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Alot of you (probably most of you) have splits that look something like this
Mon. Chest
Tue. Arms
Wed. Back
Thur. Shoulders
Fri. Legs
Sat/Sun. :drunk:
Now obviously those types of routines are the most common and work great for some people, and if you can honstly say that you are making steady, continuous gains, then more power to you. However, from what I've seen, most guys in the gym are making very slow progress or no progress at all with these routines. The guy with decent arm genetics has decent arms and the guy with decent chest genetics has a decent chest but most guys never gain any real mass or develop a truely impressive, balanced physique with a routine like this. IMO, it is completely flawed and the reason splits like this are still so poular despite their low success rate is because you have genetic freaks out there who can grow huge and ripped doing whatever they want in the gym. Typical newbies with average genetics see these guys or read about their routines in Flex magazine and copy them, with dissapointing results.
What's wrong with the routine above? It's based on working a different muscle group each day, which is not how your body works. For example:
Mon. was chest day but since you did bench you also worked your front delts and triceps.
Tue was arms, so you just hit triceps 2 days in a row.
Wed was back, but you use your biceps doing rows and pull-ups so now you just hit biceps 2 days in a row.
Thursday is shoulders so you just hit rear delts 2 days in a row and you've now hit triceps and fronts delts again doing military presses.
Friday is legs. Sat/sunday rest (from lifting anyway).
So, in one week you hit triceps 3 times, front delts twice, biceps twice, rear delts twice, (and here's the really great part) chest, back and legs once.
Your body has more muscle in your legs /glutes than your arms and shoulders combined! In fact you should have the same amount of muscle in your lower body as you have in your upper body (that's called symmetry in bodybuilding) so why would you spend 4 days on your upper body and 1 on your lower body?????
So what's my alternative? Well an upper body/lower body split is a great choice, but that's a hard adjustment for somebody who's been training different body parts every day. What I do at least 90% of the time is the classic, underrated, Push/Pull/Legs split (or Push/Legs/Pull/Legs).
By doing all your pushing exercises (Presses/Dips/Tricep isolation) on one day and all your pulling exercises (Rows/Pull-ups/Curls) on another day, you avoid overtraining some muscles while under-training others. This is MUCH more congruent to solid, balanced muscle gain. Most people have the same two issues with this routine:
Control, I need to be in the gym more than 3 days a week bro, lifting weights is like crack to me
No problem, if you have the recovery ability you just do a 1 on 1 off, 2 on 1 off or even 3 on 1 off routine.
There's no way I can hit that many muscles in one workout, I do 6 different exercises for triceps alone
Well, you may have 6 different triceps exercises but you don't need to do each one on every push day. By alternating exercises you can stay on the Push/Pull/Legs routine forever and still "keep your body guessing". The basis of any good routine is compound movements anyway and that's sometimes all I do.
Just to give everybody an idea of how I use the Push/pull/legs routine I'm gonna go ahead and keep a log of my workouts for awhile. Anybody else who uses it is more than welcome to too.
Mon. Chest
Tue. Arms
Wed. Back
Thur. Shoulders
Fri. Legs
Sat/Sun. :drunk:
Now obviously those types of routines are the most common and work great for some people, and if you can honstly say that you are making steady, continuous gains, then more power to you. However, from what I've seen, most guys in the gym are making very slow progress or no progress at all with these routines. The guy with decent arm genetics has decent arms and the guy with decent chest genetics has a decent chest but most guys never gain any real mass or develop a truely impressive, balanced physique with a routine like this. IMO, it is completely flawed and the reason splits like this are still so poular despite their low success rate is because you have genetic freaks out there who can grow huge and ripped doing whatever they want in the gym. Typical newbies with average genetics see these guys or read about their routines in Flex magazine and copy them, with dissapointing results.
What's wrong with the routine above? It's based on working a different muscle group each day, which is not how your body works. For example:
Mon. was chest day but since you did bench you also worked your front delts and triceps.
Tue was arms, so you just hit triceps 2 days in a row.
Wed was back, but you use your biceps doing rows and pull-ups so now you just hit biceps 2 days in a row.
Thursday is shoulders so you just hit rear delts 2 days in a row and you've now hit triceps and fronts delts again doing military presses.
Friday is legs. Sat/sunday rest (from lifting anyway).
So, in one week you hit triceps 3 times, front delts twice, biceps twice, rear delts twice, (and here's the really great part) chest, back and legs once.
Your body has more muscle in your legs /glutes than your arms and shoulders combined! In fact you should have the same amount of muscle in your lower body as you have in your upper body (that's called symmetry in bodybuilding) so why would you spend 4 days on your upper body and 1 on your lower body?????
So what's my alternative? Well an upper body/lower body split is a great choice, but that's a hard adjustment for somebody who's been training different body parts every day. What I do at least 90% of the time is the classic, underrated, Push/Pull/Legs split (or Push/Legs/Pull/Legs).
By doing all your pushing exercises (Presses/Dips/Tricep isolation) on one day and all your pulling exercises (Rows/Pull-ups/Curls) on another day, you avoid overtraining some muscles while under-training others. This is MUCH more congruent to solid, balanced muscle gain. Most people have the same two issues with this routine:
Control, I need to be in the gym more than 3 days a week bro, lifting weights is like crack to me
No problem, if you have the recovery ability you just do a 1 on 1 off, 2 on 1 off or even 3 on 1 off routine.
There's no way I can hit that many muscles in one workout, I do 6 different exercises for triceps alone
Well, you may have 6 different triceps exercises but you don't need to do each one on every push day. By alternating exercises you can stay on the Push/Pull/Legs routine forever and still "keep your body guessing". The basis of any good routine is compound movements anyway and that's sometimes all I do.
Just to give everybody an idea of how I use the Push/pull/legs routine I'm gonna go ahead and keep a log of my workouts for awhile. Anybody else who uses it is more than welcome to too.
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