Decent Workout? Critique Appreciated

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Folks,

I have been doing a bodypart split for the last year or so but I am looking for a change. I am going to change to something which will give the muscles a hit more frequently. The plan below is a twice weekly Chest/Back and Legs/Shoulders split. Pretty standard. The difference is i have also included an extra day for deadlifts, and some iso’s that are missed during the normal workouts.

Can you please tell me what you think? and where I could possibly improve it?

FYI, I have been training seriously 2 years, 1 year on FB, 1 year on Split. 77kg(9% BF) at 5ft 11.

Thanks

Day 1 - Chest/Back (5x5)

Flat Dumbell Bench
One-Arm Row
Incline Dumbell Bench
Weighted Pullups

Day 2 - Legs/Shoulders (5x5)

Squat
Dumbell Shoulder Press
Leg Press
Laterals
Calf Raise (5x20)

Day 3 - Rest

Day 4 - Chest/Back (5x10)

Flat Dumbell Bench
One-Arm Row
Incline Dumbell Bench
Pullups

Day 5 - Legs/Shoulders (5x10)

Squat
Dumbell Shoulder Press
Leg Press
Laterals
Calf Raise (5x20)

Day 6 - Deads

Deadlifts (6x8,5,4,3,2,2)
Shrugs (6x20,8,8,8,20,50)
Bicep Curls (4x10,8,6,4)
Bent over Laterals (4x10,8,6,4)
Straight Arm Pulldowns (on cables) (4x10,8,6,4)

Day 7 - Rest

2

I don’t think its a bad program. Anything will work provided your eating & resting enough.

I’m hitting everything 2x week, kinda picked stuff from that ultimate bodybuilding thread I saw here.

Chest/Bi/Calf
Legs/abs
off
back/tri
shoulder/calf
off

rinse & repeat. Pretty simple, and I giant set the excercises (I think thats what its called). I’ll bench, then grab dumbells and curl, rest X time, repeat. In and out in under 1 hour, and don’t feel like I didn’t do enough work. I deadlift on leg day, also.

3

I don’t see any triceps, and almost no hamstrings.

4

Deadlift day hits hamstrings. Should I add in some ham curls on leg days too? perhaps instead of leg press?

Re. tri’s, for some reason mine have grown really well with benching/shoulder pressing and I feel I do not need to isolate them at the moment. If I notice they are lagging in a couple of months, i’ll start.

Any other comments?

5

Is there any reason that you’re not switching exercises on the 2nd go around for chest/back and legs/shoulders? I see you switched up rep schemes, but I’m just curious if just sticking to the same rep scheme per exercise and adding different exercises for the second time might help more.

I.e. for the 2nd leg/shoulder day: maybe front squat, db cuban press, SLDL, face pulls, and calf raise.

With calf raises, you can alternate between seated and standing, or hit the calves on the leg press. I’m wondering if this would be better all around since you’re still hitting everything twice but from a different angle and different muscles are being given priority.

6

Not bad. Give it a shot for a few weeks and see how your body responds.

7

[quote]ACTrain wrote:
Not bad. Give it a shot for a few weeks and see how your body responds.[/quote]

Is that you in the avatar? You look like you’re about to explode. And that’s not a bad thing. Congratulations.

OP - that doesn’t look bad at all. Just make sure you’re a) intense b) consistent and eat/rest well. Hit every rep with good form and power, and no reason why you shouldn’t make progress. And tinker as you need, if something lags.

Let us know how it goes.

8

Add some rear delt work in, face pulls for example.

9

[quote]ridethecliche wrote:
Is there any reason that you’re not switching exercises on the 2nd go around for chest/back and legs/shoulders? I see you switched up rep schemes, but I’m just curious if just sticking to the same rep scheme per exercise and adding different exercises for the second time might help more.

I.e. for the 2nd leg/shoulder day: maybe front squat, db cuban press, SLDL, face pulls, and calf raise.

