question about synergists and stabilizers

I've been doing upper body workouts twice a week. These workouts take about two hours. I'd LOVE to shorten them to an hour . But I cant help but think about overtraining a muscle. On the www.exrx.com page, there are a whole list of exercises that i go by. There they list the target muscle as well as the synergist and the stabilizer. I feel that I have to do my whole upper body at once because most exercise include alot more muscles than the target. For example, lets say that I were to do chest and shoulders on monday and back and arms on tuesday. The lever chest press that I would do on monday would target the pectoralis but alsio would work the synergist triceps. On tuesday, I'd work the triceps with the arm workout. My question here is would that overtrain muscle by doing them four times a week? I'm a bit confused and I'm still looking for the best way to workout with out burnout. Thank God for this forum!

When it comes to triceps, a lot of exercise use them when doing back and chest. Look at posters' workouts they list on here. You gotta lift with something--and for upper body that means arms.

It just seems to me that when you split up your body (meaning back and shoulders one day and shest and arms the next day for example) there are excersises that kind of "bridge " the body parts. So really in esence, you are double working some muscles. Am I wrong about this? Some excersises I cant do because of wrist pain. Like hammer curls and side laterals. My wrist cant take it but there are other ways to target those muscles. But...I'm running into this problem.

i kno exactly...i mean exactly how you feel glassman...i felt, and still--to an extent-- feel the same way. I used to do chest tris and shoulders on mon and thurs...and back and bis and legs on tues and fri....the fact is...since my order was chest, then shoulders, then tris on those days...the muscle i first worked (my chest) was the only muscle really improving. This led to my shoulders lagging...and hurting my rotator cuff a little bit because on the bench...my shoulders couldnt really handle the weight my chest was putting up. I have a very hard time accepting the fact that doing one muscle a week is sufficient...however, i am open-minded and wil try it. Heres the routine i will try next week:

monday:Chest, tris
Tuesday:legs
wed: off
Thurs:shoulders
Fri:back and bis