I couldn’t find a way to set up the wide bench press in any other way… So I’m with going as wide as the rack lets me for now.
I’m not liking the incline db flies. I’ve never really liked flies as an exercise anyway. The flat flies are ok and I feel like I can contract my pecs with them but the inclines feel weird in my shoulders. I couldn’t even complete the db pullovers because of those. I’m leaving the incline db flies out for now and adding/keeping the pullovers (db or bb).
I also seem to get a headache sometimes the day after a back or shoulder workout. This has happened to me before and it happened today after doing shoulders yesterday. I think it’s because of exercise selection and my traps overpowering my delts. My traps (and glutes) grow the easiest for me of all muscles. So I’m leaving out upright rows next time and adding military presses at the beginning of the workout before BTN presses.
Well thats the first day of serge’s split done. Feels awesome. Already got doms in my quads from thismorning and the chest session was great. Did an abs session yesterday under these principles and got a nice level of soreness going on there too. Chewing at the bit for tomorrows workouts.
L-Dee i must say i agree with you on the flies, I’ve never found DB Flyes as a great exersize myself, difficult to feel it in the pecs through the whole range of motion. I switched the flat flyes for a straight arm machine flye, felt far superior in terms of quality of muscle contraction and pump.
[quote]putter2712 wrote:
Well thats the first day of serge’s split done. Feels awesome. Already got doms in my quads from thismorning and the chest session was great. Did an abs session yesterday under these principles and got a nice level of soreness going on there too. Chewing at the bit for tomorrows workouts.
L-Dee i must say i agree with you on the flies, I’ve never found DB Flyes as a great exersize myself, difficult to feel it in the pecs through the whole range of motion. I switched the flat flyes for a straight arm machine flye, felt far superior in terms of quality of muscle contraction and pump.[/quote]
Like a pec deck but with straight arms? The same machine you can work your rear delts on?
There’s also cable flies but going through the hassle of setting them up is not worth it IMO.
[quote]putter2712 wrote:
Starting my first day of serge’s split today. Quads AM, Chest PM. I’m adjusting the split slightly, Sacrilege i know, but im doing the 3 days, then adding a fourth day for a proper ab session following the same principles, 3-4 exersizes or 6-8 sets for maximum pump, rather than doing abs in the AM. Ive just always preferred giving abs a full weighted session.
Also have people found the ‘Splash’ from doing squats managable? It just seems that the same logic that excludes deadlifts and adjusts benching would also negate the use of regular squats? I was considering doing smith-squats with feet out infront of me for pure quad work.[/quote]
Never saw too much splash off of the squats. The hamstring work is so isolated it should never be a issue.
[quote]putter2712 wrote:
Well thats the first day of serge’s split done. Feels awesome. Already got doms in my quads from thismorning and the chest session was great. Did an abs session yesterday under these principles and got a nice level of soreness going on there too. Chewing at the bit for tomorrows workouts.
L-Dee i must say i agree with you on the flies, I’ve never found DB Flyes as a great exersize myself, difficult to feel it in the pecs through the whole range of motion. I switched the flat flyes for a straight arm machine flye, felt far superior in terms of quality of muscle contraction and pump.[/quote]
Like a pec deck but with straight arms? The same machine you can work your rear delts on?
There’s also cable flies but going through the hassle of setting them up is not worth it IMO.[/quote]
Thats the one. Get an awesome contraction at the squeeze.
[quote]putter2712 wrote:
Well thats the first day of serge’s split done. Feels awesome. Already got doms in my quads from thismorning and the chest session was great. Did an abs session yesterday under these principles and got a nice level of soreness going on there too. Chewing at the bit for tomorrows workouts.
L-Dee i must say i agree with you on the flies, I’ve never found DB Flyes as a great exersize myself, difficult to feel it in the pecs through the whole range of motion. I switched the flat flyes for a straight arm machine flye, felt far superior in terms of quality of muscle contraction and pump.[/quote]
Like a pec deck but with straight arms? The same machine you can work your rear delts on?
There’s also cable flies but going through the hassle of setting them up is not worth it IMO.[/quote]
Thats the one. Get an awesome contraction at the squeeze.[/quote]
Thanks, might try that one next time after pullovers.
Intrigued by this article and everyone’s posts…yesterday I went into the gym and decreased all my poundages by 33 percent and focused on strict perfect reps and 30 sec rest periods…today I am sore as hell but feel great, not fatigued or exhausted.
Also, how freaking long are these workouts taking you guys? I was timing right @ 1 min for leg sets and right @ 30 seconds for my uppers (all except maybe 3 I took the full time) and it was a 2 hour lifting session.
@ gregron
I remember if you scroll up someone posted more or less doing them in about 70 min.
He felt 2 gym visits were not worth it and he did not have the time to take the suggested 15 min. brake.
I was used to much shorter so i am building 50, 55 min. not doing all sets.
