To preface, this is my first serious step into designing my own plan and I’m looking for some fine-tuning.
I’ve got quite bit of time on my hands and I want to maximize gym-time. There’s pretty much only one day a week that I can’t make it into the gym twice-a-day. I just finished Waterbury’s ‘Get Even Bigger’ high-freq training and I really liked getting into the gym twice a day and I made some very consistent gains. My thought in switching from full-body workouts is to get more overall time in the gym.
I’m 6’0 and 180lbs, bf is 18.3% (from my Omron scale - not so reliable I think). My diet is very controlled (I use the Livestrong.com food-tracker) and eat 3,500 Cal on rest days and between 3,800-4,000 on training days. I get 7-8 hours of sleep every night (I take a 30 min nap midday when I only had 7 hours of sleep the night before).
I came up with this four-day training plan (for the most part, I’m using the recommended exercises come from Bret Contreras’ Inside the Muscles articles):
Day 1:
Workout 1: Back
Workout 2: Quads/calves (squat-heavy)
Day 2:
Workout 1: Shoulders
Workout 2: Arms
Day 3:
Workout 1: Hamstrings/Posterior chain (DL-heavy)
Day 4:
Workout 1: Chest
I split up chest and hamstrings to leave a day in between shoulders/chest and the leg days.
I’m a little concerned that I might start to burn out, should I just add a rest day if that happens? Any faults with how I paired body parts/anything too close together? What would you do differently if you had a lot of time on your hands?
I`ve done 2 a day workouts before in many different fashions but the only sane one that actually produced results was training the same body-part(s) both times with the exact same exercises. Having the exact same exerrcises will give you a wayyy smaller chance of injury. But who am I to tell someone what to do this is just my .02. If you care though here was my split
Day 1 chest tris
Morning
Bench Press 3 x 6
Florr Press 3 x 6
Incline Fly 3 x 8
Overhead rope extensions 3 x 6
V bar push downs 3 x 6
Evenning
Same exercises except 3 sets of 10-12
Day 2 Back bis
T-bar row 3 x 6
Rack chin 3 x 6
1 arm row 3 x 6
Preacher curl 3 x 6
Barbel curl 3 x 6
evening was same except 3 x 10-12
Day 3 off
day 4 Shoulders
Military BB 3 x 6
Lateral raise 3 x 6
Machine reverse fly 2 x 6
evening same except 3 x 10-12
then legs day i just did morning only
Squats 4 x 10
Lunges 4 x 8 each leg
Leg extension 3 x 12
Rdl 5 sets low reps
Hamstring curl 2 x 30
and i was eating a lot too roughly 5000-6000 calories, it worked good but i did somewhat burn out after a while, because i was also working for my dad on the side but it produced great results i wish i still had the time to do it.
Good luck squatting heavy after a heavy back workout. Why don’t you try pairing things that aren’t as ridiculous. Otherwise this is a good way to avoid cardio.
[quote]Blackaggar wrote:
I`ve done 2 a day workouts before in many different fashions but the only sane one that actually produced results was training the same body-part(s) both times with the exact same exercises. Having the exact same exerrcises will give you a wayyy smaller chance of injury. But who am I to tell someone what to do this is just my .02. If you care though here was my split
Day 1 chest tris
Morning
Bench Press 3 x 6
Florr Press 3 x 6
Incline Fly 3 x 8
Overhead rope extensions 3 x 6
V bar push downs 3 x 6
Evenning
Same exercises except 3 sets of 10-12
Day 2 Back bis
T-bar row 3 x 6
Rack chin 3 x 6
1 arm row 3 x 6
Preacher curl 3 x 6
Barbel curl 3 x 6
evening was same except 3 x 10-12
Day 3 off
day 4 Shoulders
Military BB 3 x 6
Lateral raise 3 x 6
Machine reverse fly 2 x 6
evening same except 3 x 10-12
then legs day i just did morning only
Squats 4 x 10
Lunges 4 x 8 each leg
Leg extension 3 x 12
Rdl 5 sets low reps
Hamstring curl 2 x 30
and i was eating a lot too roughly 5000-6000 calories, it worked good but i did somewhat burn out after a while, because i was also working for my dad on the side but it produced great results i wish i still had the time to do it.
[/quote]
[quote]thefederalist wrote:
Good luck squatting heavy after a heavy back workout. Why don’t you try pairing things that aren’t as ridiculous. Otherwise this is a good way to avoid cardio.[/quote]
I didn’t really notice having a problem with my back after that first day. I’ll switch squats to the morning and see if that makes a difference. In any case, what do you think would be a better pairing?
[quote]its_just_me wrote:
Here’s a crazy suggestion, why don’t you try it out and see?[/quote]
Classic advice. Super helpful. Thanks!
I’m training regardless, but the less time I waste figuring out the best way to make use of this time I’ve got on my hands, the better.
(Benefiting from others’ experience is the point of the forums, right?)
[/quote]
Glad you found it helpful
For what it’s worth, in the past, I’ve often found that high volume routines gave temporary results (like inflammation). Not saying that your routine is very high volume (although I haven’t seen the exercises/sets yet), but you do need to have more rest days. Ideally, a rest day for every two days training…one day after three training days at the most (unless your training days are very low volume).
Having said all that though, why not just do something straight forward? Like a 2 or 3 way split done 4 or 5 times a week? In my opinion there’s no point in searching for the “holy grail” when something tried and tested works perfectly fine (so long as there’s an adequate diet), especially if you are not advanced yet.
For what it’s worth, in the past, I’ve often found that high volume routines gave temporary results (like inflammation). Not saying that your routine is very high volume (although I haven’t seen the exercises/sets yet), but you do need to have more rest days. Ideally, a rest day for every two days training…one day after three training days at the most (unless your training days are very low volume).
Having said all that though, why not just do something straight forward? Like a 2 or 3 way split done 4 or 5 times a week? In my opinion there’s no point in searching for the “holy grail” when something tried and tested works perfectly fine (so long as there’s an adequate diet), especially if you are not advanced yet.[/quote]
You’re right, I think I was kinda getting a little ahead of myself. There’s another thread with pretty much the same title that I’m going through now. Thanks.
I’ve got quite bit of time on my hands and I want to maximize gym-time. There’s pretty much only one day a week that I can’t make it into the gym twice-a-day.
Thanks in advance!
[/quote]
Awesome. Ass-loads of free time!
But for how long?
Two-day training can be fantastic, if you got the, time, instincts, and the aptitude.
However, will you have this much gym time for 3 years?
If so go for it, if you won’t have this much time in 8 months…train once a day.
Seriously, this shit takes time, measured in years, not weeks.
If you can’t do this for like 2 years, I wouldn’t bother.
I’ve got quite bit of time on my hands and I want to maximize gym-time. There’s pretty much only one day a week that I can’t make it into the gym twice-a-day.
Thanks in advance!
[/quote]
Awesome. Ass-loads of free time!
But for how long?
Two-day training can be fantastic, if you got the, time, instincts, and the aptitude.
However, will you have this much gym time for 3 years?
If so go for it, if you won’t have this much time in 8 months…train once a day.
Seriously, this shit takes time, measured in years, not weeks.
If you can’t do this for like 2 years, I wouldn’t bother.
[/quote]
I’m just curious why you’re suggesting that a program like this is feasible for a 3 year time span but not an 8 month one.
