I like high frequency training per muscle group. Normally I do 3 full body workouts a week, lately I’ve been following the Fortitude Training skeleton of:
Lower Load/Upper Pump Monday
Upper Load/Lower Pump on Wednesday
Lower Body+Biceps+forearms muscle Rounds Friday
Upper Body muscle Rounds Saturday
So basically, full body, full body, Lower body, upper body. This has been a great approach to help make me more jacked!
For years i worked 12hr shifts it factories Monday to Friday, so i trained upper body on Saturday’s and lower body on Sundays or sometimes just abbreviated FB workout on a Sunday depending upon how tired i was.
This last 5 years however ive been free to train, eat and sleep when i want. The best progess ive ever made was with a modified Bulgarian light appoarch, focusing on just one or two lifts daily for short meso cycles, then switching to 1 or 2 different movements. Made my best strength gains training that way.
In general though, an upper / lower split or FB workout is my favourite. I flirted with bro splits for sort periods, but my strength improved best on with upper/lower and FB workouts.
Best
Rob
I really like the snatch high pulls! They’ve helped me in pretty much every aspect in the weight room, more than just building the upper back. I find myself more coordinated on lifts like push press, and overall pretty much zero shoulder pain. All pressing feels more stable.
Upper/Lower/Upper/Lower
4 days a week or every other day.
I do some type of rows almost every workout.
Lots of tricep focus. The Titan dip machine that I got a few months ago has been great.
I rotate between
Pull, push, legs
And
Shoulders/tris
Back
Chest/bis
Legs
I second this.
I think my favorite is a 4- or 5-day bro split, simply because it’s easy to think through.
Push, pull, legs is a good one for a similar reason (and is honestly basically the same thing).
Something I’ve noticed I’ve always liked when I’ve looked back on it is 2x upper/ lower with a back/ bi day in the middle. Some of CT’s older stuff was built this way and so is Meadows’ newer program, which I’m enjoying. You end up doing more performance stuff for 4 days, and hypertrophy stuff for your back/ bis day which many of you strong folks seem to be treating more structurally anyway. You could even do it legs, push, pull, legs, push if you wanted.
I really hated
Chest/Back
Legs
Shoulders/Arms
I wanted to like it, but I just couldn’t make it fit right for me. Every day was trap day and it killed my poor neck.
Hi Tim,
Love your playing (and your take with this thread)!
I have been training two days a week, HIT-based full body routines, for the past 1,5 years. Works wonders for me, as my strength and weight gain has gone uphill - until fairly recently. Most likely severe stressors in life at play - or adaptation, why I shifted from Dr Darden variations to Brian Johnston’s Zone Training approach (now more a mix of volume and intensity, yet to be evaluated).
The key element with only two days a week is to maintain high intensity, obviously. By doing so, you need the prolonged rest periods. I do 2 sets for bigger muscle groups, and 1 set for the others - to failure, or on a bad day, close to failure. It’s easier to motivate myself to perform, when only one set counts. Oh, and I tend to prioritize different muscle groups every workout (changing order, prioritized first and maybe adding an excercise on that particular muscle).
When I previously did high volume body splits, five days a week, I just followed a simple protocol. Nowadays, I spend significant time planning my workouts, to make the most out of them - in order to keep the element of surprise against adaptation. It’s actually quite rewarding to plan next days workout: Hm… On triceps - Should I do negative only, slow or fast cadence, high rep or low rep? full rep or zone training? What kind of excercise? Free weights or machine? What did I do previously? What felt good? What produced results? Room for improvisation/freeform?
This may seem like an obvious approach - but since were talking about just one set - it’s more important than ever. Previously, while doing 12 sets/3 excercises on a muscle group, for example, I never focused on detail. It just wasn’t that important. Why doing more sets when 1-2 is enough?
As @fitafter40 said you get more time for other activities with this approach (family time in my case). Though, I tend to think and read more about excercise these days, as stated above. Apart from work and family activities I play the drums, which is my only other “excercise”.
Shit, this became a long rambling. Sorry for that!
I like to have similar thoughts every day about exercise selection and Machine selection for the next workout. This type of auto regulation is great for keeping things exciting!
Hi Pettersson,
Thank you for your post. No I didn’t find it long-winded at all. I appreciate the detail. I have been interested in hearing about different methodologies in training mainly because you never know where you will learn new ideas. I am happy that you are enjoying your training.
To me, training now isn’t about being in the gym 5 days a week. I’ve done that for years. It’s now about balance and getting the most out of my training. It’s also about focusing equally on the restorative aspects of training. It’s about the yin side of training just as much as the yang.
Auto regulatory training has been of increasing interest for me as well.
1 Press
2 Squat
3 Press
4 Squat
5 Press
6 Deadlift
7 Off
Plus I do hundreds of pull-ups, prowler/sled trips, and light accessory work every week. This gave me the best overall strength gains and some decent size. My routine changed significantly when I was focused on bench or deadlifting.
For me 5-day split, Chest → Back → Legs → Shoulders → Arms. The best.
Why because having chest on a Monday means Monday is now a day to look forward to. If you have time an extra legs can be done on the weekend