Only Upper Body

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

I am going to only be able to train my upper body for a little while due to recovering from a surgery. Before I get flamed on here, yeah I know it sucks, and no this is not by choice. I will be working on lower body mobility as much as possible, specifically the hips.

Anyways I was wondering what a good way to structure my training would be. I am leaning towards only twice a week, for reasons related to the surgery. However, I would like to hear all opinions. I’m gonna look to put on some weight in this time period, nice and slowly though. I’m leaning towards training on monday and friday. I was wondering if it would make sense to make one day a heavy day and one day a light, or if thats enough time to recover to lift heavy both days.

Any other input would be great.

2

What type of surgery, and what specifically are your limitations?

3

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
What type of surgery, and what specifically are your limitations?[/quote]

This is important info in order for us to give you any real advice. Depending on surgery you may want to take some time off then just do a couple easy days/week, or, if it’s not something that effects upper body training, there’s nothing saying you can’t train pretty much every day. Just split it up into something like chest/tri, back/bi, shoulders, repeat.

However, if I was recovering from surgery and only wanting to train twice/week, knowing I’d have to take it easy with that training as well, I would not be looking to gain weight… you are not in a good position to be adding muscle, so you’ll probably just be adding fat.

4

Very smart advice so far. I’ll tell you what I’d do though. I’d do a 3 day split twice a week, so two days for chest/shoulders, two for biceps/triceps, and two for upper back. Obviously you could only do this if your surgical recovery permits it.

5

Don’t train twice a week. Bad idea unless your “surgery” only permits that limited of a training schedule.

Minimum, IMO, would be 3 days a week but you could do anything up to 6 days if you’d like.

Chest/tri’s
Back/bi’s
Shoulders/traps/abs (if allowed)

If you don’t want to lift legs that’s ok. You don’t have to make up a surgery excuse :wink:

6

[quote]Gmoore17 wrote:

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
What type of surgery, and what specifically are your limitations?[/quote]

This is important info in order for us to give you any real advice. Depending on surgery you may want to take some time off then just do a couple easy days/week, or, if it’s not something that effects upper body training, there’s nothing saying you can’t train pretty much every day. Just split it up into something like chest/tri, back/bi, shoulders, repeat.

However, if I was recovering from surgery and only wanting to train twice/week, knowing I’d have to take it easy with that training as well, I would not be looking to gain weight… you are not in a good position to be adding muscle, so you’ll probably just be adding fat.[/quote]

Long story short the surgery took out some infected tissue by my tailbone. I’ve had this done before. This time I was left with a 5cm long by 2.5cm deep open wound. My limitations are nothing that would further injure the wound, so basically nothing lower body. I will be able to start lower body training before the wound is fully closed, just not yet.

I’ll save the sob story and the details, but i need to get back into my training and have something to focus on as I’ve been derailed by injuries for awhile. I wanted to gain weight cause I’ve lost some due to injuries (not much), but also it could give me a steadfast goal to shoot for. You guys are probably right on that not being a good idea right now, so I’m glad I posted.

The dressing changes and after surgery care make it difficult to hit the gym on tuesdays and thursdays as well as wednesdays. However, I could prlly make a monday wednesday friday work if monday and friday is not sufficient. Keep the good ideas coming

7

[quote]gregron wrote:
Don’t train twice a week. Bad idea unless your “surgery” only permits that limited of a training schedule.

Minimum, IMO, would be 3 days a week but you could do anything up to 6 days if you’d like.

Chest/tri’s
Back/bi’s
Shoulders/traps/abs (if allowed)

If you don’t want to lift legs that’s ok. You don’t have to make up a surgery excuse ;)[/quote]

Haha damn you gregron you saw through my bluff… Maybe if I threaten you with pics for proof you would believe me? Kdding by the way…

8

[quote]bulkNcut wrote:

[quote]Gmoore17 wrote:

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
What type of surgery, and what specifically are your limitations?[/quote]

This is important info in order for us to give you any real advice. Depending on surgery you may want to take some time off then just do a couple easy days/week, or, if it’s not something that effects upper body training, there’s nothing saying you can’t train pretty much every day. Just split it up into something like chest/tri, back/bi, shoulders, repeat.

