Upper Push/Upper Pull/Full-Body/Full-Body Split?

Wondering if any of You tried such weekly split. Do You have experience You can share or second hand knowledge etc.
MON - Push (upper)
TUE - Pull (upper)
THU - FBW
SAT - FBW

Goal is hypertrophy

Your upper body pull will not recover. I assume this is a typo.
If you put the push / pull on back to back day it would be fine. Other than that in theory it should work.

This seems like an odd layout to me. What’s your thought process?

My question marks are why a rest day between upper body push and subsequent pull?

No rest day between UB pull and full-body?

How about (keeping to your days here but its not the scheduling I’d use personally):

Monday: Full body (heavy lower body, upper pump)
Wednesday: Upper body, bodybuilding
Thursday: Lower body, bodybuilding
Saturday: Full body (heavy upper body, pump lower body)

You’re not super far off from Charles Staley Hybrid Split or Scott Stevenson’s Fortitude Training but it seems like your primary interest is your upper body.

Have you considered doing push-pull-legs rotating over four sessions?

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Sorry it’s a typo, should be TUE - Pull

It’s upper body focused, lower body on meintenance.

“Have you considered doing push-pull-legs rotating over four sessions?”
Yes, initially my plan was:

PUSH
REST
PULL
REST
LEGS
PUSH
REST
PULL and so on

I workout @home during the week and have acces to gym only on saturday so I’ve tried to create a plan that give me oportunity to use more weights on saturday (mainly lower body) then I have acces in home and also use machines, cables etc on that day.
I figured it that way pretty much because of above and was wondering if there’s some downsides of such split that I’m not aware of.

Will appreciate Your thoughts on this.
Here’s my exact current plan. Upper body focus (chest&triceps especially), legs at minimum for time being. @Gym only on saturday. What else…i have herniated lumbar disc since forever, altough i menaged to avoid making things worse by eliminating exercises that promotes symptoms (mainly bilateral squats) and put effort to strenghtening my core.

MONDAY (PUSH)
A - Close grip benchpress
B1 - feet elevated pushups
B2 - band chest flye (emphasis on short)
C - lying dumbbell triceps extension
D1 - pike pushup
D2 - deadstop lateral raise

TUESDAY (PULL)
A - lat pullup on rings
B - wide chest supported row
C - barbell curl
D1 - swiss ball hypers+rear delt row combo (this seems to fancy but I like it)
D2 - hammer curl
E - front plate raise (full ROM = overhead)

THURSDAY (FBW)
A1 - incline dumbbell press
A2 - chest supported row
B1 - dips
B2 - chinups on rings
C1 - suspended hamstring curl
C2 - chest supported seated band facepull
D - skater squat

SATURDAY (FBW)
A1 - barbell glute bridge
A2 - romanian deadlift
B1 - seated lat row low puley
B2 - cable chest fly
C - pushups with 5 sec pause in the bottom
D - FCR biceps cable triset (short, medium, long)
E - delt cable triset (y-raise, lateral raise, ohp)

Additionally, on two off days, short workout - core, forearms, neck

Don’t know what volume you are doing or intensity levels you’re working at. If the former is fairly low, then, as an intermediate, I think I could recover on a routine like that. As someone else commented, it’s in the same ballpark as Fortitude Training. Although I still think you could factor in some lower body stuff at the start of the week, e.g. walking lunges (loading with DBs, etc, and working in the higher rep pump ranges).

I like the core, forearms and neck additions. I did something similar during lockdown for forearms where I was doing something close to 7 days a week. I have kept up this routine and, while I didn’t take before and after measurements, I’m absolutely convinced they have grown. I’m now trying to do something similar for biceps.

PS for your forearms, I recommend blood flow restriction. I do a medley using 3-5 different movements, hitting them from all angles, for higher reps. Love it.

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Will appreciate Your thoughts on this.
I’m 36. Been lifting conciously 4 years, before that it was rather mindless, inconsistent shooting in the dark, except maybe for core strenghtening which i did thoroughly due to my lumbar disc herniation that was bothering me since forever. Altough i menaged to avoid making things worse by eliminating exercises that promotes symptoms (mainly bilateral squats) and concentraiting on core.
2 years ago i had shoulder stabilisation surgery, reason for that was my stupidity - to much weight on dumbbel shoulder press = dislocated shoulder, couple od years earlier (it was fun for a while to imagine you are Mel Gibson i Lethal Weapon)
Right now I’m at first week of below plan. My goal is to bring up my puny chest and arms.
5’8 / 174 cm
163/74kg
3000 kcl
Here’s my exact current split. Upper body focus (chest&triceps especially), legs at minimum for time being. @Gym only on saturday, other days @home.
3 working sets in most exercises for chest and triceps (and lower body on saturday), 2 in others. Will add sets in coming two weeks depanding on recovery. After that I’m thinking of rest pause in last set for compund movements and mayo reps for single joint (chest&tric) for three weeks and then deload.

