Hey, my current routine is:
m: back/shoulders
t: legs
w: chest/arms
th: off
f: back/shoulders
sa: legs
su: off
As you can see, I have two back/shoulders workouts per week. These are by far my longest workouts. I just feel that there are so many more ways to work the back than say, the chest. I know that for every back movement, there is an antagonist movement, but the back is such a big and complex muscle and I just like to do a lot of different stuff for it.
A typical back/shoulders workout goes like this, with weight pyramided up for 4-6 sets for every exercise. Compounds start at around 14 reps and pyramid up to 5-6 and sometimes 2-3.
wide grip lat pull down
close grip lat pull down OR T-handle lat pull down
straight bar cable row
T-handle cable row
-drink a serving of Surge-
dumbbell shoulder press
machine lat raises
reverse fly on the machine for rear delts
dumbbell front raises with a good amount of cheating and a controlled lowering OR barbell front raises
few sets of face pulls
For back, I recently found these two hammer strength machines that I want to start using. One is the one in the main picture on:
http://us.commercial.lifefitness.com/content.cfm/plateloaded
I really liked the feel on that one.
The other is called the iso-lateral low row, I think. It rows from below the waist and I like the feel of it. No other row that I’ve done works that angle.
So, that’s 6-7 different back exercises that I like that I feel all work the back differently. I also like to do different shoulder exercises other than the dumbbell press. I tried the behind the neck smith machine press and liked that a lot. I don’t like the military press. I like the press to be more at ear level and not in front of you.
So, I thought, maybe I’d have two different back/shoulder workouts and I’d do each one once a week. So, on Monday, I would do workout A and on Friday, I would do workout B. I don’t know if I would benefit from this, but I would be able to have a bit shorter workouts. I could do all of the exercises that I like, which I’m guessing would stimulate more growth in more areas.
I don’t know how to split them up, but I was thinking maybe I could do something like…
workout A: vertical pull and dumbbells for shoulders
workout B: horizontal pull and barbell/Smith machine for shoulders
What do you guys think of this? This was just an idea because I feel that I’m doing the exact same workout too often. I appreciate any advice.