CT’s Best Damn Workout Plan is a 6-day a week plan. Push/Pull instead of U/L but maybe look into it?
Man way to much over complication going on here.
Welcome to the “optimisation spiral of death”. You can expect to run into a better program every 2 - 4 weeks. Each scientifically backed, of course. As you will convince yourself that whatever you are currently doing is “sub-optimal”, you’re going to be able to resist switching for 2 - 15 days - which sucker is going to do the second best program when the best is right there?
Each switch will derail whatever you managed to achieve in the previous program. And each failed program will have you looking for a program which can bring even faster results. You’ll want to add 20lbs/week to all lifts but you’ve barely managed that in the last year.
This will go on for about 5 years. Enjoy the ride.
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5/3/1 Frequency 2.0 is an upper/lower 6 days a week split.
Or take a 3 day a week program and divide each day in half.
Or you can pretty much divide any program up how you want to. You could do 5/3/1 Boring but big and put the volume 5x10 work on alternate days.
So days could look like:
Bench 5/3/1
Squat 5/3/1
Press 5x10
Dead 5x10
Press 5/3/1
Dead 5/3/1
Bench 5x10
squat 5x10
If you did that on a 6 on 1 off schedule, you’d actually do less work than normal boring but big per week.
I’m doing 6 days a week upper/lower largely for scheduling reasons. I’m only doing about 25-30 minutes of lifting a day, so I’m doing it 6 days a week. That’s only like 3 hours lifting a week. People overthink scheduling. Weekly volume and intensity are more important than how many days it takes you to get it in.
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What are your current maxes in the main lifts at? At 5’9" 150 and I’m curious as fuck as to why you would need to do 6 days a week when you could get insanely strong training 3-4 days a week and stay in amazing shape sprinting or doing GPP 2 days a week. I tried doing a program in a Muscle & Fitness when I was much younger that was 6 days a week doing 3 days of chest/shoulders/back and 3 days of legs/arms and all I got out of it was nagging pains, no endurance or cardiovascular shape, and was exhausted all the time. If being on forums as long as I have has told me anything, it’s that most guys asking these types of questions are fairly weak on compounds, train their pressing movements FAR more than their pulling movements, and are in terrible shape when it comes to anything outside of benching and curling. Train 6 days a week, but do it in a way where you lift 3-4 and condition 2-3.
Also wanted to add that I am curious as well what your goals are as far as competing, for a job, or simply training for a better body
It can definitely work if you don’t over do it.
Though, I would recommend if you are going to train that frequently that you keep your work-outs moderate(ish) in length…so, doing something like: Lower: Squats + Leg press, then Upper: Bench press + Pull-ups, then Lower: Deadlift + KB swings, then Upper: OHP + Rows etc.
Trying to do everything, every other day is not likely going to work for most people for very long.
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Interesting. Any studies to back this up?
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Bench: 185
Squat: 245
Deadlift: 265
Row: 175
Goal is to build muscle size and strength. To everyone else, I understand that there is no perfect program / routine, and I’d be more than happy to follow a proven one for an extensive period: however I feel like at some point incorporating stuff that fits ones wants/needs is important too.
I just figured that since I’m still quite young, my body can handle the higher frequency/volume and work capacity and so I thought it’d be good to take advantage of that. However, it seems that you all have proven otherwise, so I will admit I am wrong.
Yeah miles away from needing 6 days, and/or a custom plan
With those lifting numbers best for you is something like Texas method or one I’ve already listed. If reeeealy want to do higher frequency try the ‘Layers’ that Chris listed
The CT Layers looks very intriguing. Not sure who mentioned it earlier but someone also mentioned the 6 day Push/Pull from CT, who’s obviously one of the most respected and well known coaches. Don’t you think a 6 day UL would work then also?
Nope. Buddy, youre going round in circles.
You’ve got beginner levels of strength and size.
Not what you want to hear but something like Texas method is your best choice.
Layers is great and will get you stronger but is generally for further down the line.
