[quote]forlife wrote:
I think chest and shoulders are what I need the most work on, what would you change to make that happen?[/quote]
Well thats because you can only DB press 95lbs.
I can’t see any ones shoulders being to healthy after some long use of that routine with the needed intensity and weight to get bigger/stronger session to session.
[quote]kylec72 wrote:
Newbie, vet, small, big, Papa Smurf, or whoever you are I don’t see how benching, or exercises which hit the same major muscle group, 5 days in a row could possibly allow any sort of adequate recovery and growth period for your muscles.[/quote]
I hear this pretty often, and am curious why people think this. If you count the total number of chest or back sets per week for people doing a traditional split, they aren’t far off from my total number of sets (15/week). Why is it possible to do 5 chest exercises in one day at maximum intensity, when you can’t do those same 5 chest exercises spread across 5 days?
I wonder how many of you have tried this approach? Maybe it’s just that I’ve been doing it for a while and my body has adjusted, but I don’t have problems with chest fatigue from one day to the next. Yes, I’m sore but I still have good strength on every lift. In fact, I can push a lot more weight when I spread the chest exercises across 5 days instead of doing them all the same day.
Not trying to be confrontational, just interested in hearing different perspectives on this.
A better question would be why do you insist on doing things in this oddball way rather than in a traditional proven to work way?
change all the back, shoulders, triceps and leg work for bicepts, and you’re good to go brah.
[quote]josh86 wrote:
A better question would be why do you insist on doing things in this oddball way rather than in a traditional proven to work way?[/quote]
That’s a fair question. The answer is that after 7 years of experimenting with traditional splits, etc. this is what has worked best for me so far. I’ve learned not to be a lemming, not to be afraid to challenge conventional wisdom, and to listen to my own body instead.
How many times do we see conventional wisdom shifting back and forth, anyway? Splits have been idealized on this site for years as the ONLY way to get real size, but now people are looking at guys like Alpha and realizing that maybe there is no magic universal solution. For a long time, the Smith machine was mocked on this site, but now people are giving it more respect. Ultimately, you have to do your own math.
That said, I genuinely value the insights of people that have made significant personal progress, which is why I started this thread. I respectfully consider what they have to say. I don’t believe there is a holy grail in bodybuilding, and in fact I think periodization on the macro level can be good for overall growth.
[quote]Itchy wrote:
forlife wrote:
Itchy, to answer your question my lifts have gone up 20-25% over the past year across the board.
Okay. I just wondered because it’s a shitload of pressing/chest exercises. I don’t give a crap about the leg work since you already said you are prioritizing your upper, but I just don’t see how anyone could press heavy that often without frying their shoulders.
I don’t know what your old schedule looked like, but I would try just picking a couple of bodyparts you most need to improve on and give them an extra day, maybe at the end of the week. [/quote]
x2.
That makes my shoulders ache just to think about it. What kind of weights are you working with?
You mean for shoulders? Like I said, my shoulders suck and are lagging behind, but here’s my direct shoulder work this week:
Front DB raises: 35s
Machine lateral raises: 155 pounds
[quote]forlife wrote:
You mean for shoulders? Like I said, my shoulders suck and are lagging behind, but here’s my direct shoulder work this week:
Front DB raises: 35s
Machine lateral raises: 155 pounds[/quote]
No, your main exercises–working weights.
My other lifts this week:
Flat bench - 95s
Machine bench - 230
Flat DB flyes - 55s
Smith bent over row - 245
Seated cable row - 270
Machine iso-lateral high row - 280
Abs machine - 125
Weighted dips - 135
Seated calf press - 280
Machine squats - 810
This routine is ass… No ifs ands or buts about it. Sorry I couldn’t have been more constructive.
[quote]bob_sander87 wrote:
This routine is ass… No ifs ands or buts about it. Sorry I couldn’t have been more constructive.[/quote]
Because it’s unconventional?
What would you think about…let’s say…a routine where you cycle between all upper body muscles on the first day (chest/back/shoulders/tris/bis) and all lower body muscles on the second day?
Or what about gasp TBT?
You couldn’t possibly get good results with these unconventional routines, right?
In a nutshell…
Way too much pressing
Not enough intensity (obviously)
and no love for squats??
broken record
Again, why do you think it is “way too much pressing”? Why are 5 chest exercises spread across 5 days so much more taxing than 5 chest exercises on the same day? Somehow, doing it on 5 different days proves there’s not enough intensity?
How many chest exercises are you doing each week?
Antilife,
You have a good point but why would you want to make yourself a science project? I mean you could experiment… or you could do what others have done. I’m not trying to say you couldn’t possibly be on to something as Modok has mentioned before but I’d pick a modality that actually produced results in the real world. Ask the guy who warms up with the 95s what he did to get there.
Why did you make this thread? You wanted feedback…everyone is giving you the same feedback, yet all you’re doing is arguing why your split is just as good or superior to what people have suggested. I don’t understand asking for feedback and advice then doing nothing but arguing against what people are trying to give you.
Also your your shoulders are lagging because you do no direct shoulder pressing most likely…doing some db raises and lateral raises isn’t enough for full shoulder development. I don’t know anyone with good looking shoulders who doesn’t do some kind of shoulder pressing movement.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Again, why do you think it is “way too much pressing”? Why are 5 chest exercises spread across 5 days so much more taxing than 5 chest exercises on the same day? Somehow, doing it on 5 different days proves there’s not enough intensity?
How many chest exercises are you doing each week?[/quote]
I just think it would be tougher on your tendons and whatnot (shoulders/biceps tendon) to do it this way. I mean sure, doing only one press per day might cause less stress PER WORKOUT than doing all the exercises in one session–but with the latter approach you would have an entire week for them to recover.
But do what you want, dude.
[quote]josh86 wrote:
I don’t understand asking for feedback and advice then doing nothing but arguing against what people are trying to give you.[/quote]
I’m asking people to explain their reasons beyond “everyone else is doing it”. Again, why is doing 5 chest exercises across 5 days so much more intense than doing 5 chest exercises the same day? I’m willing to listen to viewpoints that have some rationale behind them, but I’m not going to blindly jump on the bandwagon just because people quote the party line.
Good point on shoulder presses, I do need to work more of those into my routine.
Forlife, how has your progression been since the last time we briefly talked about your routine? I think I told you to keep doing what you were doing because I saw from the difference between your 2 old avatars that it was working… Any shoulder discomfort yet or any kind of pains at all?
Still not happy about 5 days of pressing, particularly at your age… But then again, your weigths are not in the extreme range either, so hm.
If you do decide to change something, give your shoulders a big press 1-2 times per week and cut down on the chest presses perhaps. That plus getting strong on some lateral variant as well as some rear delt exercise or (if a rear delt iso exercise doesn’t fit into your routine) a row with enough rear-delt involvement (kroc’s, yates rows, wide-grip rows) should help bringing your shoulders up…
(and yes, perhaps some more in the ways of hamstring exercises just for the sake of continued knee health. Not leg curls, but GH raises or reverse-hyper machine)
I’d perhaps also try a different rep/set scheme or some such a go, depending on exercise and such. 3x10 doesn’t seem very progression-friendly to me when it comes to increasing your 10RM, at least not beyond the beginner stage.
Not my kind of routine, but fine if it’s working well enough for you and injuries are nowhere to be seen either.