Biggzy

I've been weight training for a few months now, and still haven't found a solid routine in terms letting my muscles rest and doing cardio and the whole deal. Heres the routine ive done for the past few months but I'm going to switch it up.

Routine I used to do:

Day 1 - Chest and Back
Day 2 - Legs and Shoulders
Day 3 - Bicep and tricep
Repeating days 1-3 then rest one day and repeat the next week. I dont think I gave my muscles enough time to rest with this routine, which is one of the reasons I'm going to change.

So my question is, should I switch to this routine...?

Day 1 - Chest and Back
Day 2 - Cardio
Day 3 - Legs and Shoulders
Day 4 - Cardio
Day 5 - Bicep and tricep
Day 6 - Cardio
Day 7 - Rest

or this routine...?

Day 1 - Chest and Back
Day 2 - Legs and Shoulders
Day 3 - Cardio
Day 4 - Bicep Tricep
Day 5 - Chest and Back
Day 6 - Cardio
and so forth.

Please and feedback or suggestions is greatly appreciated.

DimebagDarrell

This one:

Day 1 - Chest and Back
Day 2 - Cardio
Day 3 - Legs and Shoulders
Day 4 - Cardio
Day 5 - Bicep and tricep
Day 6 - Cardio
Day 7 - Rest

otherwise doing chest the day after doing triceps is going to suck, and you really risk overtraining.

what are your overall goals?

cutting sucks.

CowPimp

I like your first split where you place a day of rest in between each session. However, I could see doing the other split if your back and chest are both weak points and you want to hit them with a little extra frequency for several weeks to try and bring these weak points up. Also, if you do the split where you hit your upper body twice, then I would stick a day of rest in between arms and chest/back lifting days.

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Biggzy

Thanks for the input guys. I guess I shouldve included my goals in the first post. Basically, I just want to get bigger but lose my gut as well. I'm weighing in at 220 right now and I want to get down to about 205 but I really want to get more muscular without steroids.

I like the first routine as well, but do you think that its too much rest for particular muscles? For example, if I did biceps on lets say monday, I wouldn't be able to hit them hard again until a week later monday assuming i did a day of cardio between each day of weights. Is this too long of a rest period?

CowPimp

No sir, a lot of people wait 5-7 days in between training each muscle. If you prefer to hit your muscles at a higher frequency, then you could try an upper-lower split. Something like this:

Upper
Rest
Lower
Rest

Or

Upper
Lower
Rest
Upper
Rest
Lower
Rest

There are all kinds of possibilities, so don't feel limited to body part splits.

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TJ Cline

1. Chest, deltoids, triceps
2. rest...cardio
3. Legs
4. rest....light cardio
5. lats, biceps, traps
6.rest...cardio
7. rest or repeat cycle


dont see the need to have an "arm day" 85% of arm size and strength comes from big movements like bench and rows.

DimebagDarrell

nope. biceps will also get exercised when you do back. when bulking, my routine is generally this:

1 - chest
2 - back, hamstrings
3 - triceps, abs
4 - biceps, quads, calves
5 - deltoids, traps
6 - off
7 - off

my tris get hit hard on day 3, pretty hard on day 1, and touched on day 5. biceps get hit hard on 4, but also pretty hard on day 2. traps get worked doing back work on day 2 (deadlifts, bent-over rows), but also doing traps isolation excercises on day 5.

cutting sucks.

ST240

I agree with this one. Im not all up on the science, but I wouldnt hit two big muscle groups like chest and back on the same day.