THat’s the only logical transition these days -lol
Usually someone practically living out of their car, estranged from their family telling you how to “win at life” 
S
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Here’s my guide to “winning at life”.
- Attend work and perform the job duties.
- Exercise.
- Eat healthy.
- Save money, if possible.
- Be a nice guy.
- Care for friends and family.
There, very sophisticated.
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I see an ebook coming out. Only $12.99. Then in 6 months you can start releasing your follow ups with “secret hacks.” Of course, they’ll only make sense if you have the original ebook.
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It’ll never work! You need to act like you can’t be bothered when interacting with people online, especially if they disagree with you! They don’t deserve your expert advice -lol
S
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Just re-read this thread again.
Such good info on here that all should take note of.
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This is an absolute goldmine of information. I just spent about 3 hours reading the entire thread. I’ve been lifting for a couple years and been swayed by all the YouTubers and fitness influencers that say traditional body part splits are useless.
@BrickHead can you clarify why an upper lower split is easier for you to maintain as opposed to a body part split now that your goals have changed? Looking at one of the T-Nation articles you linked, it has a template for a 4 day per week body part split. Volume is around ~20 sets per day. Lyle McDonald’s GBR is 4-day, around ~25 sets a day. Presumably, upper lower is also going to have longer sessions since you have more warmup time compared to a bro split. It seems to me like an upper lower split will be more time in the gym than a 4-day bro split. On top of that the workouts are a bit more grueling in my opinion, particularly the upper body days. So I’m just curious how you find upper lower to be more sustainable for busy people compared to a bro split.
Also, I’ve seen in other posts you recommend people start with upper lower before going on to bro splits. At what stage of development do you think it makes sense to switch to a bro split? I’m at the stage where people call me “fit” and some people ask how much time I’m in the gym, but I don’t look “big” by any stretch of the imagination. Definitely an early intermediate.
Good!
It is much more manageable considering, though I try to keep as consistent as possible, life gets in the way more than I’d like it to at 46 years old with children, wife, home, a job, because of the unpredictable stuff that comes up with those. So when I miss a day, I can start the upper-lower split where I left off. A bodypart routine gets hard to manage when one’s schedule gets unpredictable from time to time.
What is the biggest time save of an upper-lower split for me is the ability to superset; and by that I do not mean supersets done with no rest, but antagonist pairings with some rest in between sets. An example is weighted pullups supersetted with weighted dips with rest in between. I need three warmup sets for both exercises but with them I don’t need much rest.
More favorite pairings are:
RDL and hanging leg raises (both done in power rack)
Dumbbell bench press and dumbbell rows
Any tricep exercise with any bicep exercise
Split squats and leg curls (I don’t do back squats anymore)
Weighted dips and pullups
Calf raises and an abdominal exercise
Lateral raises and pulldowns
This is excessive and even Lyle states one can get ahead with less volume and that as one becomes stronger volume needs to be decreased. There are some exercises for which I can only complete two quality sets at this point. For example, I am now up to 105’s on dumbbell Bulgarian split squats Perhaps that’s not much for some, but anyone who does this exercise properly to failure or near failure knows that in between sets one might question why they even work out. I’ve had to rest three minutes between legs sometimes. And of course that is going to have one making adjustments for volume if they have a set amount of time to be in the gym.
I’ve also recently used rest-pause on some exercises to save time. I attend the gym between 5:00 and 5:30 AM. I want to be out of there in max 75 minutes from the time I walk in to the time I walk out. That reuires high effort and low volume.
At this point, I think very few people need a bro split. Though they work, hardly anyone in position in which they need so much room in a workout for specific bodyparts to be brought up, or even parts of bodyparts, so to speak (rear delts, upper chest, “lower lats”). There are ways to bring up weak bodyparts in an upper-lower split too.
I think you’ll be alright with one of the standard splits like upper-lower, push-pull-legs, or torso-limbs (a la DC).
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Or, my personal favorite: Push, Pull, Skip.
Jokes (or was it?) aside, great advice!
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Thank you!
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Leg day only gets worse the stronger you get.
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I’ve recently been doing a phase of no squats, which was always unimaginable, but my knees, back, shoulders and elbows feel so much better I don’t know if I’m going back (and I was even all SSB before this). I can get sore without feeling destroyed - it’s great!
I’m also simply not as strong (egotistical?) on the machines as I was under the bar (not that I was a prodigy there), so I’m sure that’s a factor.
Anyway, very much to your earlier point on finding moves other than squats; I was finally willing to try it.
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One thing that I find kind of funny is that as the trend in the bodybuilding community has shifted to high to lower and lower volumes, my own training volume has shifted from low to higher and higher. These trends certainly seem to be cyclical and I’m sure it’ll reverse course a few years down the road again. My own training will always be a reflection of whatever gets me excited and what gets me results. I pounded the drum hard for Mike Mentzer back in 2020, but now my training looks a lot more like Serge Nubret’s. Definitely a 360 degree turn! But my physique has improved so much since that time. There’s certainly been some kind magic there
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Good. They are unnecessary unless someone’s in PL or OL. IF I ever manage to get up to outgrow the the dumbbells on split squats at LA Fitness (125’s) I’ll go to Safety bar or Smith machine split squats for them.
Video won’t upload.
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Are you doing them with one dumbell in each hand. That’s a decent weight for sure
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Two dumbbells.
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Very nice sir, I got up to 50kg per hand recently done as an accessory after heavy squats. The doms after is like nothing else 
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Stu said same thing about his increase in volume. But he stopped short of failure and I don’t know his “RIR” (barf).
I personally at this point have no room for high volume.
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I use them as one of my “main lifts”.
I’ve never been successful uploading lifting videos here.
I just put them on youtube and then post a link. Never worked out the other way either.
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