New Split Routine - Any Good?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Decided I can probably afford myself an extra day in the gym per week, and want to get a bit more serious about my training. So thought I might try the following 4 day split for a month as a change to my usual 3 day pwk FB. Anyone have feedback? Stats are as follows- 23 y.o., 12 stone, 6 foot, about 11-12 % BF, aiming to bulk on more muscle.

Shoulders:
Military Press
DB seated press
DB lat raises
DB front raises
DB rear lat raises
Cable rear lat raises

Legs:
Squats
SLDL
Leg Press
Extensions
Hamstring curls
Calves Raise

Chest + triceps:
Bench
Incline
Decline
Dips
Skull crushers
Rope pushdown

Back + biceps:
Deadlifts
Chins
DB/BB BOR
Lat pulldown
Hammer curls
EZ bar curls

Probs look like this:
Mon OFF, Tue Chest, Weds OFF, Thurs Back, Fri OFF, Sat Shoulders, Sun Legs.

Concerned about the shoulder workout a bit though, not enough medial deltoid stimulation, and I really want to widen my frame…

2

looks like a relatively high amount of volume.

what is the set and rep scheme you are planning on following?

3

probably 3 x 10-12. I’d imagine that I’d be able to do each of those workouts in 45-50 minutes, this still too much?

4

I would be very impressed if you could pull those off in under an hour haha.

It seems as though you have a few unnecessary lifts on your shoulder and back days…imo

5

Well my FBs consisted of 6 compound moves, 3x12 of each, and I did that in 45-50 minutes, so i’d think that each of these workouts, especially with more isolations, I shouldn’t have a problem. If you’d recommend pulling down some of the volume, which things should I drop?

6

I do not think that you should have both military and seated dumbbell press in the same session, or two different types of rear lateral flies.

Chins at lat pulldowns as well

but do whatever you like, those just seemed slightly excessive to me.

7

To me, front raises are a waste too. The anterior delts get hit plenty with bench press, overhead presses and flye’s. I’d nix them.

Oh and to Standard Donkey…your avatar scares me…thanks alot.

8

I’m not sure shoulders need a “day” to themselves. Given any kind of effort, the shoulder day will likely fuck your efforts on chest day.

Also, what the heck is with 3 x anything? who does three sets unless they are failure sets? maybe try some lower reps and more sets and see if you get some results out of that.

I also agree that there is unnecessary overlapping in this.

-chris

9

If you actually complete alll these exercises and sets in a workout, you workout with no intensity whatsover

10

[quote]That One Guy wrote:
If you actually complete alll these exercises and sets in a workout, you workout with no intensity whatsover[/quote]

I agree. There used to be a time when I could handle literally hitting my WHOLE body in a single workout, hence my original stance on TBT. BUT (and I say but), I was a poor misguided individual who’s main goal was to leave the gym absolutely trashed, with NO energy and the near inability to move. Well guess what. I NEVER got stronger from this, and barely got bigger. The ONLY thing positive from this is that I increased my work capacity. Thats it.

If you really are after strength and size gains, either dont be going to failure on any of the sets, or pump down the volume. If your able to hone in on your focus, the first two exercises would leave most crumbling, hence my reasoning as to why I ALWAYS separate quads and hamstrings.

11

[quote]forbes wrote:
That One Guy wrote:
If you actually complete alll these exercises and sets in a workout, you workout with no intensity whatsover

I agree. There used to be a time when I could handle literally hitting my WHOLE body in a single workout, hence my original stance on TBT. BUT (and I say but), I was a poor misguided individual who’s main goal was to leave the gym absolutely trashed, with NO energy and the near inability to move. Well guess what. I NEVER got stronger from this, and barely got bigger. The ONLY thing positive from this is that I increased my work capacity. Thats it.

If you really are after strength and size gains, either dont be going to failure on any of the sets, or pump down the volume. If your able to hone in on your focus, the first two exercises would leave most crumbling, hence my reasoning as to why I ALWAYS separate quads and hamstrings. [/quote]

We talking about each workout I listed in the split as being too intensive? I did the shoulder routine last night, and I agree I’d lost the pump by the end of it. The military press and DB press were decent, felt a good pump from them, but after the lat raises and rear lat raises I was more or less going through the motions for the last two exercises. Thing is, I don’t understand how doing so little compared to what I’m used to with FBs in each workout can possibly be enough for a 1 per week shoulder session? Could anyone suggest a better shoulder routine? I really want to bulk this area up, as I feel it’s a lagging area compared to my chest, back and legs.

12

how much is 12 stone in kg or pounds?

Also… there are a lot of pros who don’t even use that much volume.

Your goal in a workout is to stimulate the muscle to get a growth responce and then let it rest. Honestly there are a lot of repetitive exercises there and if you cut down your volume a bunch and focus on getting more out of less, you will find yourself training harder and progressing better.

Strength gains on your movements will lead to size gains. Your workouts should be intense enough to leave you feeling smashed by the end… and I personally can’t imagine doing more than 3 per muscle group with any kind of real effort.

Honestly if i was going to do it i’d set it up like this:

For shoulders: Do one press, one side raise, and one rear raise. Several sets of each, and focus on making those sets COUNT.

For chest: ONE barbell movement, ONE dumbbell movement, and possibly a few sets of dips.

For tris: if you are pairing them with chest, 2 movements.

For back: daedlifts, a row, either chins OR pulldowns

for bicepz: 2 moves

Legs: yours looks fine.

