Thread: critique my training

I dunno, but for me, giving a body part only one day a week doesn't work. I find that a muscle has passed the supercompensation phase and it's on the way downhill after 4 days.

For example, why a day off on day 2? You won't be using your arms for those leg exercises, so you're wasting a day. Plus, the growth hormone release from the leg stimulation will carry over and help your arms grow. So I'd remove that particular day off. And a day just for abs and calves? I'd just add an ab workout to a chest day and calves to a back day.

That would put you on a 5-day rotating routine, which would probably much better align with supercompensation timing, and would expose you to about 30% more training time.

Originally Posted by ThreeGigs

For example, why a day off on day 2? You won't be using your arms for those leg exercises, so you're wasting a day.
I take a day off for CNS recovery, as heavy benching is a big tax on the cns.
That would put you on a 5-day rotating routine, which would probably much better align with supercompensation timing, and would expose you to about 30% more training time.

I appreciate the response. I'm looking forward to some more replies..

In principle this looks okay but if you ask for my personal opinion it looks rather complicated with too many accessory and isolation lifts for my liking. Rather than focusing on such a large range of exercises with only one set per exercise I would shave off half of the isolation lifts and stick to compound lifts with more sets per lift. This all depends on what your goals are but if you are looking to increase size and strength I would focus on less exercises, compound lifts mainly, executed with more sets per exercise. As ThreeGigs mentioned above, I too prefer to train each major muscle group twice weekly but this is personal preference. Your muscles won't start to deter if you only train them once a week, from experience though I've always had quicker progress keeping my workouts less complicated, less variety of lifts (just your basics) executed twice weekly for each major muscle group.

I'd agree with ab/calf days. I do abs and calves everyday, forearms every other day. Depending on how long you're in the gym for (anything over 1h20min is probably too long) You'd want to split up your days.

I training 6 days a week - as posted in another post - 2 days a week for each muscle group with 72 hours rest for that muscle group.

back/bis sun/wed
chest/tri mon/thr
shoulder/legs tue/fri

3 - 4 exercises 4 sets, 6 x 8 reps.
6 different exercises through out the week.

I also wouldn't do to failure each day. Do to failure once a week. If you're cutting down, once a week trying doing "burns" - Starting with a fairly heavy weight going till failure, dropping 5-10 pounds, going to failure,, dropping 5-10 pounds, going to failure, then going back to original start weight, going to failure. Do 4 set of that, and you'll cut, shape and tone your muscle.

IE: I was 180 pounds (i stand 5'7) in the end of May. Arm's 16 inches with pump - 15 to 15.3 no pump. After doing those burns on my entire body, I lost 20 pounds in roughly a month and a half, cut down to 160. Arms 16 inches with pump 15 inches no pump. Of course my diet had something to do with it too. I mention that, because you might think it would be over training and you'd lose muscle mass.

Realistically, it's good to get other people's input on routines, but you have to play around with your routine on a monthly basis to see which exercises get you the best results. I've mentioned in a post of mine that I rarely work out on my legs because my genetics lets me life once a year and they'll balloon up. Of course that's an exaggeration but everyone is different. Basic and general rules apply when it comes to training, but you have to listen to your body, read the measuring tape, take monthly photos and check the weight scale.

Not being snotty, but what's ideology behind all the failure sets?