I was thinking about doing a back/chest day 4 times a week due to my hip injury so i can focus on my upper body more. however, is this too much for the body to handle?
i would think its okay if i get enough rest, eat properly, and do the same amount of sets for benching as rowing. should I be careful though?
watch the total volume of the week and youll be just fine looking like a Frat boy in no time as well 
Phill
srry i dont know what u mean by that…
Apparently you don’t take notice of other people in the gym. They do it all the time.
[quote]B.b. in stress! wrote:
srry i dont know what u mean by that…[/quote]
Frat boys are the ones who only work their upper bodies in the gym, usually curls. It’s a stereotype.
My suggestion would be to still work your lower body doing exercises you think you can handle. Also- there are a lot of upper body exercises you can do that don’t involve bench pressing. Try something else. Target your shoulders one day, your arms the next, your back, etc. You don’t have to bench every time you are in the gym.
[quote]eengrms76 wrote:
B.b. in stress! wrote:
srry i dont know what u mean by that…
Frat boys are the ones who only work their upper bodies in the gym, usually curls. It’s a stereotype.
My suggestion would be to still work your lower body doing exercises you think you can handle. Also- there are a lot of upper body exercises you can do that don’t involve bench pressing. Try something else. Target your shoulders one day, your arms the next, your back, etc. You don’t have to bench every time you are in the gym.[/quote]
ive tried to do that but my orthopedic surgeon recently told me that i have a hip bone contusion and because of that, i have to drive everyday to school with a handicap parking permit, and walk around with crutches for the next 4 weeks.
I think its best that I cut out all lowerbody work. even the athletic trainer at my school said so.
oh and let me add that not only do frat boys only do upper body work, but high schoolers also. seems like im the only person who has a decent back/chest combo in my school
what I meant, asdie from the frat boy comment, the wathcing the total volume. You are going to have to keep the relative volume near the same as if doing them one day or two days. maybe a touch higher but not much.
So instead of doing in and doing three exercises for chest, three back, 3 arms, 3 shoulders, yada yada. You would split this up do four days one exercise like a press, a pull, some shoulder work, abs low back done.
spread the total volume over the week. take a look at CW’s high frequency training stuff.
Best of luck with that and more so your recovery.
Hope this helps
Phill
[quote]B.b. in stress! wrote:
I was thinking about doing a back/chest day 4 times a week due to my hip injury so i can focus on my upper body more. however, is this too much for the body to handle?
i would think its okay if i get enough rest, eat properly, and do the same amount of sets for benching as rowing. should I be careful though?[/quote]
Not only is bench press exceptionally boring, but it’s unoriginal, uninspired, and unnecessary. There is definitely a stereotype associated with bench press. Now this is not to say you should never do it, but honestly bench press in the gym is like that one radio station that plays the same damn songs all day long where there are thousands of other great ones they could play, too.
Try exercises such as weighted dips, handstand pushups, dumbbell press, wide and straight arm movements on the cable machines (I love the cable machines like a jazz musician loves scotch), etc. You won’t get near as bored with your workouts and you’ll get better muscle development by changing things up.
When I had knee surgery I couldn’t lift legs either. What I did was just to go to a back and bis day 2x a week and a chest and tris 2x a week.
Something else you could do, is to make 2 of your workouts feeder workouts, and then you don’t really have to worry about recovery as much. Just make sure to do your pulls.
[quote]B.b. in stress! wrote:
I was thinking about doing a back/chest day 4 times a week due to my hip injury so i can focus on my upper body more. however, is this too much for the body to handle?
i would think its okay if i get enough rest, eat properly, and do the same amount of sets for benching as rowing. should I be careful though?[/quote]
I don’t like the idea of working just half the body for four weeks while letting your legs unworked. Another thing is,though its mainly a triceps and chest movement,when I bench especially when closer to my max my entire body is tense and I dunno if I’d put that kind of pressure on a serious injury.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to the gym at all ,you might wanna just think about taking a little time off letting your body recooperate,just my opinion though. Then again have you asked your Doc about this? Main thing would be to run it by him first even though the movements are upperbody. and you think it will be alright.
there is no magic number for how many times you must work a particular exercise/type of movement.
there is no maximum amount, either.
