving out the dumbell flies and substituting with a shoulder exercise. I.E. military press
I would also argue that you should take out lat pulldowns and stick with the pull-up instead. Start with assisted pull-ups and work your way up, until you can do bodyweight. This will help your muscle gains in the long run.
You will be perfectly fine leaving out the arms. I have seen many people with strong arms that do no direct arm work. Pull-ups, dips, etc. are very efficient exercises for building the arms as well.
Well you could add in the shoulder workout with legs and move triceps with chest. Using the tricep exercises more to finish off after chest. Try out your workout and then see how you feel with each workout and what you feel would best work with where you are right now.
I’ve switched up my splits 4 times (in the 2 months) to see which one I could get the most stimulation from because of changes in my body and the stage of fitness I’m at now.
Hey Kinein. Well yesterday I did:
Incline bench press, dumbell flies, lat pull downs, pull ups, barbell rows.
I felt it was a good workout but afterward thought about switching the flies to the military press. I know the exercises hit the arms too but my triceps are really lame especially compared to my biceps which have good size even without training.
Josh why do you recommend leaving out lat pull downs?
Pull ups and lat pulldowns are redundant. I agree with zephead that chin ups are the best.
Your upper body could be bench, row, press, chin and it would be complete. You could rotate around different variation of these 4 exercises.
Do some varaitions of squats and deadlifts as well. Idealy, each workout per week would be different. Get some unilateral work in.
I think if you are working calves hard enough, twice a week is enough but the smaller muscles will recover faster so doing calves more often won’t hurt.
in general ive heard closed chain movements ( those in which ur body moves through space) are superior to open chain movements (those in which ur body remains stationary as ur body moves a weight through space)
when u do a pull up this requires total body tension (abs glutes hams all tense because a body that is tensed is easier to move through space)
in a lat pulldown u are taking advantage of the leverage that the pad above ur knees provides u