T Nation

Muscle Growth Prioritization?

Bodybuilding
#1

Here�??s a question my brother asked and don�??t have a clue to the answer so though one of you might!

It concerns my routine order so here�??s a brief description;

Monday �??upper body
Tuesday �?? lower body
Wednesday �?? rest
Thursday �?? upper body
Friday �?? lower body
Saturday / Sunday - rest

And he asked, if I work my upper body and then my lower body on the Tuesday, when it comes to recovering and repairing my muscle, will all of the repairing stuff (im no science buff on this subject so don�??t know what else to call it) prioritise and stop repairing my upper body and repair and build muscle on my lower body instead, neglecting or working less on my upper body?

#2

it’d be helpful to know what muscle groups you are working here, I mean I’ve found that I grow best by going

legs/posterior chain
rest
biceps/triceps
rest
chest/back
rest
rest

I have to ask, i can understand if you are splitting up your upperbody into 2 days, but how are you splitting legs into 2 different days? These questions need to get answered.

For instance, I deadlift on legs day, so my back is pre exhausted for chins on my biceps day. And my triceps are pre exhausted for my chest day. And by the end of the week my back and chest are shot out and i give them 2 days for these large muscle groups to recover.

#3

[quote]MMG wrote:
Here�??s a question my brother asked and don�??t have a clue to the answer so though one of you might!

It concerns my routine order so here�??s a brief description;

Monday �??upper body
Tuesday �?? lower body
Wednesday �?? rest
Thursday �?? upper body
Friday �?? lower body
Saturday / Sunday - rest

And he asked, if I work my upper body and then my lower body on the Tuesday, when it comes to recovering and repairing my muscle, will all of the repairing stuff (im no science buff on this subject so don�??t know what else to call it) prioritise and stop repairing my upper body and repair and build muscle on my lower body instead, neglecting or working less on my upper body?
[/quote]

The human body is a pretty smart thing, it wouldn’t stop fixing itself from the onslaught(training) until the job was done or it ran out of resources(food). You’ll do fine on a program like that assuming you are eating and training progressively.

#4

Not a bad question to have asked though! I doubt the body would give up on one set of muscles but it may be short-circuited as a whole if the stress of day 2 is more than the body can cope with, i.e. the straw that breaks the camels back. I doubt that’s happenening to you though.

#5

[quote]gswork wrote:
Not a bad question to have asked though! I doubt the body would give up on one set of muscles but it may be short-circuited as a whole if the stress of day 2 is more than the body can cope with, i.e. the straw that breaks the camels back. I doubt that’s happenening to you though.[/quote]

I don’t think its happening either! But i did realise that i wasn’t able to lift as much on the second day, when i changed the routine days over! although thinking about it now, i think there might have been a psychological barrier going on there, because i was thinking about the question that i just asked!

#6

Just something to chew on.

I realized awhile ago when making programs for myself and others that fitting a program into a 7 day week is a somewhat arbitrary way to go about designing a workout plan. If you think about it, you have put the main goal of your program second behind the fact that you want to do it all over a 7 day span.

Especially when trying to hit each muscle twice over 7 days does this appear to be a problem, since you are really squeezing in your workouts at the expense of your rest periods, and you end up often times between barely enough rest to progress being very short of rest.

There are many people that go by feel when working out and they know when they are ready to go. Sometimes they need more rest sometimes less. CT wrote in one of his articles about designing programs and mentions the style of program you have created. He said that it is a great way to train for muscle mass but very few people can get away with it.

If I were you I would design the same program you have but add in as many rest days as you need to fully recuperate then go on a day schedule instead of a weekday schedule. For example you might hit each muscle twice over a 8,9 or even 10 day span. This should allow plenty of rest, and make the program more feasable.

#7

Muscle tissue basically repairs itself the same way a cut does. If you get a cut on your arm and the next day on your leg both cuts heal in their timely manner. However depending on the amount of volume you are incorporating you could be taxing your CNS.