“Best damn natural” has stuff like drop sets/beyond failure every workout, and would actually be counterproductive at this stage
By chance, was there a reason you ignored my question about conditioning? I feel like conditioning work would fit in exactly with this paradigm.
Okay I see what you’re saying about wanting to stimulate muscle protein synthesis more often. I’d just keep the volume on the lower side so your body doesn’t burn out any sooner than it needs to. I’ve noticed that bodybuilding takes a lot longer to see results than powerlifting does, so I just want you to make sure that you can keep it up for absolutely as long as possible
Moderate volume for each exercise I guess is what I meant. Total volume, yes, I was doing way too much. I wasn’t doing more than 3-4 sets of anything, but I would aim to get anywhere from 5-8 exercises each day depending on how I felt. I usually felt pretty good so I was normally in the 7-8 exercise range. 3-4 sets x 12 reps = 36-48 reps, 36 or 48 x 7 or 8 = 252-288 or 336-384 reps each day. The weight was light which is how I was able to keep that up for months, but admittedly, that’s a stupid way to train for a natty which is why I don’t do it anymore.
I really was just getting in the gym and doing meaningless sets. I’d flat BB bench and then do some DB flyes, machine flyes, incline DB, and then a few shoulder exercises and a few tricep exercises. Like I said, way too much and not smart.
It’s fun to get a crazy pump every day. However, what’s more fun is actually seeing results. 99.99% of the people who are natural don’t benefit from training like they’re on gear obviously.
As for the 12-15 hours a week in the gym, I’m counting my warmups, stretching, and cardio. I don’t think it’s that ridiculous to spend 12-15 hours in the gym if you’re going 6 days a week…
Huh? You realise there is no predetermined finish line on either of these pursuits right…
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This is what I don’t understand. Why did you keep this up for several months if you were not getting results? Time did not suddenly jump from month 1 to 8. There was a month 1, month 2, month 3 etc where common sense should have told you to do something else just by looking in the mirror. This gives me the impression that the bulk of your knowledge comes from reading articles and you are not at the level where you should be telling anyone what can or cannot work in absolutes when it comes to training.
I’m pretty sure they will since I have been both natural and on gear. People on gear generally don’t train like you.
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Texas method article on tnation right?
Sorry, didn’t even see it. Not too sure what I’d do with conditioning
^Fun story time: in my twenties, I spent about five years running long-distance races, and I participated in some running forums. I still remember posting on the website right after my first half-marathon, proudly regurgitating conventional wisdom from the running world; things that I now “knew” because I read them in articles or books. I had just run my first half-marathon, but I was ready to tell everyone just what they needed (even guys that had been running for 20 years) to get to the next level because I had just read the Competitive Runner’s Handbook. Over those five years, I had some ups & downs and learned a lot, improved my race times, and generally enjoyed the pursuit, but honestly the biggest lessons that I took away were a) conventional wisdom is not always right, b) reading is not a substitute for experience, and c) speaking in absolutes about what works and what doesn’t is almost always a fool’s errand.
Not to pick on lava, but in his first thread on this site (about a month ago) he said that his 1RM’s were/are a 325 squat, 285 bench, and 405 deadlift at age 19. These are inoffensive, even “good” numbers if we are comparing to the general population or even the gym-going population. Bringing up someone’s numbers is a surefire way to start a pissing contest, but that is not my intent; I merely wish to point out that those numbers, while good progress for his age and lifting experience, are not indicative of someone that can speak in absolutes about what works and what doesn’t work.
Reading is good. You should read a wide variety of articles - you’ll learn some interesting things and develop a good BS meter by doing so. But there is no substitute for experience; and you’ll see that many people have trained their way to advanced physiques and/or lifts using a variety of different approaches, no matter what Mark Rippetoe says (for what it’s worth, I enjoy listening to Rip on Q&A’s and videos, but Rippetoe fanboys often leave his seminars believing that there is one and only one correct way to train for all possible goals).
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