Doing Enough on a 1-A-Week Split

Training Bodybuilding
1

Just started the following 5-way split yesterday:

Day 1 - Quads, calves
Day 2 - Chest and bis
Day 3 - rest
Day 4 - Lower back, glutes, hams
Day 5 - Shoulders and tris
Day 6 - Upper back and traps
Day 7 - rest

I’m only in day 2 at the moment. I hit my quads and calves yesterday… Did 12 working sets for quads, aimed for 100 total reps but only did about 85, and was incredibly surprised to feel no DOMS today! Hit chest and bi’s today, and 2 hours after the workout - 12 sets for each muscle - felt like working out again.

I just really feel like I’m not doing enough. I did chest first today, and then bi’s: after finishing bi’s, I did another set of flyes (to get a pump) and was surprised that I managed to complete it. At the same time, on the last sets for each muscle, I am definitely going to relative failure, and already went to absolute failure (drop sets) for quads and chest.

So, what I’m saying is, even though I give it my all, I thought that splits would feel completely different, e.g. not being able to walk after leg day. Am I doing it all wrong? Should I find new ways to push myself to failure? Should I try to mix it up more, e.g. add some quad work in the posterior chain day, add some shoulder work to chest/bi day, etc? Or should I wait and see how I do on the programme first?

G

2

It’s your second day in man. Relax.

Give it a few weeks to figure out your weight selection and then you’ll be able to know how far to push yourself.

And don’t use DOMS as a parameter in which to judge your progress. Take some measurements at your neck, bicep, chest, waist, leg and also a morning weight. And even progress photos if you can. Those are all better ways then saying “I’m not sore today, might have had a bad workout yesterday”.

Track progress by the MONTH too; not by the day or week.

3

You can still get DOMs tomorrow. it normally takes 36-48 hours for my legs to get sore.

4

It takes a couple days for me as well. Does anyone know if the time it takes for DOMS to come has any correlation with years spent training or is it just specific to the individual?

5

[quote]B rocK wrote:
It’s your second day in man. Relax.

Give it a few weeks to figure out your weight selection and then you’ll be able to know how far to push yourself.

And don’t use DOMS as a parameter in which to judge your progress. Take some measurements at your neck, bicep, chest, waist, leg and also a morning weight. And even progress photos if you can. Those are all better ways then saying “I’m not sore today, might have had a bad workout yesterday”.

Track progress by the MONTH too; not by the day or week. [/quote]

I know, I know… I don’t expect to get sore all the time. But, I just took 9 days off to decondition myself and was bracing myself for the DOMS I’d associate with this.

6

[quote]G87 wrote:
Just started the following 5-way split yesterday:

Day 1 - Quads, calves
Day 2 - Chest and bis
Day 3 - rest
Day 4 - Lower back, glutes, hams
Day 5 - Shoulders and tris
Day 6 - Upper back and traps
Day 7 - rest

I’m only in day 2 at the moment. I hit my quads and calves yesterday… Did 12 working sets for quads, aimed for 100 total reps but only did about 85, and was incredibly surprised to feel no DOMS today! Hit chest and bi’s today, and 2 hours after the workout - 12 sets for each muscle - felt like working out again.

I just really feel like I’m not doing enough. I did chest first today, and then bi’s: after finishing bi’s, I did another set of flyes (to get a pump) and was surprised that I managed to complete it. At the same time, on the last sets for each muscle, I am definitely going to relative failure, and already went to absolute failure (drop sets) for quads and chest.

So, what I’m saying is, even though I give it my all, I thought that splits would feel completely different, e.g. not being able to walk after leg day. Am I doing it all wrong? Should I find new ways to push myself to failure? Should I try to mix it up more, e.g. add some quad work in the posterior chain day, add some shoulder work to chest/bi day, etc? Or should I wait and see how I do on the programme first?

G[/quote]

12 working sets for quads alone? What…
And who cares about DOMS, if you’re lifting more or doing more reps next week and the week after etc then things are working…

One thread you might want to read (at least the first 4-5 pages) is Professor X: a request , especially if you’re new to splits.

7

^
Ah, that helps. I’m gonna be on the lookout for it tomorrow :slight_smile: Funniest thing is, I feel something in my glutes, but not a lot in my quads (from the front squats and leg presses).

I’m also thinking of styling my workouts after HSS-100. I’m already VERY close to it, with 3 exercises/ muscle group, and similar rep-set parameters. All it’d take is the “special tecnique,” and I’ll be good to go.