it depends primarily on your conditioning, this will determine what you can handle. as you improve with an exercise over time, one area of improvement with this exercise will be an increased tolerance to volume. this means you might be able to do more reps with a given weight than before, more weight within a given rep range than before, shorter rest times between sets, increased frequency during the week, more volume at a given intensity (percentage of 1RM), etc…
so you must use your own judgement to determine if you can handle benching four times per week given the parameters that you’ve selected for yourself.
nobody can answer this question for you except yourself.
just for some personal anecdote, when i was training very regularly just a few months back (i was recently very very ill and missed a lot of training, around 8 weeks of lost time…) i was doing heavy upper body presses and pulls ALL THE TIME. for example, one day i’d go in and do ten sets of bench, each set being 3 reps at 80% of my 1RM, with 2 minutes of rest in between each set. the next day i’d do an similar amount of volume with heavy seated military presses. this required good tricep and delt conditioning which i built up over time. can anyone do this? no, you need to build up to this type of threshold for volume.
the bottom line is this: you can bench four times a week if your conditioning is up to what you demand of yourself. and no matter what your current conditioning level, if you don’t completely suck, you should be able to work some sort of parameters to allow yourself to bench four times a week. i.e. you can start with low volume benching four times a week to feel it out, and gradually increase the number of sets, reps, weight, shorten your rest times, etc, over time to find what challenge is appropriate for you to make progress.
good luck.
Good luck !!
GO and read chads stuff about high frequncy training.
I do full body workout four times a week under chads princeables, i take a small 10-15 nap over post work out meal and im fine no over training symptoms at all.
Your body can adapt to any amount of work if u work your way up to it, look at construction workers and lubber jacks they work out for 8-10 hours a day 5 days a week and they do it for 10-30 years. dont be a pussy your bodys alot tougher than you think, its the mind thats weak.
i’ve never understood how people can take a nap under an hour. if i fall asleep it’s gonna be for at least 3 hours.
i think this thread should be retitled to “upper body 4 times a week?” instead of benching because everyones getting the impression that im just working the front side of my body when really, the back is my concern.
i wont be training heavy everytime i train. thats like a guaranteed injury. im thinking about not doing that many sets and training with max effort and dynamic effort days.
and ya i agree about that napping thing. whenever i nap, its for at least three hours. i dont c how or y people would go to sleep for 15 min.
The greatest gains in strength I have had in the shortest amount of times were when I followed the demonized Pavel. 3-5 sets, 3-5 reps, 3-5 times per week. Alt between 3 and 2 sets for vertical push and pull every session. Maybe you are due for a strength cycle?
[quote]B.b. in stress! wrote:
i think this thread should be retitled to “upper body 4 times a week?” instead of benching because everyones getting the impression that im just working the front side of my body when really, the back is my concern.
i wont be training heavy everytime i train. thats like a guaranteed injury. im thinking about not doing that many sets and training with max effort and dynamic effort days.
and ya i agree about that napping thing. whenever i nap, its for at least three hours. i don’t c how or y people would go to sleep for 15 min.[/quote]
If you’re going to have to walk very far with your crutches I think that much of an increase in upper body training will be asking for injury. It’s only a month, just make sure that your hip is recovering and make it into the gym during this time–some rest will probably be good for the body.
[quote]timmwwaa wrote:
B.b. in stress! wrote:
i think this thread should be retitled to “upper body 4 times a week?” instead of benching because everyones getting the impression that im just working the front side of my body when really, the back is my concern.
i wont be training heavy everytime i train. thats like a guaranteed injury. im thinking about not doing that many sets and training with max effort and dynamic effort days.
and ya i agree about that napping thing. whenever i nap, its for at least three hours. i don’t c how or y people would go to sleep for 15 min.
If you’re going to have to walk very far with your crutches I think that much of an increase in upper body training will be asking for injury. It’s only a month, just make sure that your hip is recovering and make it into the gym during this time–some rest will probably be good for the body.[/quote]
ya im gonna get a handicap parking permit so i can just pull up in front of my school. but other than that, i was thinking about keeping the sets very low like what dubya said.
i just want to have something to do in stead of stayhing at home and doing nothing.
Check out Waterbury’s Perfect 10 and HFT articles.
I running Perfect 10 now for my chest.