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Push Pull Opinions...

Bodybuilding
#1

What’s better… PUSH / PULL / LEGS or CHEST.BACK / LEGS / SHOULDERS.ARMS ? Training 4-5 days a week. I ask because I have used the second option for a while but find that it is hard to keep the frequency up because i always need to take at least 1-2 days after re starting the cycle (shoulders.arms to chest.back the next session). I figure it will be easier to do 2 (or3) days on - 1 day off with the PUSH.PULL.LEGS split… but not sure how to set that up.For example, I usually do close grip benches for tri’s but can’t imagine doing that with fried shoulders.

Any advice or opinions one which option is better, or how to set it up would be greatly appreciated.

#2

If you are spliting it up and having too much trouble recovering you may be doing too much work for that frequency. How “fried” would your shoulders really be after a few pressing movements? I focus on strength and currently do overhead pressing for ME and then Inc Press for ME and still progress on both.

For hypertrophy I like the second split with a 2days on, one off for four or five days a week, cycling intensity as needed.

#3

I’ve used this with great success:

Monday–PUll (Back Strength Circuit…5 exercises…mix of vertical pull downs and rows) + biceps (biceps consist of mostly eccentric-less circuits and pairings + One round of Max Rep bicep circuit)

Tuesday–Push (Heavy Lifting (with staggered upper back and rear delts blast strap work) + Max Rep Press circuit + Max Rep tricep circuit

Wednesday—legs (Strength Circuit…5 exercises) + Max Rep lower body Circuit (include a couple of hip dominant and knee flexion exercises) + Sled work for lower body, if I feel I have enough left in the tank

Thursday—neural charge workout (focusing mostly on upper body, but always have a full body olympic lift in the mix)

Friday—Pull (Extended Ramping…High Pull then Low pull then deadlifts then rack pulls from above the knee)…staggered with blast strap and band pull movements for extra back volume+ Bicep strength Circuit (3 exercises) + Max Rep Back circuit + max rep bicep circuit (if I feel I have enough left)

Saturday—Push (Pressing strength circuit…3 exercises (performance suffers for me if I do anymore than 3 exercises) + Tricep Strength Circuit (3 exercises…ALL SINGLE JOINT extension exercises) + Shoulder Isolation Circuit + Chest Isolation Circuit (1-2 times through each Isolation circuit)

Sunday—Legs (Heavy Lifting…Squat from pins, Back squat with chains, Trap Bar Deadlifts, Leg Press and Reverse Hypers) + Max Rep Lower body circuit + lower body sled work if I feel I have enough left

Monday—Neural Charge workout (Focus on mostly on full body and lower body to facilitate recovery from the previous day)

Tuesday—start the cycle over

I recover well from this set up (I do everything possible outside of the gym to help with this), and my performance improves in one capacity or another from week to week.

Hope that helps.

I love the push-pull-legs split. It always works well for me. If I don’t feel I’m recovered enough, I’ll just throw a neural charge workout in there instead of a planned lifting day, but this hasn’t been a problem yet. I’ve been able to keep to this split as planned.

#4

[quote]synergy93 wrote:
I’ve used this with great success:

Monday–PUll (Back Strength Circuit…5 exercises…mix of vertical pull downs and rows) + biceps (biceps consist of mostly eccentric-less circuits and pairings + One round of Max Rep bicep circuit)

Tuesday–Push (Heavy Lifting (with staggered upper back and rear delts blast strap work) + Max Rep Press circuit + Max Rep tricep circuit

Wednesday—legs (Strength Circuit…5 exercises) + Max Rep lower body Circuit (include a couple of hip dominant and knee flexion exercises) + Sled work for lower body, if I feel I have enough left in the tank

Thursday—neural charge workout (focusing mostly on upper body, but always have a full body olympic lift in the mix)

Friday—Pull (Extended Ramping…High Pull then Low pull then deadlifts then rack pulls from above the knee)…staggered with blast strap and band pull movements for extra back volume+ Bicep strength Circuit (3 exercises) + Max Rep Back circuit + max rep bicep circuit (if I feel I have enough left)

Saturday—Push (Pressing strength circuit…3 exercises (performance suffers for me if I do anymore than 3 exercises) + Tricep Strength Circuit (3 exercises…ALL SINGLE JOINT extension exercises) + Shoulder Isolation Circuit + Chest Isolation Circuit (1-2 times through each Isolation circuit)

Sunday—Legs (Heavy Lifting…Squat from pins, Back squat with chains, Trap Bar Deadlifts, Leg Press and Reverse Hypers) + Max Rep Lower body circuit + lower body sled work if I feel I have enough left

Monday—Neural Charge workout (Focus on mostly on full body and lower body to facilitate recovery from the previous day)

Tuesday—start the cycle over

I recover well from this set up (I do everything possible outside of the gym to help with this), and my performance improves in one capacity or another from week to week.

Hope that helps.

I love the push-pull-legs split. It always works well for me. If I don’t feel I’m recovered enough, I’ll just throw a neural charge workout in there instead of a planned lifting day, but this hasn’t been a problem yet. I’ve been able to keep to this split as planned.

[/quote]

Excellent post synergy!

I was wondering if you could further elaborate on your exercise selection for each day. Which exercises do you do? What are your reps like? Etc. etc.

#5

This is what I do:

Monday: Chest (mainly) with ‘some’ back work
Tuesday: Legs
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Shoulders, Arms
Friday: Back
Saturday & Sunday: Off

I do heavy close-grip benches for triceps, which gives me another decent training effect for my chest as well. So it’s 2 days of chest, 2 days of back – one ‘easy’ day and one ‘hard’ day. Only one leg day is fine for me, and the day off after that is appreciated. Arms and shoulders get worked indirectly multiple days, with one day of direct training. Recuperation is important to me, because I’m old. I’m trying to get bigger and stronger, not trying to see how exhausted I can make myself. Training poundages going up = works for me. For now, anyway.

You can do your split any one of a thousand ways - you have to experiment and see what works for you, where you can get results without flogging yourself to death. I don’t like to train 3 days in a row (well, occasionally I will). I like an off day mid-week. Either offset your schedule (make it an 8 day schedule, for example) or figure out a way to condense your program in a way that works for you, or… (endless options)

#6

As a beginner, I got my best gains working off a push/pull/legs/full body program.

Sunday - Push
Monday - Legs
Tuesday - Pull
Friday - Full Body

Full body day was just one main compound exercise for each body part, plus some isolation work for calves.

Might be a lot to recover from if you have a few years under your belt and made some significant progress, in which case your full body day could just be your ‘weak point’ day where you hit your weak points with some isolation work.

#7

push = compound exercies to 5rm, 2 exercises usually shoulder press and bench and do them with a certain weight and do sets of 5 reps then repeat as soon as training partner finishes his set (jst for volume and turns out thibs does it go figure). Then its either a power or isolation circuits focussing on either chest or shoulders and mix it up every session. Most of the time 10 circuits or more.
Then triceps

Pull = same sort of set up with bi’s in there obviously :slight_smile:

Legs = a mix of either same set up or ill do just a set weight and go to blast alot of reps, try doing 80 rep leg press sets and 1 minute holds ooooh yeah.

then either a neural charge or just start over again.

i dont think people can overtrain with this especially if you ramp and auto regulate.
Recovery is easy for me and i dont kmow what it is but after i do pulling it feels the same as a neural charge workout i feel buzzed and if tried to really punish myself but i always feel good and it turns out a guy at my gym has the same thing when he does legs so sometimes i just do another pull session instead of neural charge. Who doesnt want a bigger bak anyways