MONDAY (PUSH)
A - Close grip benchpress
B1 - feet elevated pushups
B2 - band chest flye (emphasis on short)
C - lying dumbbell triceps extension
D1 - pike pushup
D2 - deadstop lateral raise

TUESDAY (PULL)
A - lat pullup on rings
B - wide chest supported row
C - barbell curl
D1 - swiss ball hypers+rear delt row combo (this seems to fancy but I like it)
D2 - hammer curl
E - front plate raise (full ROM = overhead)

THURSDAY (FBW)
A1 - incline dumbbell press
A2 - chest supported row
B1 - dips
B2 - chinups on rings
C1 - suspended hamstring curl
C2 - chest supported seated band facepull
D - skater squat

SATURDAY (FBW)
A1 - barbell glute bridge
A2 - romanian deadlift
B1 - seated lat row low puley
B2 - cable chest fly
C - downward kneeling cable alternating chest press*
D - FCR biceps cable triset (short, medium, long)
E - delt cable triset (y-raise, lateral raise, ohp)

  • I don’ know exact name but it looks similar to this infamous guy exercise =>

Additionally, on two off days, short workout - core, forearms, neck
p.s. I’m 100% 2B neurotype (mainly Confident, Artist at times when my serotonin is higher)

I think it overly complicated and got too much volume. You’ll get hurt. 30 work sets on your chest, shoulders and triceps? More is not always better.

It also does not have squats. And whilst you want to build your arms - squats help the whole body grow.

Whats your current strength level like? Can you bench your own body weight for reps? Can you do 10 pull ups? If you want bigger arms / upper body these are good goals to help.

Could we grab a list of leg exercises that don’t irritate your back? Or are the 3 included in this session the only ones you can tolerate right now?

It’s 18 sets for chest, 8 for triceps (altough it may vary depending on how You count it) and 9 for shoulders (not counting rear delts). It might be a valid point and I thank You for bringing that up, I’ll guess I find out when my progress on chest exercises will stall. Altough being aware of this i kept volume for other parts low (i think). I don’t do squats because in the past they always smashed my lowback (herniated disc). I’ve tried work on my technique but even then it endup the same so i decided to ditch them and stick with unilateral squats. Besides, as I’ve mentioned right know I’m putting lower body at minimum to make some room for volume and recovery capacity for chest (altough I’m aware of significance of local fatigue).
My pushing strenght is very low, I bench my bodyweight for couple of reps but I’m not a big fun of barbell bench press, partially due to mentioned shoulder injury so I didn’t really practice that skill properly. To put things in perspective my dumbbell press strenght is very similiar if not slightly better than barbell. Altough I’m doing close grip for triceps.
I’m doing bodyweight dips for 12ish reps. 14 pullups, 15 chinups (less since I switched from bar to rings).

Pretty much every bilateral squat variation that involves hinging is a no no. Wall squat or Hack squat, leg presses are ok. I’ve done all kinds of split squats and lunges, knee extensions, hipthrusts, glute bridges etc. and managed to perfected the form in romanian deadlifts so they aren’t causing any issues. But as I mentioned right now (for couple of months) I’m planning to work my legs as little as necessary for maintaining hence only 4 exercises per week and total 10-12 sets.

I count differently. I see lots of cross over. It’s like you are trying to work every angle every time.
For example Monday:
Close grip bench - triceps, front delt and chest
Push up - chest, front delt and triceps
Flies - chest
Extensions- tricepts
Pike push up - front delt triceps chest
Lat raise - side delts

There is no need in my opinion. You could drop the upper body work from one of the FBW and still be doing a lot of work.
BUT if its working for you and you dont burn out or get injured then carry on I guess. You seem to be aware of fatigue.

What I am surprised by is that you can do 12 dips and 14/15 pull ups and have a small upper body. I’d say at those standards at you’re weight youd be quite well built.

I guess i would say the same thing You’ve told me if someone asked me but it’s easier to be objective when it’s not about You, especially when You’re stimulus junkie with low self esteem :slight_smile: Today was my fourth workout (since saturday) by this plan with this volume and honestly I don’t feel drained (i try to follow 1st and 2nd set 8RPE and 3rd 9RPE rule so I guess I’m not half assing) at all, but then again, after one week may be to soon to notice any impact. My sessions on average took +/- 1h including warmup.
I wonder if my small pushing strenght could cause less fatigue from pushing exercise since i don’t move much weight?
All things consider I’ll lessen the volume (maybe cut some exercises) because ,thanks to You, I’ve also realised that if I’ll start on this level of volume I won’t have anywhere to go further!

That may be the case, but then I’d urge you to pick more effective leg exercises than what you’ve chosen

E.g. Thursday replace leg curls with hip thrusts, replace skater squats with hack squats

Friday, do your RDLs and then a Bulgarian split squat, not in a superset

EDIT: Nevermind, just remembered you’re only at the gym on saturdays. Since that’s the case, do some heavyish quad exercise like a hack squat on that day

That’s my current photos (taken month ago), first two pumped after session and second at rest.


Yes, maybe I toss out second chest exercise that day and replace it with one of those You’ve mentioned. I like supersetting glute bridges with RDL to work glutes in different lenghts and also because I’dont have 330lbs at home so I’m able to do those exercises proficient only on saturdays. I recently replaced bulgarian split squats with skater squat to further work on stabilisers and disbalance (I have some issues with that).
Why do You think this kind of leg curl is inefficient? =>

I use these, although my trunk’s starting position is more parallel with the bench. I personally find I have excellent mind muscle connection using them compared to other hamstring dominant moves.

Yeah, agree, I think they’re pretty solid, but only if You do them with control, no swinging.

That’s why people are here. To help each other see the forest for all the trees.

FYI IF you are making progress - don’t change too much. I’m also a believe that if its not broke - do not fix it.
Also - you look quite solid TBH. I would say more than chest - shoulders. Nothing says strong like a great big set of shoulders.

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