There needs to be more frequency per muscle group. I don’t mean to put so much emphasis on a training split, but only training all your muscle groups once a week is not going to get you as far as a more frequent split. You could get away with training legs/deadlifts once a week, but for the other muscle groups, more frequency is better. A good article from CT about frequency: Strength Training, Bodybuilding & Online Supplement Store - T NATION
If you don’t like the upper/lower split (which I can understand because it is quite limitted) Here’s a few good 3 way splits (which train muscle groups twice/week):
Day 1: Chest and back
Day 2: Lower body
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Arms and shoulders
Day 5: Off
Day 6: Repeat
Or
Day 1: Chest, Bis, Tris
Day 2: Legs, Abs
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Delts, Back
Day 5: Off
Day 6: Repeat
Do about two exercises per muscle group (sometimes up to 3 for certain ones).
Here’s a good quote from C_C about the splits above:
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
"I train whenever I feel like it and have the time, can vary a lot from week to week, made some great progress that way and when the ramping is done right, you leave the gym feeling fresher than when you entered it.
First off, the frequency above is the “original” recommended frequency, but you can really go whenever you have time and feel like it.
That can look like:
Week 1 - feel great all around, found time to go 6 days a week
Day 1 - Chest, Bis, Tris
Day 2 - Legs
Day 3 - Delts, Back
Day 4 - off (no time today or want to recuperate a bit)
Day 5 - Chest, Bis, Tris
Day 6 - Legs
Day 7 - Delts, Back
Week 2 (little time this week, only 3 days)
Day 1 - off
Day 2 - Chest, Bis, Tris
Day 3 - off
Day 4 - Legs
Day 5 - off
Day 6 - Delts, Back
Day 7 - off
Week 3 (bit more time, 4 days this week)
Day 1 - Chest, Bis, Tris
Day 2 - Legs
Day 3 - off
Day 4 - off
Day 5 - Delts, Back
Day 6 - Chest, Bis, Tris
Day 7 - off
…
You just get in sessions whenever you can.
Ok?
As for Squats and DL, you have several options…
- Alternate from cycle to cycle (i.e. Leg day 1 = squat day, Leg day 2 = DL day)
- Focus on one of them and leave the other be for a time…
etc
And when it comes to overlap:
You only do 1 overhead pressing exercise for delts, and that one is ramped, so if you were to do chest and tris the day after, it shouldn’t interfere much.
If doing DL on leg day, then don’t pick heavy BO rows for back day, but instead seated cable, Hammerstrength or Kroc rows…
Etc.
It’s a lot less complicated than it sounds.
I took myself from about 180 to 275 with a split like this. 2-3 exercises per body part, working up to max sets of 3, 6 or 8. Sure, I tried some other stuff along the way, but I always came back to old faithful."
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A good quote from CT about ramping:
[quote] Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Ramping:
It’s not about ‘knowing’ or ‘feeling’ when you need to stop. There are distinct signs to look for. For example with ramping, you keep increasing the weight and adding sets until you reach the maximum amount of weight you can lift for the required number of reps. When you can’t do more, then you stop. It is NOT complicated.
You stop the exercise when you can’t add more weight for the prescribed number of reps.
Basically start at roughly 60-70% of your 1RM on an exercise and add 10,20,30 or 40lbs (depending on the exercise you are using). Each set you can do two things:
A) add more weight
B) stop the exercise
Basically reach the top of the mountain for the number of reps selected and then stop. This way both volume (number of sets) and weight will be adapted automatically to what your body can do on that day.
Let’s assume a 400 lbs max bench press… a bench progression could look like this:
Bar x 15-20 reps (warm-up)
135lbs x 1 (feel set)
185lbs x 1 (feel set)
225lbs x 1 (feel set)
240lbs x 5 (work set)
270lbs x 5 (work set)
300lbs x 5 (work set)
320lbs x 5 (work set)
340lbs x 5 (work set)
350lbs x 5 (work set) … barely got that 5th rep = end of exercise
[/quote]
As long as you eat enough EVERY DAY, EVERY WEEK, EVERY MONTH you’ll grow. Here’s a good formula to get you started and to be realistic about food consumption (you’ll need to take notes to do the formula):
BMR = 66 + (13.7 x lean weight in kg) + (5 x height in cm) - (6.8 x age)
Activity level factor
1.0 Sedentary
1.2 Very light activity
1.4 Light activity
1.6 Moderate activity (most bodybuilders)
1.8 High activity
2.0 Extreme activity (bodybuilders with very fast metabolism)
Maintenance calorie intake = BMR x activity level factor
Maximum muscle gain while accepting a moderate fat gain = Maintenance x 1.3
So for someone like you, who is 170lbs (assuming your height, bodyfat, age and activity level are 5foot9, 12%, 20 years old and high activity) this would be around 4000cals per day. Obviously, if the scale isn’t moving upwards (and your recovery is in check), increase the calories.
Dairy products and beef are a bodybuilders best friend when it comes to bulking
If you struggle to gain weight, don’t be affraid to venture to the “dark side”…eat some so called “un-clean food”. Even if it means eating a cream cake after your beef pasta dish, do it lol.