I have currently been working out to my own homemade routine and it basically sucks. I am looking for a new routine for improvement in strength as well as overall bulk. I know there are a million routines posted on the site and i was thinking about doing CT’s hss-100 but was wondering which programs have worked the best for you
Any program you put a lot of effort into will produce good results. I have currently switched to a 4 day split which reads as follows:
Monday or Day 1
Back and biceps
Tuesday or Day 2
Chest and triceps
Wednesday
Off
Thursday or Day 3
Thighs
Friday or Day 4
Shoulders
Calves
Abs
DC
im not doing it right now, i started following one of the PC people and then it got cancelled so i just took their thing and have been modifing as i find nesecary.
it doesnt even matter waht you do really as long as its a split. …total body seems to be horseshit. lifting weight is going to build muscle no matter what, simple as that.
If lifting weight is going to build muscle no matter what, why do you find total body to be horseshit? I’m not knocking your advice, just wondering why you can be so sure of two things that seem pretty opposed.
Personally, I made great gains on total body training, and I’ve been doing it for a long time and am prepared to switch up to a movement-oriented split to see how that works out.
In case you’re wondering, Jgarry, the TB split I found to work best was:
Day 1) 6x4
Day 2) 4x6
Day 3) 3x9
Day 4) If I felt like it I would do all eccentric work (chins, 1-arm smith bench, squats, GHR’s)
Obviously those days weren’t consecutive, and obviously didn’t use the same exercises each day. What I did do though was do one weight for all sets, and increase the # of sets by 1 each week, and increase the weight on the 4th week, resetting the number of sets to what’s listed above.
[quote]jaygarry wrote:
I have currently been working out to my own homemade routine and it basically sucks. I am looking for a new routine for improvement in strength as well as overall bulk. I know there are a million routines posted on the site and i was thinking about doing CT’s hss-100 but was wondering which programs have worked the best for you[/quote]
As a rule i use these guidelines…
1 - 9 reps periodically
1 - 20 sets per BP
4 - 30 sets per workout
80% - 110% 1RM
splits:
back/chest/bi - legs/delt/tri
Full body
upper - lower
chest/delt/tri - back/bi - legs
chest/quads - back/hams - delts/arms
chest/quads - back/hams - delts/traps/ - arms
chest/bi - back/tri - legs - delts/traps
chest - delts - legs - arms - back
frequency of bodypart tends to be 1x p/w upto 5x p/w
you can make a million fucking great programmes out of that little post!! I do…
Joe
[quote]IMCS614 wrote:
If lifting weight is going to build muscle no matter what, why do you find total body to be horseshit? I’m not knocking your advice, just wondering why you can be so sure of two things that seem pretty opposed.
Personally, I made great gains on total body training, and I’ve been doing it for a long time and am prepared to switch up to a movement-oriented split to see how that works out.
In case you’re wondering, Jgarry, the TB split I found to work best was:
Day 1) 6x4
Day 2) 4x6
Day 3) 3x9
Day 4) If I felt like it I would do all eccentric work (chins, 1-arm smith bench, squats, GHR’s)
Obviously those days weren’t consecutive, and obviously didn’t use the same exercises each day. What I did do though was do one weight for all sets, and increase the # of sets by 1 each week, and increase the weight on the 4th week, resetting the number of sets to what’s listed above.[/quote]
because of observation. how many big people do you know doing full body? and it just doesnt make sense to me that you can fully exert yourself on your entire body one day and then do it again the next day. i havent done deads in a while so i decided id do them on my chest/back day and the day following was my legs day, so needless to say i was rediculously sore from head to toe, i cant even bend over to pick something up. i dont see how you can benefit from having that 24/7 splits are the way to go.
I think the problem you’re having with TBT is that you’re doing it on back to back days. Having at least a day off in between helps tremendously.
As for how many ‘big people’ I’ve seen doing TBT, quite honestly, a lot. TBT does work for size, strength, fat loss etc. It’s not a maybe thing, it works and works quite well. I’ve personally put on about 24 pounds in just over a year of lean muscle doing primarily TBT. The strength gains were tremendous and I’m stronger now at 42 than I was at 21 by far.
TBT really gives one the opportunity to concentrate on a few compound movements that work the entire body. Splits have a great place in one’s tool box as well and there is nothing wrong with them at all. It allows one to concentrate on specific areas and really work a muscle group or two. As with TBT, recovery is key.
I prefer to mix them up. I did two weeks of TBT, now I’m doing a 3-day split. I listen to my body, consult my log book and see what’s going on in the mirror as to what I work from week to week.
Just some thoughts.
Some sort of 4-day upper/lower split.
Any program that rotates exercises is good.
Percentages don’t help me much.
How many pounds of muscle you gain on a program is a function of your DIET.
You wouldn’t have gained those 24lbs (…of lean muscle in a year? questionable…) if you hadn’t been eating enough to do so, and who is to say you wouldn’t have made better gains on a different program eating the same way?
