Alright, I just finished the 4 weeks to bigger legs workout from this site, which I noticed great results from! But now I’m contemplating a new workout. I want to continue getting good gains on my lower body as far as strength and size are concerned. My upper body… I don’t care THAT much but I would like to maintain. And I also want to get some power and functional strength training in there as well so I’m proposing this template.
Monday: Lower Body
Tuesday: Chest/Shoulder/Triceps
Wednesday: Back/Biceps
Thursday: Legs
Friday: REST
Saturday: Full body- incorporating olympic lifts, major compound movements, really trying to avoid isolated movements today.
Sunday: REST
Id probably just make one quad dominant and one posterior chain dominant. My main concern right now is getting big/strong legs right now which is why Id be hitting them hard twice and moderately once per week.
I think it probably comes down to whether or not you can recover from hitting the lower body hard 3x a week. For me personally I would have to keep the volume low to do that, but everyone is different so perhaps it will work well for you. Just got to try it and see. All the best!
Honest answer… it’s not a workout… it’s a schedule… how can we tell you if it will work?
The schedule you are using is probably the least important training variable in your plan and is highly dependent on the other variables (exercise selection, number of sets per exercise, average training weight, number of reps per set, density of the workout, use or not of intensity methods, etc.)
There are about 2 millions program you can do with that schedule… and not all of them would work!
Can this schedule be used successfully? Most definitely , but it will depend on the content of each session.
The one thing I do not like is the order of the sessions… it is actually not a huge problem since you have quite a few days off, but really, you are hitting the legs for 3 straight workouts (last two of each training week plus the first one in the next).
That is not a huge issue… heck I’ve squatted everyday for many years. BUT it can be a problem if the volume of work is too high in these sessions to allow you to perform in all of them. I’ve used a similar schedule myself with some clients, and it can work. But planning is more complex than it can be with other schedules. Something like:
DAY 1 - Pressing muscles
DAY 2 - Lower body 1
DAY 3 - Pulling muscles
DAY 4 - OFF
DAY 5 - Whole body
DAY 6 - Lower body 2
DAY 7 - OFF
Might work better. I’m recommending this schedule because you mentioned making the olympic lifts the base of your whole body day. In that case you probably mean the power variations of the olympic lifts (power clean, power snatch, power jerk). Although these involve the legs, they do not fatigue them and will not have a detrimental to a lower body workout done the next day. If anything doing the olympic lifts on day 5 might potentiate the lower body work the next day.
Good advice christian. For example, today I did a 1RM on deadlift, 5x6 barbell hip thruster(progressive… 135/175/185/205/225), hack squat 4x8(progessive), Leg curls 3x10, and 1 20 rep squat set. Thats the typical volume ill use for the 2 leg days, excluding a 1RM, in place of that I’d maybe do a 3-5RM or 5x5 on the first main lift. And as far as full body day, yes it would be power lifts like what you listed, or maybe even just some plyometrics. Nothing too heavy to avoid overtraining the CNS.