Splits or TBT, What Are You Doing?

Well I go to the gym about six times a week… so I work my Upper, Back, and Legs twice a week. Which I think is the same as a TBT 2 or 3 times a week.

[quote]norcal_BALLER wrote:
Well I go to the gym about six times a week… so I work my Upper, Back, and Legs twice a week. Which I think is the same as a TBT 2 or 3 times a week. [/quote]

If you are pushing yourself hard in the gym, one day of rest a week is not enough to fully recover.

[quote]Souperman wrote:
norcal_BALLER wrote:
Well I go to the gym about six times a week… so I work my Upper, Back, and Legs twice a week. Which I think is the same as a TBT 2 or 3 times a week.

If you are pushing yourself hard in the gym, one day of rest a week is not enough to fully recover.[/quote]

I completely disagree. It may not be enough time for you to recover, but with adequate nutrition and sleep there a lot of people who could recover working out intensely 6 days a week with one day of total “rest”. I consider myself one of them, but I also don’t believe in the overtraining myth.

In college I worked for Mayflower moving furniture for 6 weeks one summer and was working out 6 days a week and even after 8-10 hours of moving furniture 5 or 6 days a week I was still making progress in the gym and I should have been a major candidate for overtraining looking at what some people here believe.

If you want to believe your body has limits go ahead and believe that, but don’t try and force it on me or anyone else. I refuse to believe I can overtrain. I won’t let myself believe it.

Most People here are saying Upper/Lower Split.

If I did that I wouldnt be able to work all the muscles that I would want to. My routine would be like this.

Upper- Bench Press, Inclined DB Press, Tricep Extensions, Rows, Bicep Curls, Dips, Pull ups, One Hand DB Rows, Upright Row.

Thats WAAAAY too much for me to work with in an hour.

So I chose to do like a 3 split. With 2 extra days a week for my back. Id rather spend an hour in the gym 6 times a week. Then around an hour and 30 minutes 4 times a week.

[quote]norcal_BALLER wrote:
Most People here are saying Upper/Lower Split.

If I did that I wouldnt be able to work all the muscles that I would want to. My routine would be like this.

Upper- Bench Press, Inclined DB Press, Tricep Extensions, Rows, Bicep Curls, Dips, Pull ups, One Hand DB Rows, Upright Row.

Thats WAAAAY too much for me to work with in an hour.

[/quote]

So drop the upright rows and tricep extensions and superset the pressing and pulling movements.

That is basically my upper body horizontal push/pull day and it takes me ~ 45 minutes.

[quote]kroby wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Doug Adams wrote:
Upper/Lower Split, 2 days each per week.

Same

Third.[/quote]

Fourth

Just yesterday I started a 3 day TBT rotation, doing a major leg, push, and pull complex lift each day. I switched to that after doing over 2.5 years on a very old fashioned single bodypart split: a leg day, a back day, etc. I know how out of date that is, but I made great gains in that time. Now, I’ve decided to focus more on getting into good condition rather than having the heaviest lift on something.

If I do splits usually it is just upper/lower splits. I hate all that push pull bullshit because of this reason. People usually breakup body parts like this.

Chest, shoulders, quads, tris
Back, hamstrings, bis

or something like that.

One problem I have with this.
Like another poster said you will use shoulders during alot of different movements, hamstrings during quad dominant movements, glutes during hamstring and quad dominant movements, so body part splits are tough. However, one thing that isnt as tough is knowing how hard to push yourself.

When you are doing splits you can kick the shit out of yourself and even overdo it and be fine because you have so many damn days to rest. I am doing a total body routine I made up myself and I am having a hard time gauging how hard to push, I am def making gains but not killing myself is always in the back of my mind…

I am using EDT meets CPT
http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459309
with some minor changes.

The 3 “core” lifts I am using are:

  1. overhead squats - 10 min PR zone w/singles
  2. alt arm DB snatches - 10 min PR zone w/singles
  3. weighted chins - 10 min PR zone w/singles

My “circuits” are:
A. single leg squat L/R - 10 min PR zone
incline DB bench/DB shrug - 10 min PR zone
incline russian twist/alt DB curl - 10 min PR zone

B. reverse hyper/DB overhead press - 10 min PR zone
supported prone row/supported - 10 min PR zone prone shrug
hanging pike/rope tricep pushdown - 10 min PR zone

I do this 3 times a week, and fit something extra in when I feel like it and I have time.

