Upper/Lower Split with 4 Main Lifts

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
1

Coach if you have a second to respond could you give a guideline on how you would design an upper / lower split focusing on getting big and strong on the 4 main lifts (bench, squat, press, and deadlift)?

I’m having trouble setting up the chins and rows without hurting lower body deadlift day.

I want to do upper / lower because I want to use a Dorian Yates style approach or rest pause approach where it’s very low volume but muscles get hit twice a week.

With limited time to train this style of training fits me best.

My best days to train are Saturday Sunday Tuesday and Thursday

Thank you for your time.

2

I’m not CT, but I’m doing his Simple, Guaranteed Size and Strength program right now and I’m loving it! You can google it online!

Trust me you’ll get strong on the main lifts. I would do lower body days before doing upper body days. You could even do the chin-ups on the lower body days to spread it out more.

This program is great and you can get it done under an hour if you REALLY push the pace.

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Thanks. I just dont respond to that much volume on the same lift 2 days a week. And I like Yates style because I can be done in 30 min.

I was wanting to do something like:

Saturday:
Bench- work up 4 to 6 rep max or 5 3 1
Incline- 6 to 8 reps rest pause
Chins- 6 to 8 reps rest pause
Dips- 6 to 8 rest pause
Curls- 6 to 8 rest pause

Sunday-
Squats- same as bench
RLD- work up to 8 to 10 rep max
Farmers walk

Tuesday
Push Press- same as bench
Behind neck press- 6 to 8 reps rest pause
Chins- 6 to 8 reps rest pause
Tricep extensions- 6 to 8 reps rest pause

Thursday
Deadlift- same as bench
Front squat- 6 to 8 reps rest pause
Abs

4

Well there is the Power look program that follows that logic. I recommand.

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dorian yates inspired program By CT is far from low volume workout

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It’s working up to 1 all out set…The simple guaranteed strength and size in the first phase is a total of 8 sets for 64 total reps in one week.

So it’s a lot lower than that program then I should’ve said.

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Not CT’s creation but what about 5/3/1? Designed specifically to work on the big 4 lifts and you can literally do pretty much whatever you want in terms of volume, frequency, intensity, assistance work, conditioning.

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It sound like you want to do the four day per week version of Best Damn for Naturals. Have you ever actually tried doing nothing but rest/pause sets for every exercise? I think you’re going to burn out. There’s probably a reason that CT wrote Best Damn 1, 2, and then the strength version. Each one has a little bit of variety and different ways to reach failure.

I also don’t really understand why you think doing two chest exercises on one day and two shoulder dominant exercises on another day is any different than doing one of each on both days. Your body doesn’t really care what you do day to day or week to week. It responds to consistent stimuli over months and years.

SGSS is a phenomenal program and I’d recommend it to anyone, but I guess you could say I’m biased. I ran it and crushed my PR’s. If you have a time limit per session then it’s not going to be the best program for you. The day of three sets on everything is easy enough to knock out in under an hour but the 5x8 days take some time. But the good news is that there’s only three of them and then it switches to sets of 5, and then sets of 3, and then a realization phase that’s full of awesomeness. But, again, I’m biased.

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