Hi all, I’ve been working out for about 5-6 months now, trying various routines but not really settling on much. I’ve never really found the right split to suit me, and I’ve tried various shocking full bodies that had be jumping around the gym from one place to the other, but I’ve decided I want to give 3-4 x pwk full bodies a go, in a similar fashion to Waterbury’s TBT.
Anyone critique my routine? Balanced body coverage? Excessive?
‘A’:
Back squats
Stiff-legged deadlifts
Military Press
DB BOR
Bench
DB Lat raises
‘B’:
Front squats (or leg press)
Deadlifts
Seated DB shoulder press
Chins
Incline Bench
Bent-over DB rear delt raises
Pretty much designed to have 1 compound for each major body part, with an iso at the end to bring up my lagging body part (shoulders).
I work out every other day, i.e. Mon-Wed-Fri-Sun-Tue-Thurs-Sat, which ends up at an average of 3.5 sessions per week. Also, I switch rep ranges around each workout; focusing mainly on (4x8) and (3x12) but occasionally throwing in a (5x5) or a (2x18). The main goal is size/hypertrophy.
Deadlifts AND squats TWO DAYS in a row? I definitely suggest that you DO NOT go to failure on any of those, since you simly wouldn’t make it if you did.
Look, you’re gonna get people on here telling you to do splits, and some saying “right on bro, do TBT”
However (and I keep noticing this) is that you have t find out for yourself. I can sit here and say “too much volume” or say “reduce the body parts worked per session”, but Perhaps you CAN handle it. I dont know. Neither do you, but you wont find out until you try!
Well, IF you are going with TBT and are determined to try it, then reduce the exercises to 3 compounds and 3 iso’s for the muscles you worked that day. One lower body, and two upper body.
ex: (JUST an example)
-squat + leg extensions (at the end)
-incline press + cable cross over (at the end)
-pullup + one arm lat pulldown (to focus on one side)
Before even looking at the program you can probably improve on things. 5-6 months trying different routines. I don’t know what you expect to get out of a workout if you keep changing every time and I really don’t understand the purpose of changing rep range each workout. This can make progression harder to track…and progression is where the gains are.
Before you train for hypertrophy, you need to have a decent amount of strength. I don’t know if you do but I’m assuming you don’t.
You might benefit from something like Thib’s beast building program which begins by jacking up your CNS, doing strength work and progressing to hyperthrophy.
[quote]forbes wrote:
Deadlifts AND squats TWO DAYS in a row? I definitely suggest that you DO NOT go to failure on any of those, since you simly wouldn’t make it if you did.[/quote]
Well depending on what you understood from the original post, it’s not two days in a row, but one day, then a rest day, then the next workout. If you understood this and then still think that it’s overdoing it then that’s another thing…
Flitted in and out from them. Trying one at the moment, as you fed back on my other post. The thing is though, I think my history has me a little scared of the nature of splits. I’ve always been a triathlete, doing cardio after cardio. Onto the weights now though, and I think it’s a whole different mindset. With cardio you gotta go at it time and time again and run yourself into the groud to progress, but with weights I guess that rest is just as key, and by overtraining a muscle it’s gonna hamper your growth. So my mind is used to hammering my body for cardio often, but in order to achieve the new goals in weights, I need to adjust. Thus the nature of splits only working a single body part per session feels a bit alien to me, as it’s not like I leave the gym aching all over like I would’ve done in previous cardio sessions. So i end up feeling like I’ve not quite had a proper workout.
what kind of supervision are you getting with these lifts? Do you know how to properly execute a squat? I know it sounds stupid and redundant, but 9 out of 10 times people do not squat correctly. We need more info before we can give you advice.
Assuming you’ve only been weight training for 5-6 months, you probably do not have great squat/front squat form. And I don’t even want to think about what you’re deadlift looks like. I’m not trying to be negative, but what kind of experience and knowledge about squats and deadlifts do you have?
IF you have great form, the give your program a try, but make sure that once awhile you take about 4 days rest before you drive yourself straight underground. Squatting and deadlifting every other day is good for a short while, but eventually if you are pushing yourself enough, you’re going to overtrain.
And one more thing: None of this 2x18 business anymore…with your squats and deadlifts you should not exceed 8 reps unless you are warming up with your squat with 10-15. Deadlifts should NEVER exceed 8 reps due to the nature of the muscles being used (most are fast twitch and won’t respond that well to high reps)