LA

Maybe you shouldn’t make up a total body routine yourself? Follow one made by a person like Chad Waterbury who has put hundreds of people through his programmes and put together what he found was optimal. Run through his programmes a few times, then make up your own. Not only will you have the principles from reading about the programmes, but you might have a better understanding from following them and comparing your experiences with others on a similar programme.

Splits.

I change the split around depending on my schedule, but I usually weight train 5-6 days a week. What works at the moment is a 5 day split; chest, back, arms, shoulders and legs.

I train 1-6 reps for most exercises, about 30-40 minutes at most, with very little hanging around.

For a while I have been training calves every day, rotating reps and weight every day.

On my off days I do about 2 hours of karate training.

tbt

[quote]Jason B wrote:
Souperman wrote:
norcal_BALLER wrote:
Well I go to the gym about six times a week… so I work my Upper, Back, and Legs twice a week. Which I think is the same as a TBT 2 or 3 times a week.

If you are pushing yourself hard in the gym, one day of rest a week is not enough to fully recover.

I completely disagree. It may not be enough time for you to recover, but with adequate nutrition and sleep there a lot of people who could recover working out intensely 6 days a week with one day of total “rest”. I consider myself one of them, but I also don’t believe in the overtraining myth.

In college I worked for Mayflower moving furniture for 6 weeks one summer and was working out 6 days a week and even after 8-10 hours of moving furniture 5 or 6 days a week I was still making progress in the gym and I should have been a major candidate for overtraining looking at what some people here believe.

If you want to believe your body has limits go ahead and believe that, but don’t try and force it on me or anyone else. I refuse to believe I can overtrain. I won’t let myself believe it.
[/quote]

Obviously everyone is different. Since I do TBT with olympic style/power lifting, I need a day off in between workouts. Plus muscle grows/heals while your resting not training, this is more beneficial for me. I have gain 20 lbs. of mass since I switched to this routine from my 5 day splits. So do what works best for you and good luck.

Arnold’s 3 day split is the best. For those on a cycle, this is worth it. You are paying for the gear, so use it.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. a 3-day split, training six days per week.


Workout #1: Sunday and Wednesday

CHEST
-Barbell Bench Press: 4 sets
-Barbell Incline Press: 4 sets
-Dumbbell Flys: 3 sets
-Pullovers: 3 sets

BACK
-Wide-Grip Chins (weighted): 4 sets
-T-Bar Rows: 4 sets
-Bent-Over Barbell Rows: 4 sets

CALVES
-Seated Calf Raises: 4 sets

ABS
-Crunches: 3 sets
-Machine Crunches: 3 sets


Workout #2: Monday and Thursday

SHOULDERS
-Barbell Military Press: 4 sets
-Dumbbell Laterals: 3 sets
-Bent-Over Laterals: 3 sets
-Barbell Shrugs: 3 sets

UPPER ARMS
-Barbell Curls: 4 sets
-Incline Dumbbell Curls: 3 sets
-Concentration Curls: 3 sets
-Lying Barbell Extensions: 3 sets
-Triceps Cable Pressdowns: 3 sets
-One-Arm Triceps Extensions: 3 sets

FOREARMS
-Barbell Wrist Curls: 4 sets
-Barbell Reverse Wrist Curls: 3 sets

ABS
-Reverse Crunches: 4 sets


Workout #3: Tuesday and Friday

THIGHS
-Squats: 3 sets
-Machine Front Squats: 3 sets
-Leg Extensions: 3 sets
-Lying Leg Curls: 4 sets
-Straight-Leg Deadlifts: 3 sets

CALVES
-Standing Calf Raises: 5 sets

ABS
-Crunches: 3 sets
-Vertical Bench Leg Raises: 3 sets

[quote]norcal_BALLER wrote:
Well I go to the gym about six times a week… so I work my Upper, Back, and Legs twice a week. Which I think is the same as a TBT 2 or 3 times a week. [/quote]

OH… NO WAY MAN…

A split training does not match a TBT. For example: A leg press done with any or all of its variations, will never equal a well done Back Squats, (let alone an Overhead Squat).

Try it a TBT on ur Leg day. Do Back, Front, and Overhead Squats (don’t get greedy with the weight)… u’ll see.

