I think that you are right, my elbow issue may be due to the fact that I have been able to press very heavy weights with my shoulders; good for shoulder strengthening, but also putting a very heavy load on elbows as well.
I guess that I am worried about only doing 3 days per week of lifting, hitting each muscle group only once, combined with 3 of these muscle groups (shoulders, tris, and bis) only being targeted after being pre-fatigued.
I wouldn’t mind doing this if I was able to exercise each muscle group twice per week, but my body seems to be unable to do this, even after almost 2 months of lifting it doesn’t seem like my soreness is improving at all.
I could try doing easier workouts, i.e. leaving multiple reps in tank at all times, but I’m not even sure if this would make me less sore. I guess the way I look at it is if I’m going to be sore anyways, I might as well work my muscle as hard as possible, i.e. to failure or very close to failure, since I don’t have the luxury of accumulating volume over the course of the week.
As a side note, I think that I need to focus on my one set to failure approach, especially on the compound movements, since this is less fatiguing and puts much less heavy volume on my joints.
For example, with bench press I have been trying to do a single set of 10 reps, if I get the 10 reps, I increase the weight by 5 or 10 pounds and try to get 10 reps the next week. This fatigues my body, but nearly as much as doing 80% of my 1RM for 5 sets (5x5@80%) which involves doing 5 sets that each put substantial work on the muscle, with the last set most likely be at or near failure. If I do a workout like this(5 sets) and then try to do shoulders and triceps afterwards, I’m afraid that my triceps will be too worn out to do anything of signifance for shoulders and triceps as well.
Ask your elbow if you have a choice in the matter.
And heavy pressing doesn’t ‘pre-fatigue’ your tris–it works them. Further, literally the last thing your elbows need is you performing max-weight direct triceps work.
If you’re concerned about heavy chest work compromising shoulder pressing, alternate which press (chest vs shoulder) you do first each week.
When lifting three days a week on a push-pull-legs split, I find I have to prioritize either bench press or military press, but not both. Heavy military press saps my bench strength, but when benching heavy, I can still do high-rep military presses. Finally, a doctor once told me the bottom portion of the military press puts enormous strain on the elbow.
All of that said, perhaps do your newest split but change the military press to 3 x 12 with dumbbells, hold them in a neutral grip, and stop the lowering portion when your hands are even with your nose. This will burn up your delts and be easier on your elbows.
For the continual soreness, do you eat/intake enough protein?
For cardio, two or three brisk-but-gentle treadmill walks, both flat and on an incline, should help with weight loss AND help your muscle recovery.
I eat enough protein, 60g of whey, plus cheese and meats, so I must be getting at least 0.5g of protein per lb. of bodyweight. I’m just worried that doing such a small amount of work sets only once per week is enough to make gains over the long term.
I wouldn’t worry about that; you can always change your program as you adapt. The goal right now is to find a lifting routine that meets your goals and lifestyle. All routines get changed at some point, so do what’s working now. Heavy benching is one of your priorities. You’ve learned your elbows can’t handle heavy benching and heavy military press, so keep doing heavy bench, lighten the weights for military press, and increase weights when you do the prescribed reps for each lift. When something stalls, change the lift or the rep scheme.
As for whether to do 5 x 5 or one AMRAP set, that depends on how your body responds. I’m strengthening my low icline bench, and I found that one top set of 3 to 5 reps a week isn’t enough to improve. I added three back-off sets of 5-7 reps, and my incline bench is increasing again. If 5 x 5 on bench works for you, keep doing it, and do higher-rep assistance exercises, like you listed.
How about the 5 3 1 program that I keep seeing on this forum? I think that might be a good program with regards to volume and frequency, I’m just not sure about the low reps aspect of it, I usually prefer to stay closer to 10 reps.
As you report making good progress with your current program, I don’t understand why you’re looking to change it (other than making it more triceps-friendly). What am I missing?
I guess because I’m trying to find some kind of a program that is appropriate for me. Currently I am just going to the gym 3 days a week, and trying different things out, while still lifting pretty hard on the exercises that I do.
At this point, it probably doesn’t matter much, any lifting will elicit gains because I am returning from a long layoff. I guess I am trying to ascertain which program might be good for me once the 3 -6 month period of regaining is over.
There are three fundamental factors that can be manipulated in setting up a program: Volume, Frequency and Intensity. (When you strip away all the bells and whistles, differences among programs boil down to how they set these.) In this regard, it seems to me you’ve already identified the combo that works for you: Low volume, low frequency, and high intensity. Coupled with the caveat that you must provide your triceps tendons adequate rest, your optimal program almost writes itself.
That seems reasonable. It looks like a push-legs-pull split with 5-3-1 as the progression for your four main lifts.
I was thinking about your elbow tendonitis and though I’d tell you what helps me. Often, my elbow tendonitis comes from a strength imbalance between my upper and lower arms. To fix it, I bought a mixed-size bag of rubber bands. I find one that’ll fit around my five fingers when squeezed together straight. I then open my finger against the rubber band’s resistance. I do two set of 25-50, adding a second rubber band or using a thicker band, when I do 2x50. For the wrist flavors, I do two to three sets of standing, behind-the-back wrist curls for 15-25.
Do the rubber bands several times a week, and I wouldn’t be surprised if your tendonitis is gone in a couple weeks.
Skipped my last assistance exercise, curls. 3 exercises seems to be good, hopefully once my triceps tendon feels better I can split up bench and OHP, and train 4 days per week with 2 assistance exercises per day.
I think that I am going parallel, I’ll need to have my workout partner gauge it a little better, since I’m still getting back into it I’m not sure if I’m hitting parallel or not.
Leg Press
360 x 8
450 x 10
Tried doing some stiff-legged deadlifts, used about 135 lbs and did a couple sets of low reps, will try to incorporate 3 sets of each assistance exercise for next week.
Stopped after that, wanted to give my elbows a rest.
Shoulder strength is feeling pretty good, I think that the lower reps helped conserve my energy for lifting more on the PR sets, will possibly start doing OHP on a seperate day if I feel like my elbows can handle doing hard presses twice in one week; although I seem to feel the pain the most when I try to do lat exercises like rows, pulldowns, etc., I don’t seem to feel it when I do curls for some reason.
Squats felt good this week, think that I was hitting my depth better. Weights are pretty much right around or higher where I was at 19; which was the last time I did legs with any regularity. Curious to see how 365 goes for next week; should be a good test for where I am really at right now in terms of strength.