Hello. As of now I weight train about 3 days a week for about 1.5-2.5
hours a day at a fairly high intensity. My reps are usually within the
2-6 range on most of my exercises, and I use basic exercises and
variations exclusively. I realize this time frame is probably too long
to lift at the above intensity. So my thought was to break up one
training session in a day into two training sessions in a day. But
here’s my problem-I don’t train like a bodybuilder. I train more like a
powerlifter or strength athlete. Therefore, a split like Chest in the
morning and back at night work for me since I include full body
exercises and don’t mentally isolate bodyparts while I’m lifting. What
I was thinking of was still doing a training split, but have both
sessions focus on similar muscle groups. Here’s an example.
Morning:
Back Squats
Bench Presses
Stiff-Legged Deadlifts
Pull-ups
Evening:
Power Cleans
Push Presses
Incline Sit-ups
Sled Pulls
What do you guys think of something like this? Will it totally mess up
my recovery, or will it be better than doing these all in the same day?
Any thoughts will be appreciated.
Mike
I’ve had my best results on twice per day training. Unfortunately, I just have not been able to do that for a while now. But for me, it does work best to train the same body part in both sessions. In fact, I often include the same exercise in both sessions, and it’s not unusual for the second session to yield more reps than the first! (However, this is where the exercise was one of the later ones done in the first session, and then scheduled to be one of the earlier ones done in the second session.)
you could do it one of two ways…firstly, do very similar (or the same) movements in the am and pm sessions as a shock sort of method, or do a bunch of related exercises in the morning (such as push presses and bench presses) and a different bunch of exercises in the evening (squats, power cleans, and sled pulls). i have used the second way and it was quite effective in the short term. the first way would work perhaps if you varied your intensities for the exercises used, eg heavy in the morning and lighter in the evening session. either way, there’s always a tendancy to do a lot more volume when the workout is split up, so make sure you get adequate rest and employ a proper nutrition plan to maximize your benefits!