I’m not bashing TBT, I’m just saying that it isn’t some super program, and there are just as many (probably much more) people that got big from doing bodypart splits.
[quote]mr popular wrote:
How many pounds of muscle you gain on a program is a function of your DIET.
[/quote]
How many pounds of muscle you gain is not entirely a function of your diet alone. Someone training Chest, Shoulders, and Arms 3 days a week will not gain the same amount of muscle as someone doing DC Training even if they both eat the same perfect diet.
[quote]mr popular wrote:
How many pounds of muscle you gain on a program is a function of your DIET.
You wouldn’t have gained those 24lbs (…of lean muscle in a year? questionable…) if you hadn’t been eating enough to do so, and who is to say you wouldn’t have made better gains on a different program eating the same way?
I’m not bashing TBT, I’m just saying that it isn’t some super program, and there are just as many (probably much more) people that got big from doing bodypart splits.[/quote]
Are there more people that got big from doing bodypart splits? How can we tell, and besides, if that’s what they did, and got big, how do we know TBT wouldn’t have worked best? I’m not saying it would, it’s just hard to make those claims.
But since the question was which routing worked best for YOU, it’s irresponsible to bash someone’s answer if it’s a completely variable thing. After about 10 years of training, I can honestly say that some type of total body training worked best for ME, and i’ve experimented with a lot of different things (splits, TBT, upper/lower, push/pull), and I can only imagine TRAJJ has even more so after over 20 years of training. That certainly doesn’t mean I won’t continue to play around with new programs (i.e. starting next week), because it’s fun to do so
And to the OP, something else that gave me terrific size gains but burned me out after 4 weeks was the following:
Mon: Bench/Squat: 15 sets of 5 each
Tue: Dead/Pull or Chin ups: 15 x 5 each
Repeat Thursday and Friday.
For a few weeks it’s great, after that you’ll be dying to try something new, but it certainly works.
I don’t believe any one program is objectively the best, but I DO believe that full body workouts work wonderfully for adding mass or losing body fat. I also think it’s easier to convert a FB mass program to a fat burning program because if you are working FB 3-days per week it’s a lot easier to simply decrease the rest periods and make some other tweaks than it is to take a 5-day split and get the same metabolic effect from your weight training.
Anyways, here is an interesting article on how one guy thinks FB is best for mass:
drugfreebodybuilding.com/gaining-muscle-mass.htm
I’m not vouching for the article, but it’s interesting and is one more piece of info for the OP to chew on.
Also, Steve Reeves trained FB 3 days per week and had an impressive physique. He was natural too.
Here is his routine (from Serge Nubret actually):
Also, HST by Brian Haycock is a 3-day per week FB program:
Rippetoe’s program is FB.
Joel Marion’s Stripped Down Hypertrophy is FB.
To say FB is bullshit or doesn’t produce results in natural trainees is to not really know what you are talking about.
From a GH/hormone release perspective, FB wins over splits (all else being equal). Also, if you do it right you are breaking down the muscle 3 times per week with a solid routine, so you are getting 3 recovery periods for every muscle group (that’s when growth occurs) vs. 1 or 2 periods max for each under a typical split.
Don’t get me wrong, I think splits have their place, but FB has some very real advantages. I think that on this site there is almost a backlash against them because of CW. He popularized them on here, but many who don’t like him associate FB with CW and therefore don’t look at FB workouts objectively.
[quote]TRAJJ wrote:
I think the problem you’re having with TBT is that you’re doing it on back to back days. Having at least a day off in between helps tremendously.
As for how many ‘big people’ I’ve seen doing TBT, quite honestly, a lot. TBT does work for size, strength, fat loss etc. It’s not a maybe thing, it works and works quite well. I’ve personally put on about 24 pounds in just over a year of lean muscle doing primarily TBT. The strength gains were tremendous and I’m stronger now at 42 than I was at 21 by far.
TBT really gives one the opportunity to concentrate on a few compound movements that work the entire body. Splits have a great place in one’s tool box as well and there is nothing wrong with them at all. It allows one to concentrate on specific areas and really work a muscle group or two. As with TBT, recovery is key.
I prefer to mix them up. I did two weeks of TBT, now I’m doing a 3-day split. I listen to my body, consult my log book and see what’s going on in the mirror as to what I work from week to week.
Just some thoughts.[/quote]
Dude, your profile lists you at 180lbs at 6 feet tall. If that was where you ended up after 24lbs of weight gain, I can only assume you were starving yourself previously. I wouldn’t exactly credit TBT with your weight gain if you only got to average weight for your height.
[quote]IMCS614 wrote:
Are there more people that got big from doing bodypart splits? [/quote]
Yes. Nearly every bodybuilder that has ever crossed a stage.
[quote]
How can we tell,[/quote]
Because we can observe many of them train over time. I can also tell you from personal experience.
