Yeah man, I think you’ve got it. Instead of a bunch of sets of a bunch of lifts you really focus your effort on and bust ass fewer reps on a few lifts.
So for your “bench press” you might do 2 or maybe 3 progressively heavy “warm up” or “preparation” sets to get ready and find a good working weight. Then 1 or 2 “work sets” or “money sets” that you keep track of and try to beat next time. After that move to your next exercise.
Switching up exercises is a personal preference thing. I like to make little adjustments (switching from flies to pec deck, or incline barbell press to incline dumbbell press) every 3 weeks or so.
Alternating lifts week to week, like going back and forth between barbell and dumbbell bench press like you mentioned is a pretty cool method too. In think you can go longer, 6-8 weeks between changes if you’re working in a little variety that way.
Some guys don’t like changes or mixing things up. They’re more into finding some good stuff and then just sticking with it.
I guess like everything else, you’ll need to figure out what you like. If things are going well, you’re making progress and the lift feels good you wouldn’t want to change things up just because the calendar said to. On the other hand, if skull crushers are killing your elbows, don’t tough it out on something that’s messing you up. Find a lift that fits you better.
Gotcha! I will be the first to admit that my diet has slacked since I changed shifts at work. Before that I was doing much better. It’s not an excuse, just a reality and I know that I can change it, just much harder given a lot of other family stuff that I don’t wanna air out.
Your Body Part Split is already designed to break up your body and spread the work around. It really shouldn’t matter too too much.
It’s not a like a full body plan, or a powerlifting setup where you would have to squat consecutive days, or deadlift right after squatting or something.
That said, it may just be physically tough to do 3 workouts in a row.
The first week was great, until I got to shoulders. I shoulder pressed too much, I assume, and it started barking to where I had to stay off a week and get a cortisone shot… The life of a 43 yr old… I will get cranked back up on Sunday night, as I am starting to feel better (shot was Tuesday)… I will try doing most everything, but the over head stuff, going heavier and low rep and see what that does as far as the shoulder goes. If nothing else, I will just go back to doing what I was before and just change the ‘way’ I am doing the sets…
I have cranky shoulders too, some exercises really hurt them more than others. Maybe play around with a few different styles/equipment/techniques and find something that keeps them happy. For me, Dumbell OHP’s always feel better than barbell OHP’s. Behind the neck BB always feels better than standard OHP. Push presses feel the worse. Neutral grip always feels better than pronated, lateral raises on cable destroy me where dumbbells are a little better.and I never ever EVER do front raises lol That’s how it is for me, maybe you can find stuff that works for you too!
Also flat benching destroys my shoulders but incline and decline don’t.
Incline press at a 45 or more kills me. My rotator cuff was 50% torn a year ago. I got the shot, lowered the incline bench below that and kept going. My OH Presses were dumbbells and at 50 were just more than what my shoulder wanted. I hadn’t had an issue until I pushed the higher weight. I still would like to at least try heavier/lower rep on main lift, squats, deadlift and bench. just go moderate everything else… But, this definitely changed up what I was going to do.
Just keep trying and find what works. Another thing I do is start every shoulder day with light (5-10lb) Dumbell lateral raises and rear delt flys. Gets lots of blood in the joint and I feel like the pump helps stabilize my shoulder.
Yea. A solid warm up that’s personalized for you and your pain areas is always a solid plan. My shoulders still hurt, but not as bad. I also work a manual labor job that has my hands in front and above me daily. I’ll have two bionic shoulders before 50 for sure.
Edit:
John meadows is a big advocate of starting shoulder sessions with rear delts first. I’d imagine there’s a reason behind it.
I’m hesitant to really give you input because I myself am not even close to reaching my goals. But if people here will let me, here’s what I have to say.
Bro, you’re overthinking it. Pick a goal, research some methods that would make you reach your goal, and then pick the one your gut instinct tells you is the best. If it works, good. If it doesn’t, even better. You just learned what sucks.
Even geniuses make mistakes. You gotta take a leap of faith.
Me, personally, I find high volume training, such as GVT, to be effective at building muscle, while heavy daily squatting took my squat from 335 to 405 in TWO MONTHS. That’s faster progress than the time I ran Smolov Junior three times.
Also, just never stop learning and stay humble.
Best of luck.
PS = Not to flatter you but I like what you said last. Taking criticism is tough, but it will build up your psyche if you choose to learn from it.
(Edit: I only read your original post before posting this so forgive me if I missed something huge.)
Hehe, I figured. A less playful answer would be possible but I’m not answering from a place of success so it didn’t really feel as if it were to be entirely appropriate to provide it.