Honestly you can ignore my advice if you feel you can progress well on your current volume - this is what matters. you need to be lifting a lot more weight in the future, and if you have too many lifts and too much fluff it will happen a lot slower than it needs to.

13

OK, I’ve had a long look around and made some changes to tone it down a bit… see what you think?

back/bis:
chins
db row
cable row or lat pulldown
ez bar curls
hammer curls

chest/tris:
bench
incline
pec flye or cable x-over
lying db skull crushers
triceps rope pushdown

shoulders/abs??:
military press
seated db press
lat raises
crunches??
cable side twists??

legs:
squats
deads
leg press
extensions
glute curls

Volume is toned down, but i’m still concerned particularly about the shoulders day- it all seems very light and half hearted, and i’m not sure that pairing abs with shoulders is ideal. any suggestions or alteration?

thanks hugely!

14

What is going to be the deciding factor as i mentioned is whether or not you will be able to progress, and how well you can keep up your intensity during the session.

I think it looks good. WHy does the shoulder day seem light hearted? Throw in shrugs and you have a very common shoulder workout that works. Just be sure to train hard and add a bit of iron to the bar every few workouts (or whenever you can)

15

So would the shrugs come at the end of the shoulder part, before I savage the abs?

The only reason I say it looks light is in comparison to my current workout routine. Currently I do a full body every other day like so:

Squat variation
Deadlift variation
Military Press or DB Press
Chins or BOR
Bench or Incline
Lat Raises or Rear delt raises

I think pretty much anything in comparison to that seems light for a workout!

16

Ive done 20ish sets per muscle group 4 the last 4 months. 90% of wich where 2 failure and ive had great gains!

17

OK, so I tried out the back/biceps workout I’d stated above, tonight:

Chins (4x8)
Db BOR (4x8 each side)
Lat Pulldown (4x8)
EZ bar biceps curls (4x8)
Db hammer curls (4x8)

The workout took a lot longer than I was expecting to be honest, which makes me feel a lot better. As I said, when i was doing my Full Bodies (see above), there was no fatigue between each exercise, so I could move on a lot faster. Here however, the muscle was getting more and more fatigued and the whole workout took 43 minutes. I’m pretty chuffed with that, as one of my concerns was that I’d be in, work out and have left within about 30mins!

18

[quote]Paulinho wrote:
forbes wrote:
That One Guy wrote:
If you actually complete alll these exercises and sets in a workout, you workout with no intensity whatsover

I agree. There used to be a time when I could handle literally hitting my WHOLE body in a single workout, hence my original stance on TBT. BUT (and I say but), I was a poor misguided individual who’s main goal was to leave the gym absolutely trashed, with NO energy and the near inability to move. Well guess what. I NEVER got stronger from this, and barely got bigger. The ONLY thing positive from this is that I increased my work capacity. Thats it.

If you really are after strength and size gains, either dont be going to failure on any of the sets, or pump down the volume. If your able to hone in on your focus, the first two exercises would leave most crumbling, hence my reasoning as to why I ALWAYS separate quads and hamstrings.

We talking about each workout I listed in the split as being too intensive? I did the shoulder routine last night, and I agree I’d lost the pump by the end of it. The military press and DB press were decent, felt a good pump from them, but after the lat raises and rear lat raises I was more or less going through the motions for the last two exercises. Thing is, I don’t understand how doing so little compared to what I’m used to with FBs in each workout can possibly be enough for a 1 per week shoulder session? Could anyone suggest a better shoulder routine? I really want to bulk this area up, as I feel it’s a lagging area compared to my chest, back and legs.

[/quote]

Think about why you are going from FB to BP split. The theory is that you stimulate so much micro trauma in a local area that it NEEDS 4 days or a week to heal.

How to do that? as people have said pick a FEW lifts. put your DICK IN them hard. That means if you do 4 sets of 8-12 then the first set should end on 12, leaving you primed for the 2nd. the second and third should be heavy enough NOT to get to 12 but stay about 10. The last set should fail at 8 or 9 and not able to rock another rep.

If you aren’t training as far into failure as you can on your split sets then you are wasting your time. In theory you shouldn’t be able to train that area for at least 2 days because of acid build up etc.

You can also get MORE days in at the gym on splits. there is no reason to only go 4 if you can go for 5 or so. that or cycle your days faster. Each area will still have 4 or more days to heal if you went 3 days on, 1 day rest, 2 days on, 1 day rest, repeat. this way you get 5 days in a week (even if you have only 4 training days you just repeat day one after day 4 and then 2 etc.) and 2 rest. day one has 4 days before you repeat it.

So pick 3 lifts (especially if you only have 30 mins. that’s NOT much time) and work ‘through’ the rep range. make that last set a nut drainer and move on. If you eat enough and are training a area split then there is just no reason not to go to failure.

Also, you cannot squat and DL on the same day. that’s retarded if you are split training. DL is for back day. Leg day should be like:

Squat 5 x 8-12
leg press [heels together in the middle, st the top of the platform] 4 x 12-16 (failure is so hard to find on leg press. you can go from doing 15 reps to being pinned in 20 pounds)
Back/ham extensions 3 x 10-12, 1 x AMRAP w/BW

That is all. You may or may not want to add some sets of calf work in there. But I just dont see good reason not to go to failure. determine when to advacne in weight when you can do the last set for the top of the rep range.

If you try to do more than 3-4 lifts you will be shit on the last lot and might as well not do them. If you really must have more variety then super set each set with other lifts. but you dont really need to rock that shit right off the bat.

Body part splits with failure sets seem to work for people.

-chris