8

I feel confident that I can do more reps, sets and weight next week. I am somewhat familiar with your posts, and I like the concept of doing few working sets. However, I really don’t feel that I have the right mind-muscle connection for this. I based my workout plan on Thibs’ “How To Design a Damn Good Programme,” and plan to pursue it for at least 6 weeks.

Anyway, here’s how my leg workout went:

Front Squats - 90kg, 5x5
Leg Press - 150kg, 8-8-6 (going for 3x8)
Leg Extensions - 3x15, dropped weight, then did about 10.

The last 3 sets were really just to get a pump. The weight was quite small.

(I miscalculated, it was 11 sets)

Anyway, as you said, as long as I make progress, I know the 6 weeks won’t be a total waste, and at least I know if this kind of programme works for me!

9

[quote]G87 wrote:

12 working sets for quads alone? What…
And who cares about DOMS, if you’re lifting more or doing more reps next week and the week after etc then things are working…

One thread you might want to read (at least the first 4-5 pages) is Professor X: a request , especially if you’re new to splits.

I feel confident that I can do more reps, sets and weight next week. I am somewhat familiar with your posts, and I like the concept of doing few working sets. However, I really don’t feel that I have the right mind-muscle connection for this. I based my workout plan on Thibs’ “How To Design a Damn Good Programme,” and plan to pursue it for at least 6 weeks.

Anyway, here’s how my leg workout went:

Front Squats - 90kg, 5x5
Leg Press - 150kg, 8-8-6 (going for 3x8)
Leg Extensions - 3x15, dropped weight, then did about 10.

The last 3 sets were really just to get a pump. The weight was quite small.

(I miscalculated, it was 11 sets)

Anyway, as you said, as long as I make progress, I know the 6 weeks won’t be a total waste, and at least I know if this kind of programme works for me![/quote]

That’s ok then. In this case, don’t bother changing anything until progress slows too much/stops…

Just realize that this approach may cause some issues if you keep using it for a long time (tendonitis as well as injuries due to imperfect form on presses, squats and such… You’d be amplifying the damage due to the large amount of work sets).

One thing you could do is, on the lifts where you don’t use the straight-setted 5*5 protocol (leg press, extensions) just use the regular ramping approach… Best of both worlds I guess.

Good luck with your training.

10

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
G87 wrote:

12 working sets for quads alone? What…
And who cares about DOMS, if you’re lifting more or doing more reps next week and the week after etc then things are working…

One thread you might want to read (at least the first 4-5 pages) is Professor X: a request , especially if you’re new to splits.

I feel confident that I can do more reps, sets and weight next week. I am somewhat familiar with your posts, and I like the concept of doing few working sets. However, I really don’t feel that I have the right mind-muscle connection for this. I based my workout plan on Thibs’ “How To Design a Damn Good Programme,” and plan to pursue it for at least 6 weeks.

Anyway, here’s how my leg workout went:

Front Squats - 90kg, 5x5
Leg Press - 150kg, 8-8-6 (going for 3x8)
Leg Extensions - 3x15, dropped weight, then did about 10.

The last 3 sets were really just to get a pump. The weight was quite small.

(I miscalculated, it was 11 sets)

Anyway, as you said, as long as I make progress, I know the 6 weeks won’t be a total waste, and at least I know if this kind of programme works for me!

That’s ok then. In this case, don’t bother changing anything until progress slows too much/stops…

Just realize that this approach may cause some issues if you keep using it for a long time (tendonitis as well as injuries due to imperfect form on presses, squats and such… You’d be amplifying the damage due to the large amount of work sets).

One thing you could do is, on the lifts where you don’t use the straight-setted 5*5 protocol (leg press, extensions) just use the regular ramping approach… Best of both worlds I guess.

Good luck with your training.

[/quote]

I feel you; that doesn’t sound like a bad idea, actually. Should I really be ramping up the sets, though, instead of winding them down? Because, with the pumping exercise, it’ll get real hard to consistently increase weights because of the short rest periods and the pump itself. Or should I just do one huge drop-set? Lastly… I should rest-pause, right? I would know what to do if I was just doing 1 working set for each exercise, but since this would be more of a combination, not so sure how to go about it!

11

Oh, and thanks for the input, C_C. Appreciate your reply in particular, since your stats are good and you’re a proponent of few working sets.