Irrelevant, because the point is, body splits have worked for the majority of bodybuilders who have made the most progress and have achieved physiques better than most.
I have come to believe splits work best. However, I still use fullbody on occasion for certain reasons. Why? Because I enjoy training that way. When done right, it boosts my fitness. It IS my favorite way to train when in a fatloss phase. It or an upper/lower body split works well with my schedule when I’m also competing in atheletics. Which I still do from time to time.
Most importantly, 50+ lbs from where I started, I still grow on it, if not quite as well as a body-part split. BUT, having said all that, I definitely think you are doing yourself a disserrvice by sticking to fullbody exclusively. At the least, you should see what the tried-and-true bodypart split does for you body for awhile.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
TRAJJ wrote:
I think the problem you’re having with TBT is that you’re doing it on back to back days. Having at least a day off in between helps tremendously.
As for how many ‘big people’ I’ve seen doing TBT, quite honestly, a lot. TBT does work for size, strength, fat loss etc. It’s not a maybe thing, it works and works quite well. I’ve personally put on about 24 pounds in just over a year of lean muscle doing primarily TBT. The strength gains were tremendous and I’m stronger now at 42 than I was at 21 by far.
TBT really gives one the opportunity to concentrate on a few compound movements that work the entire body. Splits have a great place in one’s tool box as well and there is nothing wrong with them at all. It allows one to concentrate on specific areas and really work a muscle group or two. As with TBT, recovery is key.
I prefer to mix them up. I did two weeks of TBT, now I’m doing a 3-day split. I listen to my body, consult my log book and see what’s going on in the mirror as to what I work from week to week.
Just some thoughts.
Dude, your profile lists you at 180lbs at 6 feet tall. If that was where you ended up after 24lbs of weight gain, I can only assume you were starving yourself previously. I wouldn’t exactly credit TBT with your weight gain if you only got to average weight for your height.[/quote]
Interesting comments. However you are assuming, never a wise thing to do. I suffered a tremendous weight loss after a lengthy illness. I credit TBT as a part of getting back on the road to where I need/want to be.
I did have some split training in there, but TBT was the dominant method I used to train. As a result, my strength was greater than when I first began back many years ago doing splits. That isn’t a knock against splits, I like them and use them. But for ME and MY goals, TBT did the trick.
Livefromthe781
To say something is HS is simply incorrect as there are many examples to the contrary. And though this is the BB section, other athletes such as PL usually traing FB and they are ‘big’ people. Many are not only big, but defined/muscular/ripped as well. One does NOT need split to be big/ripped/muscular etc. One does NOT need TBT either. One can use either or both and with a solid diet achieve their own goal.
Going the TBT vs. split arguement is a waste of time and effort. Both work and both have proof. I use both and both work for ME. That is the question of the thread. Every other human being on the planet could be using splits, but if TBT works for ME…it is the BEST program on the planet.
Cheers.
[quote]jaygarry wrote:
I have currently been working out to my own homemade routine and it basically sucks. I am looking for a new routine for improvement in strength as well as overall bulk. I know there are a million routines posted on the site and i was thinking about doing CT’s hss-100 but was wondering which programs have worked the best for you[/quote]
Yes. I got my best gains for both size and strength in HSS-100. The next best is WS4SBIII.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
IMCS614 wrote:
Are there more people that got big from doing bodypart splits?
Yes. Nearly every bodybuilder that has ever crossed a stage.
[/quote]
I’m not disagreeing on that point, and I understand this is a bodybuilding forum, but look at football players. Those cats are certainly big (a lot bigger than many amateur bodybuilders who do bodypart splits), and I would argue that most generally lift with total body workouts in addition to conditioning and practice.
[quote]TRAJJ wrote:
Interesting comments. However you are assuming, never a wise thing to do. I suffered a tremendous weight loss after a lengthy illness. I credit TBT as a part of getting back on the road to where I need/want to be.
[/quote]
That would mean even LESS credit goes to TBT. Regaining lost weight is much easier than gaining it in the first place. That is what “muscle memory” relates to. I am still not sure how even you would credit TBT for that if you were just regaining weight and you ended up at average weight for your height.
The point I am making is it is very rarely the truly large bodybuilders making that claim. It is usually the guys who still aren’t that big claiming it worked so well.
[quote]IMCS614 wrote:
Professor X wrote:
IMCS614 wrote:
Are there more people that got big from doing bodypart splits?
Yes. Nearly every bodybuilder that has ever crossed a stage.
I’m not disagreeing on that point, and I understand this is a bodybuilding forum, but look at football players. Those cats are certainly big (a lot bigger than many amateur bodybuilders who do bodypart splits), and I would argue that most generally lift with total body workouts in addition to conditioning and practice. [/quote]
I used to play football. Most of the truly large guys also trained on their own free time (especially in the off season) and when they did, it was mostly a split routine.