I will try some double visits but now i am not committing to 12 weekly.
70 minutes? No way I believe that. That chest/quads day is 22 sets for legs alone and then 34 sets for chest. Knocking out 56 sets of 12 reps in 70 minutes? That’s 1:17 per set (including rest periods)
Don’t see that happening, but thanks for the response.
[quote]BHappy wrote:
@ gregron I agree it sounds to be on the short side to me. I am not that worried i am getting benefits without the total suggested volume.[/quote]
I’m playing around with this at the moment (mainly to ease up on joints as I have several issues). Currently playing with split.
Regards workout time. Buy a Gymboss!!! I set it at 70secs for 6 rounds. Basically gives me about 40 seconds to do 12 reps then 30 seconds rest. Wait for the beep, do your set, rest up waiting for the next beep, start the next set. Really the rest period will dictate the weight you can use (shorter rest, lower weight), it’s all relative and common sense. The main thing is decide on the time and stick to it: it must be constant from workout to workout otherwise you’re not comparing apples with apples.
At 70 seconds per set times 6 sets per exercise equals 7 minutes per exercise. Do say eight exercises per workout equals 56 minutes. Add about 10 minutes warmup & additional rest (if necessary) between sets and it’s certainly doable in just over an hour.
Regards failure: NO. It’s along the lines of Gironda’s training. Pick your weight, pick your time interval, do 6X12 with that weight, no more no less. Don’t complicate by adding reps at the beginning of a series etc etc.
I think generally people are trying to overcomplicate things. Bradley has provided details of the framework which will require fine tuning to suit your own time constraints, recovery etc, but keep to the underpinning principles. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater
[quote]BHappy wrote:
@ Gazz Thanks for the suggestion. Any idea where i might find 1 ?[/quote]
Got mine on Amazon. About 15 quid: One of the best training aids I’ve bought. Takes out any guesswork. All sorts of uses, interval training etc plus you can actually set a fixed work time & different rest time if you prefer eg 30 sec sprint,60 sec revovery, rinse & repeat.
Gregron… Shoulders takes 45 minutes. Arms takes 20 minutes. So its an hour and 15 minutes straight or one hour and 30 with a break. I did the quads with the 30 second breaks so it was 30 minutes for for quads and about 50 minutes for chest. So its like an hour and 20 minutes without a break or about an hour and 45 minutes with a break. Generally it seems each excercise (except the arm superset) takes about 10 minutes with the 30 second break when you add in setup and all that.
[quote]gregron wrote:
Also, how freaking long are these workouts taking you guys? I was timing right @ 1 min for leg sets and right @ 30 seconds for my uppers (all except maybe 3 I took the full time) and it was a 2 hour lifting session.
Is that pretty standard? [/quote]
I’m on board with this program. I am going to try 6 sets instead of 8 with 10-20 rest with upper body exercises and 30 sec rest with lower and only a couple minute break between bodyparts. I imagine it will still be a tad over an hour, but much more managable.
[quote]BHappy wrote:
@ gregron I agree it sounds to be on the short side to me. I am not that worried i am getting benefits without the total suggested volume.[/quote]
I’m playing around with this at the moment (mainly to ease up on joints as I have several issues). Currently playing with split.
Regards workout time. Buy a Gymboss!!! I set it at 70secs for 6 rounds. Basically gives me about 40 seconds to do 12 reps then 30 seconds rest. Wait for the beep, do your set, rest up waiting for the next beep, start the next set. Really the rest period will dictate the weight you can use (shorter rest, lower weight), it’s all relative and common sense. The main thing is decide on the time and stick to it: it must be constant from workout to workout otherwise you’re not comparing apples with apples.
At 70 seconds per set times 6 sets per exercise equals 7 minutes per exercise. Do say eight exercises per workout equals 56 minutes. Add about 10 minutes warmup & additional rest (if necessary) between sets and it’s certainly doable in just over an hour.
Regards failure: NO. It’s along the lines of Gironda’s training. Pick your weight, pick your time interval, do 6X12 with that weight, no more no less. Don’t complicate by adding reps at the beginning of a series etc etc.
I think generally people are trying to overcomplicate things. Bradley has provided details of the framework which will require fine tuning to suit your own time constraints, recovery etc, but keep to the underpinning principles. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater
Hope this helps
Gazz[/quote]
Great idea! I have one and I didn’t even consider it. I use it for interval training…
[quote]gregron wrote:
Also, how freaking long are these workouts taking you guys? I was timing right @ 1 min for leg sets and right @ 30 seconds for my uppers (all except maybe 3 I took the full time) and it was a 2 hour lifting session.
Is that pretty standard? [/quote]
I’m on board with this program. I am going to try 6 sets instead of 8 with 10-20 rest with upper body exercises and 30 sec rest with lower and only a couple minute break between bodyparts. I imagine it will still be a tad over an hour, but much more managable.[/quote]