However, if I was recovering from surgery and only wanting to train twice/week, knowing I’d have to take it easy with that training as well, I would not be looking to gain weight… you are not in a good position to be adding muscle, so you’ll probably just be adding fat.[/quote]

Long story short the surgery took out some infected tissue by my tailbone. I’ve had this done before. This time I was left with a 5cm long by 2.5cm deep open wound. My limitations are nothing that would further injure the wound, so basically nothing lower body. I will be able to start lower body training before the wound is fully closed, just not yet.

I’ll save the sob story and the details, but i need to get back into my training and have something to focus on as I’ve been derailed by injuries for awhile. I wanted to gain weight cause I’ve lost some due to injuries (not much), but also it could give me a steadfast goal to shoot for. You guys are probably right on that not being a good idea right now, so I’m glad I posted.

The dressing changes and after surgery care make it difficult to hit the gym on tuesdays and thursdays as well as wednesdays. However, I could prlly make a monday wednesday friday work if monday and friday is not sufficient. Keep the good ideas coming[/quote]

Can’t train on the weekends? If you can really only do three days/week, I’d probably alternate upper pull and upper push workouts… like chest/tri/front/lateral delts one day, back/traps/rear delt/bis the other. If you can only do two days/week, I’d just do full upper body both days.

Anyway, how long until the wound heals do you think? If it’s only a few weeks that’s not a big deal, focus on healing up. Also, make sure you taking your Doctor’s advice about what you can/should be doing before you listen to us.

9

It should be 8-10 weeks to heal. But its hard to tell as the last time I had an open wound for a year then had to have the surgery again. I won’t bother you with details but its notoriously hard to heal these. I think it has contributed to other injuries I’ve incurred, but that’s another story. And yeah I’ve been doing as my surgeon says and once again I’ll spare the details but its an incredibly painful ordeal and requires a lot of attention and brings about other issues. I could train weekends, but it would end up being 4 conseutive days. Would that be too intense for an upper lower split?

10

Hmm in that case I would probably split it up three ways. Either chest/tri, back/bi, delt/trap, or chest/delt, back/trap/rear delt, arms, and just keep rotating through them so each week you do one of those twice. It’s not ideal but it’d be hard to do push/pull/push/pull consecutively (could work though).

By the way, sorry to hear about your surgery, that sounds like it sucks, and I don’t really even feel very comfortable giving you these recommendations in case they lead to it making it harder for you to heal, etc. Keep in mind that everything I say is with no knowledge of how it will affect that area, and I’m just giving recommendations based solely on the fact that you can’t train lower body. Your first priority should be healing, even ten weeks is nothing in the span of a lifetime of lifting and being healthy.

11

[quote]Gmoore17 wrote:
Hmm in that case I would probably split it up three ways. Either chest/tri, back/bi, delt/trap, or chest/delt, back/trap/rear delt, arms, and just keep rotating through them so each week you do one of those twice. It’s not ideal but it’d be hard to do push/pull/push/pull consecutively (could work though).

By the way, sorry to hear about your surgery, that sounds like it sucks, and I don’t really even feel very comfortable giving you these recommendations in case they lead to it making it harder for you to heal, etc. Keep in mind that everything I say is with no knowledge of how it will affect that area, and I’m just giving recommendations based solely on the fact that you can’t train lower body. Your first priority should be healing, even ten weeks is nothing in the span of a lifetime of lifting and being healthy.[/quote]

Thanks man, I would prefer a push pull but that may be too taxing, unless I designate heavy and light days I guess. Yeah my training has been terrible for about a year now anyways so I would like to think 10 weeks is nothing in the long run haha. Also even the surgeon doesn’t know too much about training affecting the area other than don’t do anything that hurts or directly stresses the area. After the last surgery I was deadlifting after 8 weeks and pulled my heaviest deadlift with a 3cm by 2cm ho!e in my ass haha. But I got a lower back injury that stemmed from lack of mobility and inter rotation of my femur. I strongly believe that this is because I avoided squatting movements (out of necessity) so mobility in my hips is key in my recovery now. Once again thanks for your help and any other ideas would be great

12

assuming you can train safely I know if I were in a predicament where I could only upper body I would hit every body part like 3 times a week

like I would take it to an extreme and kill it.

