I’ve experimented with many kind of weights approaches, and found the one that yielded the best gains for me to be an upper/lower split. However, I’d totally neglected the cardio while I’ve been hitting the weights the last 6 months, and I want to re-introduce some… mainly to keep the heart healthy and limit fat gains… I miss the feeling of the sweat pouring off me!
Whereas with a full body routine you could just do cardio on your off days, it looks a little harder to fit it in with an upper/lower split, avoiding overtraining the legs etc. How does this looks as a template though?
Day 1: Upper weights
Day 2: Lower weights
Day 3: Rowing HIIT/anaerobic intervals (20mins)
Day 4: REST
Day 5: Lower weights
Day 6: Upper weights
Day 7: Cycle HIIT/anaerobic intervals (20mins)
Day 8: REST
(and repeat from start)
This is kinda done so that the weights days are separated from the relevant muscles working in the HIIT as much as possible, i.e. cycle HIIT and leg days, rowing HIIT and upper days.
You don’t have to do HIIT to get some good cardio in.
A few ways to get it into your routine:
Circuit some assistance exercises after your ‘money’ ones
A1. Assistance 1
A2. Assistance 2
A3. Assistance 3
A4. Metabolic exercise
Rest ~30 seconds and repeat for 3-4 sets
Do 15 minutes of incline walking after each session
Circuit some dynamic flexibility drills and combine them with a few metabolic-focused exercises like burpees, jumping jacks, lateral lunges, or some barbell complex stuff. You could do this as a general warm up before your specific warm-up for the first exercise on each day or as active rest on your offdays.
Just add a session or two in every month, until you’re happy with the cardiovascular training affect and work capacity you’re working with.
Loads of ways to do this, but add things into your program sparingly and build up to where you inevitably want to be. Just space the legs/arms specific stressors out from your weight-training sessions by placing them afterward or one training day after the corresponding muscle group is trained.
[quote]Paulinho wrote:
I’ve experimented with many kind of weights approaches, and found the one that yielded the best gains for me to be an upper/lower split. However, I’d totally neglected the cardio while I’ve been hitting the weights the last 6 months, and I want to re-introduce some… mainly to keep the heart healthy and limit fat gains… I miss the feeling of the sweat pouring off me!
Whereas with a full body routine you could just do cardio on your off days, it looks a little harder to fit it in with an upper/lower split, avoiding overtraining the legs etc. How does this looks as a template though?
Day 1: Upper weights
Day 2: Lower weights
Day 3: Rowing HIIT/anaerobic intervals (20mins)
Day 4: REST
Day 5: Lower weights
Day 6: Upper weights
Day 7: Cycle HIIT/anaerobic intervals (20mins)
Day 8: REST
(and repeat from start)
This is kinda done so that the weights days are separated from the relevant muscles working in the HIIT as much as possible, i.e. cycle HIIT and leg days, rowing HIIT and upper days.
[/quote]
The way you have things set up is fine. I presume you set them up that way because it fits your schedule?
Well it certainly suits my schedule (and my recovery abilities) to have an OFF day every 4! But yeah, there’s no way I could be working out for 45mins-1 hour 6x per week.