12

[quote]G87 wrote:

I feel you; that doesn’t sound like a bad idea, actually. Should I really be ramping up the sets, though, instead of winding them down? Because, with the pumping exercise, it’ll get real hard to consistently increase weights because of the short rest periods and the pump itself. Or should I just do one huge drop-set? Lastly… I should rest-pause, right? I would know what to do if I was just doing 1 working set for each exercise, but since this would be more of a combination, not so sure how to go about it![/quote]

I’d say leave rest-pause (unless you meant the standard “take a little breather later on in the set”-thing, that’s fine…) and all the other advanced techniques out for now and just do regular sets…

In your case that would be something like:

-Squat variation 55 (straight setted if you want… There’s also a ramping-version of 55 but it’s different from the standard bb ramping)

-Leg Presses (you could go a bit higher in reps here, you did your lower-rep work on squats after all and people’s quads usually grow very well off those “grind-it-out”-sets.): 1-3 warm-ups as needed, 1 set of 15-20 or so (occasionally holding the weight at the top with your knees just a bit bent so that you can catch your breath and do more reps).

-Leg Extensions (if you really think you need them after the other stuff): Either ramp the weight like you’d do on leg-presses and go for 10-15 on your work-set… Or just wing it and do some light set(s) for high reps without bothering with progression… Just for the pump.

That’s only an example, but should work out ok on a 1/week frequency.

13

Thanks, C_C. By warm-up reps, you’re still referring to moderately heavy reps that will tax me to a degree, right? Not just light reps to get blood flowing? And still with ±15 reps?

14

[quote]G87 wrote:
Thanks, C_C. By warm-up reps, you’re still referring to moderately heavy reps that will tax me to a degree, right? Not just light reps to get blood flowing? And still with ±15 reps?[/quote]

Warm ups are just warm-ups… Or ramping sets, same thing to me.
How much weight you use on each depends on what you want to do on your work-set. Same for reps.

After your 5*5 squats I doubt that you’ll need any more than 1 warm-up on leg-presses (probably none at all, but let’s play it safe at the beginning). Just take 60 percent or whatever of your working weight and do 8 good reps or so…

Warm-ups are just supposed to get you warm/rev up your nervous system for your work-set… They shouldn’t tire you unnecessarily. You want to the best possible performance on your work-set.

Say you just did your 5*5 squats with 450 or whatever.

Then (numbers are made up, I have no idea what you can do and what kind of leg-press you’re using) say you’d do one leg-press warm-up with 500*8, then your work-set of 800(which you would normally only get up 10 times or so, but you can pause and catch your breath after all so you’ll get 20 here or else)*20.

Get the idea?

Now if you were to do Incline bench ramping-style, then that would be something along the lines of:
13512, 2257, 2954, 3458 or so.

15

Yeah, that’s the rest-pause style I was talking about.

I think the new plan will be something like:

Exercise 1 - 5x5 w/ free weights
Exercise 2 - Rest-pause heavy machine/DB exercise
Exercises 3/4 - Light exercises to get a pump

16

[quote]G87 wrote:
Yeah, that’s the rest-pause style I was talking about.

I think the new plan will be something like:

Exercise 1 - 5x5 w/ free weights
Exercise 2 - Rest-pause heavy machine/DB exercise [/quote] The only bodyparts where the 20 rep thing helps are back (kroc rows) and quads (20 rep squats etc) though, at least from my experience [quote]
Exercises 3/4 - Light exercises to get a pump

[/quote]

17

Kinda figured that out… But I’d expect that the same system, just with less reps, works for other body parts. e.g. I’d aim for ±10 reps for lower back/hamstrings. Does that sound about right?

18

Hey, CC, I added rest-pause sets after the first 5x5 lifts to my workouts, liking it so far, wanted to say “thanks.” Now I go something like:

5x5 on primary compound exercise
1-2 rest-pause sets
1-2 “pump” sets

so my working sets per muscle group have been 7-9 for the last 3 workouts. I figure that as long as I keep going up in weights used and reps, I’m good and will gain mass, even if this system isn’t perfect.

19

[quote]G87 wrote:
Hey, CC, I added rest-pause sets after the first 5x5 lifts to my workouts, liking it so far, wanted to say “thanks.” Now I go something like:

5x5 on primary compound exercise
1-2 rest-pause sets
1-2 “pump” sets

so my working sets per muscle group have been 7-9 for the last 3 workouts. I figure that as long as I keep going up in weights used and reps, I’m good and will gain mass, even if this system isn’t perfect.[/quote]

Yup. Go own that weight (and the fridge).