13

Day 1: Chest/arms
Day 2: Back/shoulders
Day 3: off
Day 4: repeat

I’d alternate between like low rep days and higher rep days
For chest and mil press I’d mess around with 5/3/1 style power movements

I’d probably get big as fuhhhh and only take pics from the waist up

Brb new plan.

14

[quote]paulieserafini wrote:
assuming you can train safely I know if I were in a predicament where I could only upper body I would hit every body part like 3 times a week

like I would take it to an extreme and kill it.

[/quote]

Wish I could man, wish I could. It’s just with scheduling of the dressing changes I can’t make it to the gym every day. I do have a bench and dumbbells up to 40 lbs at my house… Not great but maybe I could make it work so I could do a push day at home and the rest of the days in the gym. Just to give me more flexibility for making a program.

15

Just looked at my class schedule and realized that things get much easier in about 4 weeks when classes are over. By then hopefully I can do lower body, and if not at least I can hit the gym whatever day I want. A couple things I need to focus on are grip work and core strength. I have had injuries that both of these would help with. Would a single day of dedicated core work a week be enough? For example if I did push, pull, core, push, pull. Or would it be better to finish two training session a week with core work? I need to stop saying core…

16

I’d incorporate the core work into the rest of your training 2-3 days/week

17

Did you have a Pilonidal abscess removed by any chance? I can say from experience that you absolutely can squat with a giant open wound from a Pilonidal abscess. It might bleed a bit by the dressing should catch that. The things you want to avoid are exercises that place pressure on the area like leg press and DB incline bench

18

Yes sir, except it was a bit more involved. I do agree that I could squat with the open wound, as I did the last time as well as deadlift. However, I’m just trying to play it by the surgeons rules this time as I had an open wound for a year last time that never fully healed. And yeah I’m avoiding incline presses, but thanks for the advice. Sorry to hear about the surgery though, its def not fun or pretty. How did yours heal up?

19

Shit man, it sounds like you had it really bad last time, I can understand playing it safe.

To be honest I’d personally stay out of the gym for a little bit if I’d been through what you have.

I have no complaints about my healing process - I had a terrific surgeon and very regular progress checks (very important) - mine healed up in a few weeks. I trained throughout the healing since i’d been out of the gym while I had the abscess.

My major issue was just how bad it got before getting referred to a surgeon, I had 3 rounds of progressively stronger antibiotics prescribed by the clueless GPs who let me down until I demanded to see a surgeon (constant pain was so bad I couldn’t sleep or function). As soon as that good old boy sliced me open and packed the hole I was on easy street. After that it was a text book healing process that started at the bottom and worked its way up to the skin’s surface.

20

[quote]Milkismurder wrote:
Shit man, it sounds like you had it really bad last time, I can understand playing it safe.

To be honest I’d personally stay out of the gym for a little bit if I’d been through what you have.

I have no complaints about my healing process - I had a terrific surgeon and very regular progress checks (very important) - mine healed up in a few weeks. I trained throughout the healing since i’d been out of the gym while I had the abscess.

My major issue was just how bad it got before getting referred to a surgeon, I had 3 rounds of progressively stronger antibiotics prescribed by the clueless GPs who let me down until I demanded to see a surgeon (constant pain was so bad I couldn’t sleep or function). As soon as that good old boy sliced me open and packed the hole I was on easy street. After that it was a text book healing process that started at the bottom and worked its way up to the skin’s surface.[/quote]

Yeah it was rough. The first (of 3) times I’ve had this surgery my GP prescribed antibiotics which the surgeon said was pointless. I had that same pain, but just when sitting. I went to the doc cause I thought I had somehow fractured my tailbone. Just out of curiosity how was the pain of the dressing changes for you the first week?

I have a pretty high pain tolerance and it still opened my eyes up to a whole other level of pain. I had to do my first dressing change and I like almost blacked out twice and almost got sick. Not a good time. And yeah I’ve been going to a wound center once a week to meet with the surgeon and have the wound inspected and what not.

Also did your surgeon burn the inside of your wound with silver nitrate? I’ve been having that done like once a week for a year now and that shit is not pleasant either haha. Glad to hear that your healing process went well.