Well guys I’ve always had some issues creating my split because my gym is not opening on weekend’s , so that I kinda can train at my house on Saturdays but I ONLY GOT MATERIAL FOR A PUSH DAY OR SHOULDERS/ARMS DAY, I can’t do a Leg day or Pull day working out in my house due to the fact that I don’t have enough material or machines. I’ve been doing an Arnold Splitx PPL(doing legs on monday and thursday) since 3 months but I got a couple of issues with this:
-If I fail one day the split is fucked up.
-Doing and Overhead press after a Chest/back day whereas I did some chest presses doesn’t feel good at all,my shoulders and chest are sore asf
Doing chest and back is really demanding.
So I changed it up to a PPL but only going 5 days a week, but I realized that is really hard to make a PPL with Arms and shoulders focused and now I don’t know what split to do.
My choices would be:
-Coming back to the Arnold splitxPPL but being aware that If I don’t go one day the split is completely fucked up, also I don’t know if training 6 days a week is too much.
-Keep doing this PPL of five days a week, knowing that I can’t work every muscle twice a week ( Week 1- PPLPP, Week 2-LPPLP, Week 3 PLPPL and so on)
-Doing a 4xbro split.
-Doing Push-Arms, Back shoulders and Legs
At this point I just need something to keep myself constant and I don’t really know what to do, the problem is that I can’t do too much on weekend because there is no gym in my town opened those days. What would you recommend me to do?
Ik I’m overthinking this but it’s because there’s always a downside, If I could workout on weekend I’d would be much easier to choose.
Something Thibaudeau does that’s really clever is a “gap” day. It’s accessory work that doesn’t kill you, isn’t as high value as your main work, and you can shove it anywhere. For you that could be arms, shoulders, sled. Do it on the weekends if you feel like it, or don’t, but it takes pressure off your week.
Now you just need to hit your main lifts. I’d recommend 3 sessions during the week. Can be PPL, full body, etc.
If I was doing it, it would be Pull, Push, Legs on M/W/F with an arm day on Saturday and a sled day on Sunday.
It sounds like at 6 days a week, your frequency is just a bit too high. If your days are overlapping and causing negative performance in your next session, something is off. Push, Pull, Leg, Arms like @TrainForPain mentioned is an incredible split that will give you so much more energy for each session. I think you’ll find that you’ll actually make more gains from 4 days of training a week rather than 6.
We have good evidence at this point that a bro split or working a muscle just 1x a week is sufficient for maximum growth, so don’t worry about the reduced frequency. It’s easier to recover from any muscle damage caused. I’ve been growing super well with this frequency and I think you will too.
Shoulders and arms would fit good on Saturday. So a push pull legs + arms day?
I’m doing 8-12 sets per muscle weekly ( maybe back and shoulders 14 sets).
I’ve been always doing double frequency, for example I’m used to have a push a and push b or having two different workout when I hit that muscle twice a week, same for legs and so on. In fact, I’m trying to improve my bench and I’m benching twice a week. That split sounds good, I’d have to remove some exercises and see how could I bench twice a week
There’s really a lot of factors at play here, but you mentioned your sessions kind of having an overlapping performance reduction on one another. I’m mainly talking to you about Hypertrophy gains. I’m no expert in Bench specialization, my chest and Bench were pretty much built by Hypertrophy Training. For maximum Hypertrophy, it’s really more about the quality of sets and taking them to or really close to failure rather than the absolute number of sets you’re doing. Your absolute volume sounds pretty high to me and makes me think you may not be pushing those sets as hard as you should to maximize gains. You could work your way up to your current level of volume during a training cycle but I’d recommend tapering back down and then repeating that process.
Part of this depends on how you count sets. Personally, I usually only count my last set where I’m really pushing myself to or very very close to failure, because those are your real growth sets. Everything leading up to that is really a warm up imo… if you’re counting every ramp up set you do as well then your volume might actually be fine, it just depends on what you define as a set and how you are counting total volume.
Well I’m not going to failure every set but obviously I got working sets and warming sets, those would be the total of working sets, not all of them are failure but the majority is near failure rir0-1 or failure.
I do think it’s possible to train 6 days a week if you have a low volume and plan appropriately, although it’s still not my personal favorite and there’s a lot to be gained from having days purely out of the gym.
That wasn’t really your question, though: your situation has changed and 6 days is not practical. You were asking, I believe, if you could make awesome gains training fewer days. The answer is a resounding “yes” (and, in all likelihood, you’ll see better gains).
A 3-4 day split is a little more “foolproof” because you have less overlap and more recovery: you get to go in there and destroy yourself to your heart’s desire, come back for more, and still grow!