^^^^ Wait, I thought TBT was TOTAL BODY TRAINING, meaning you trained legs, lower body, and abs in one training session. What your saying seems to be a Split Routine.

Leg Day- Front Squat, Back Squat, Overhead Squat. as well as other stuff.

[quote]norcal_BALLER wrote:
^^^^ Wait, I thought TBT was TOTAL BODY TRAINING, meaning you trained legs, lower body, and abs in one training session. What your saying seems to be a Split Routine.

Leg Day- Front Squat, Back Squat, Overhead Squat. as well as other stuff. [/quote]

my bad I misunderstood ur post… I thought u meant u were only doing “isolation exersises” when u said u did Upperbody, Mid-section, and Lower Body on different days. Since as u know, deadlift, clean, snatch, push-press, pull-ups, F/B/O squat, etc work more than area of the body.

[quote]disciplined wrote:
dswithers wrote:
Bench Press and Dips, if done heavy, heavily involve the lats; deadlifts the quads and glutes, so doing lats the day after benchpress, or legs the day after deadlifts is too much for many individuals.

I prefer an upper/lower split, 4-6 days a week.

Bench Press and dips do involve the lats, but not heavily. If your lats are getting sore from benching and dipping, they are in poor condition.

The same is true for glute involvement when performing deadlifts. Although deadlifts do activate the glutes, they do not activate the glutes heavily.

If someone has sore lats after benching, that is sad. If someone has sore glutes after deadlifts, they have poorly conditioned glutes.
[/quote]

Hi disciplined,

While I agree with you about benching and dips not heavily taxing the lats, I’d have to disagree that deadlifts don’t heavily tax the glutes.

The glutes are the primary hip extensors along with the hamstrings. Deadlifts are essentially a hip extension exercise, so glutes and hamstrings are the prime movers.

Good training,

Sentoguy

I’ve done TBT for about a year with good results, but have recently switched to split training for something new. It’s definitely more fun and it’s nice knowing the muscles I targeted area fully blasted after a workout. Here is my split:

Day 1 - Legs & shoulders (heavy)
Day 2 - Chest & Tri’s (heavy)
Day 3 - Back & Bi’s (moderate)
Day 4 - Off
Day 5 - Legs & shoulders (moderate)
Day 6 - Chest & Tri’s (moderate)
Day 7 - Back & Bi’s (heavy)
Day 8 - Off
Day 9 - repeat

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
disciplined wrote:
dswithers wrote:
Bench Press and Dips, if done heavy, heavily involve the lats; deadlifts the quads and glutes, so doing lats the day after benchpress, or legs the day after deadlifts is too much for many individuals.

I prefer an upper/lower split, 4-6 days a week.

Bench Press and dips do involve the lats, but not heavily. If your lats are getting sore from benching and dipping, they are in poor condition.

The same is true for glute involvement when performing deadlifts. Although deadlifts do activate the glutes, they do not activate the glutes heavily.

If someone has sore lats after benching, that is sad. If someone has sore glutes after deadlifts, they have poorly conditioned glutes.

Hi disciplined,

While I agree with you about benching and dips not heavily taxing the lats, I’d have to disagree that deadlifts don’t heavily tax the glutes.

The glutes are the primary hip extensors along with the hamstrings. Deadlifts are essentially a hip extension exercise, so glutes and hamstrings are the prime movers.

Good training,

Sentoguy[/quote]

I know what you’re getting at, Sentoguy. Let me clarify my position on what I consider proper deadlifting, though.

You say that the deadlift is primarily a hip extensor exercise. This isn’t really the case if you perform the exercise with your hips high but your back still straight. When performed this way, the deadlift greatly resembles a stiff-legged deadlift. When the deadlift is performed this way, this exercise is predominantly a back extension exercise, involving minimal hip extension(and therefore not heavily activating the glutes).

Obviously a sumo-style deadlift or a deadlift performed with the hips and butt much lower prior to initiating the lift will both more heavily involve the glutes than deadlifts performed the way I peform them.

Let me ask you this Sentoguy, are your glutes sore after a killer deadlift session? Do you begin performing your deadlifts with your hips low?

In my case, my hips are very high before the bar has even been raised off the floor. And my glutes have never been sore from deadlifts.