Hello guys. Im Paulo and I am from Portugal. I am 27 years old. Been training on and off since 4 years ago, spent 1 year doing bro splits but then my time got really tight when I got my job. So I am only able to workout 3x a week. Been doing full body workouts for the past 3 years but I reached a point where my volume is already too much for a whole full body workout. I feel so exhausted doing full body workout Im thinking about switching things up…
Because Im a natural lifter, I tend to go with the logic of “more frequency more gains”. So my initial idea was to split my training program into Monday Push, Wednesday Pull and Friday Legs… But again, im a natural lifter so idk if Push once a week will be optimal for muscle growth stimulus. Then I thought what If I keep the full body with a Push Pull mix?
So I came up with this training program and I want you guys to give me your honest opinions and help me out to set up the best workout possible for me. The workout Im thinking of will be: Monday Push, Wednesday Pull, Friday Push and then repeat next week starting with Monday Pull and so on and so on… Thing is I want to hit legs each Push Pull session so Im thinking…
What if… On the Push day I do 2 push leg exercises with 4 push exercises (2 chest 2 shoulders) and on the Pull day I would be doing 2 pull leg exercises with 4 pull exercises for the back… This way I would be doing legs + push and legs + pull with a 4 day rest between muscle groups. My goal is to get muscle size, hyperthrophy. Now I just need help with the number of sets and reps and wich exercises to pick for the best and bigger stimulus possible. Thank you very much in advance.
You can do that.
For hypertrophy I would do only 2 sets each exercise: week 1: few reps in reserve, next week almost to failure, next week to real failure, and next week beyond failure using techniques like dropsets and or rest-pause.
Keep beating the logbook. If you feel you are tired or have 2 bad workouts in a row, do a deload or rest completely for 5 days.
Change rep range, but in my opinion for hypertrophy you dont need to go below 5 reps.
Upper body up to 12, then incrase weight.
Lower body up to 15, amd sometimes 20 reps.
Choose exercises that fit your structure and try to feel the muscle, dont increase the weight if you dont feel you really “own” the weight, this way you wont reach a stalled progress too early.
After few months, mix a little bit, add or substract some exercise.
Thank you very much for the fast reply my friend. I will try that deload and see how it goes.
Portugal is a great country indeed… if you re a tourist lool Im a resident and also full time security guard wich is considered a risky job, and my salary is not bigger than 1k a month for more than 200 hours a month. Rents are up to 600 a month wich makes it even worse to live your life. Sadly we work to survive in this country.
I feel like you are making it very complicated. A split that has worked for me and I have seen a few people on here use (big strong people like @bulldog9899 ) is:
Week 1
Upper, Lower, Upper
Week 2
Lower, Upper, Lower.
This way you get 1.5 work out per body part per week. I mean you can do 2 upper body and 2 lower body days a week if you are in the gym that much. But upper lower is a really nice way to split the body I find.
Well… if i had limited days i would suggest to do 531 two day split :
1)Overhead Press and Deadlift + BB Rows + 1 Squat Accessory + 1 Bench Accessory
2)Bench and Squat + Pullups + 1 OHP Accessory + 1 DL Acessory
You can use the third day if you want for cardio and abs, or some extra arms.
Two day 531 works very well for almost 90% of people i train.
Also, take note that being natural does not change much in the way of how splits work. I mean, yes - in laboratory they show a difference, but i dont really think it does in real world. When i was a kid and just started out, in my shit country there was limited internet access time, and all we had was some idiotic bodybuilding .com with their bullshit programs, and my whole country did bro splits, natty and not natty - its not like natty didnt make any progress… my first 5-7 years of training i did on bro splits… maybe you progress faster on 2-3 times a week per muscle when you train for the first year, but after that - i think it might matter to such small percentage that it wont be noticable in real life.
Also, what @carlbm said is a good one…I do upper/lower 531 EOD so it comes down to 8-9 day week…
Second this. The other great thing about setting it up this way is that if you find yourself with a week where you can do 4 days in the gym, you do can do that and then just keep rotating through the days. When/if I shift off of my current three whole body sessions per week, this is what I’m going to do.
Thank you so much everyone for the tips! I might try this Upper Lower approach indeed. Looks simple and easy to perform… But isnt upper lower to exhausting to be done in 1 session? Chest, back and shoulders in one day… How many exercises per muscle group though? Thank you again guys !!!
I don’t think so. If I were setting my training up this way, I’d probably do two chest exercises, two back exercises and one to two shoulder exercises. And I wouldn’t press for my shoulder exercise(s), I’d probably do laterals of some sort.
Alright boys I really apreciate all the support and help from all of you and I mean it. I confess I’ve been going through a phase where I’m kinda lost and don’t know what to do, its been 3 years of full body workout, and my body doesn’t change anymore. But thanks to all of you I figured out what I am going to do from now on. I am going to try the PPL program and stick to it for at least 12 weeks (if I dont stale before that). Once I stale on that program, I’m changing to Upper/Lower program. Im started eating at a surplus for about 1 week now and already feeling stronger. Lets see what happens…
Again, much grateful!
Best advice I can give with most of my life working out Natty is this: Keep shocking your body. Don’t get into a routine longer than 90days. Purposely Shock your body and it Will grow.
As far as my experience has been; LISTEN to your body. Typically in past on either a push or pull day I’ve found it best to always incorporate legs even if just squats.
It’s not so much what you do but how you do it.
There’s SOOO many ways to force your body into shock, don’t allow for yourself to get accustomed to a specific routine…switch weights up, reverse order of typical workout, go for high rep low weight then next high weight low rep. STOP working out a week or 2 and then get back in there…sometimes a break can be the BEST thing for a plateau…
In totality; don’t focus on comparing what your doing to what you’ve done, rather compare how you feel and felt during and after sessions.
Salaries are low and taxes are way high for what you get in return.
The government if often incopetent and, like in plenty of countries in southern europe, everything is handled nonchalantly, to say the least. Including tax money.
However, quality of life is way good compared to alot of countries in Central and Northern Europe.
It’s fucking miserable and cold there, both the weather and people’s mood.
Yeah they make more than you but they don’t socialize as much. Going out to eat at restaurants isn’t a weekly ocurrence, nor is spending afternoons in coffee shops on a semi daily basis.
In some smaller towns in Germany you don’t see anyone outside past 6 pm.
Just thank God you can have probably the best coffee outside of Italy for 70 cts and pretty good food.
I tend to think it can be a bit much myself, so I like a DCish type of split:
A
Chest exercise (ex. BB incline)
Shoulder exercise (ex. DB seated press)
Tricep exercise (ex. dips)
Back width exercise (ex. pulldowns)
Back thickness (ex. DB row)
B
Biceps (ex. BB curls)
Calves
Quads (ex. Leg press)
Ham (ex. RDL)
You can throw in face pulls or lateral raises into B if you like.
