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Cornish_Celt · #5 (**permalink**) 07-08-2010, 03:02 PM

38. A Sample Split

One approach that works well for a lot of people is a variation of the heavy/light format. With this approach you train a muscle twice per week. On the first day you really focus on upping the poundages with a take no prisoners attitude when it comes to putting more weight on the bar each week. You’d simply take a body-part and knock out several heavy sets of a basic movement for that bodypart, with the basic idea being to generate progressive tension increases in that exercise on a weekly basis. Then you might do a couple of “pump”sets to get some fatigue in. You would then hit the muscle group later on in the week but with less intensity and intensiveness. On this lighter workout, the idea is to stimulate the muscle to keep growth signaling elevated, but not to totally annihilate the muscle. You could even hit it indirectly (eg. Shoulder press one workout, Incline Barbell press the next) A sample routine is as follows:

Mon: Lower (Quadricep focused)
Squat: 4-5 x 6-8 with full rests
SLDL: 3 x 6-8 with full rests
Leg press: 2 x 15-20 with full rests
Leg curl: 3 x 5-8 with short rests
Calf raise: 4 x 5 (5 seconds down, 5 seconds pause at bottom)

Tue: Upper (Chest and back focused)
Flat bench: 4-5 x 6-8 with full rests
Row: 4-5 x 6-8 with full rests
Pec Deck- 2 x 12-15 Lateral DB raise- 2 x 10-12 with full rests
Pulldown/chin: 3 x 5-8 with short rests Triceps (your choice - preferably something compound like lying decline ez bar extensions): 2 x 8-10 with full rests
Biceps (your choice): 2 x 8-10 with full rests

Thurs: Lower (glute/ham focused)
Deadlift- 4-5 x 6
Front Squat- 3 x 8
leg curl - 3-5 x 6-12 with short rests
leg ext- 2 x 15
Calf raise - 3 x 10-10-10 (triple drop)

Friday or Saturday: Upper (Shoulder and arm focused)
Incline Dumbell press 3-4 x 6-8
wide grip chin 3-4 x 6-8
Lateral- 3-5 x 8-12 with short rests
One arm DB Row- 2 x 12-15
Triceps (your choice): 2 x 10-12 with full rests 3 x 8-12 with short rests
Biceps (your choice): 2 x 10-12 with full rests 3 x 8-12 with short rests

You can see we basically hit a muscle group directly hard and heavy once per week with one exercise and then hit it a little lighter that same week, often indirectly, with a different exercise.

39. Borrowing Something From Powerlifters - Increasing the Weights While Decreasing the Reps

To fully maximize strength gains, ideally on your tension driven compound movements (typically the first exercise in a workout for a given bodypart), the reps should decrease over the course of a mesocycle. An example of how you might jack with the reps on compound movements is this:

Week 1 and 2 – Sets of 8-10 (ex: 3 x 8-10)
Week 3 and 4 – Sets of 6-8 (ex: 4 x 6-8 )
Week 5 and 6 – Sets of 4-6 (ex: 5 x 5)
Week 7 and 8 – Reduce training to just twice a week and take it easy, recuperate, reduce training frequency and volume.
Week 9 – Start over with week 1.

When strength increases enough to perform 2 to 3 reps above the predetermined absolute RM in the last set, the load should be increased to match absolute RM strength.

The above is just an example. In reality you might continue on and go another couple of weeks of 3 reps on your compound movements. Or you could simply drop the reps each week instead of every 2 weeks. Or you could stick with a given rep range for a month or more. As long as you're making continual strength improvements it doesn’t matter really. The idea is the bar weight is gonna be consistently increasing over time on your “tension” generated movements. On your fatigue movements, bar weight increases are not quite as important yet should still be sought after.

40. Keeping the Reps Constant

Remember the importance of work. Ideally you’d keep the total number of reps about the same as you increase the load.

41. Don't Forget to Eat!

In the above example, weeks 1-6 would also be prime eating weeks where you really take a no holds barred approach to pounding down the protein and pushing that scale weight up. Weeks 7 and 8 you’d slack up a bit on the eating….maybe cut back to just a couple of workouts per week as you reload yourself and get yourself mentally prepared to carry a take a focused attitude into your next mesocycle.

42. Undertraining vs Overtraining

It's always better to under-train then it is to over-train. Progress will be slower by under-training, yet progress is progress. If you over-train you will make zero progress. The amount of stress you tolerate is very individual. Some people can only tolerate 2 lifting sessions per week while others can tolerate 6 or 7. You need to find the right amount for you.

43. Examples of Other Splits

With that in mind, if the above routine is too much to recover from, you could always use a 3 day split something like this:

Monday (Chest and back focused - light shoulders and arms)
Dumbell Bench – 4-5 x 8-10
Row- 4-5 x 8-10
Pulldown – 3-5 x 5-8 with 20 second rests
Flye – 3-5 x 5-8 with 20 second rests
Side cable lateral – 2 x 10-12
Bicep – 2 x 10-12
Tricep- 2 x 10-12

Wednesday (Legs)
Squat – 4-5 x 5-8
Leg Curl 4-5 x 5-8
Split squat 2-3 x 12-15
½ rack pull + shrug 2 x 12-15
Calf – whatever

Friday (Shoulder and Arm focused - light chest and back)
Incline press- 3-4 x 8-10
Chin- 3-4 x 8-10
Incline side lateral – 3-5 x 8-12 with 20 second rests
Row – 2-3 x 12-15
Bicep – 4-5 x 6-8
Tricep – 4-5 x 6-8

44. Extreme Hardgainer's Split

If you're one of those people who has EXTREMELY poor recovery ability, you could split your body in half and train as infrequently as twice per week. Pick one compound movement for each muscle group and follow the same basic set and rep recommendations from above.

Workout #1
Lats (pulldown or row)
Biceps (curl)
Calves (calf raise)
Quadricep (squat)
Hamstrings (leg curl or RDL)

Workout #2
Erectors (deadlift or rack pull)
Traps (deadlift or rack pull)
Chest (pressing movement)
Shoulders (pressing movement)
Triceps (extension or pushdown)

The above split also works very well for people with normal recovery ability. Simply train 3 times per week on an every other day basis with the weekends off and alternate between the 2 workouts.