With calf raises, you can alternate between seated and standing, or hit the calves on the leg press. I’m wondering if this would be better all around since you’re still hitting everything twice but from a different angle and different muscles are being given priority. [/quote]

The first thing I noticed when I looked at your routine was just that. Not that it’s bad but I know my body responds better when I hit body parts with different lifts. But everyone’s body is different, see if this works for you, if you feel you work out is not quite optimal try switching the lifts for your second workout on that body part.

For instance: On chest days instead of doing flat dumbell on both days with incline, I separate my chest into upper and lower chest. So maybe incline DB press, Floor Press, and Flat DB flies one day, then the next chest day I’ll do weighted dips, decline press, cable flies.

10

[quote]johnangus wrote:
Folks,

I have been doing a bodypart split for the last year or so but I am looking for a change. I am going to change to something which will give the muscles a hit more frequently. The plan below is a twice weekly Chest/Back and Legs/Shoulders split. Pretty standard. The difference is i have also included an extra day for deadlifts, and some iso’s that are missed during the normal workouts.

Can you please tell me what you think? and where I could possibly improve it?

FYI, I have been training seriously 2 years, 1 year on FB, 1 year on Split. 77kg(9% BF) at 5ft 11.

Thanks

Day 1 - Chest/Back (5x5)

Flat Dumbell Bench
One-Arm Row
Incline Dumbell Bench
Weighted Pullups

Day 2 - Legs/Shoulders (5x5)

Squat
Dumbell Shoulder Press
Leg Press
Laterals
Calf Raise (5x20)

Day 3 - Rest

Day 4 - Chest/Back (5x10)

Flat Dumbell Bench
One-Arm Row
Incline Dumbell Bench
Pullups

Day 5 - Legs/Shoulders (5x10)

Squat
Dumbell Shoulder Press
Leg Press
Laterals
Calf Raise (5x20)

Day 6 - Deads

Deadlifts (6x8,5,4,3,2,2)
Shrugs (6x20,8,8,8,20,50)
Bicep Curls (4x10,8,6,4)
Bent over Laterals (4x10,8,6,4)
Straight Arm Pulldowns (on cables) (4x10,8,6,4)

Day 7 - Rest[/quote]

The main thing I don’t like is all of day 6. I’d partition the movements from day 6 that you really want to keep into the other days. Right of the top I’d replace one of those squat days with the Deadlift. If you can Squat & Deadlift on back to back days you’re not hitting it hard enough. If you can squat twice and deadlift once in a week, your not hitting it hard enough.

11

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

The reason I am not wanting to change exercises is for consistancy in the moves - which will allow some good strength gains for 8 weeks. I will then shake it up. I should be able to improve strength hitting 2 sessions of 5x5 on the those exercises.

I am not a fan of day 6 either to be honest. I would rather just leave it to 4 days a week. But…I want to squat twice a week, and I don’t want to miss deads…

I am going to change it to:

Day 1 - Chest/Back (5x5)

Flat Dumbell Bench
One-Arm Row
Incline Dumbell Bench
Weighted Pullups
Bicycle Crunches (5x20)

Day 2 - Legs/Shoulders (5x5)

Squat
Dumbell Shoulder Press
Leg Press
Laterals
Calf Raise (5x20)

Day 3 - Rest

Day 4 - Chest/Back (5x5)

Flat Dumbell Bench
One-Arm Row
Incline Dumbell Bench
Weightd Pullups
Bicycle Crunches (5x20)

Day 5 - Legs/Shoulders (5x5)

Squat
Dumbell Shoulder Press
Leg Press
Laterals
Calf Raise (5x20)

Day 6 - Deads

Deadlifts (6x8,5,4,3,2,2)
Shrugs (6x20,8,8,8,20,50)
Bicep Curls (4x10,8,6,4)
Bent over Laterals (4x10,8,6,4)
Straight Arm Pulldowns (on cables) (4x10,8,6,4)

Day 7 - Rest