What do we think of this?

[FlexManning]

Squats, hypers, leg raises (abs), calves if you have time. Alternate bench and pullups/chinups, either that day or on another day. Things that can be added a little down the road: barbell rows, deadlifts, accessory work, leg curls, Romanian DL, etc.

That's the kind of basic bang-for-the-buck routines I almost never see beginner/intermediates on.

Is there anything quicker for an upper body workout than alternating sets of back and chest work? I mean, if we're going low volume, you can knock off the whole upper body in 20 minutes. Less if you can cut the rests down.

My chest and back workout yesterday was alternating weighted dips (followed by an unweighted drop set) with chins, alternating grips and adding a few rest pause reps after failure. I believe I ended up with 5 work sets each, and most people don't even need that many sets, even 1 all out set would be enough if it included a drop set or rest pause set and was preceded by enough warmup to add a little volume. Normally I would've added bench and Pendlay rows but it was crowded and I didn't want to mess with it.

There are other exercises you can alternate too to make a basic workout more HIT. Alternate leg raises and hyperextensions. On work sets of hypers, do them weighted, drop the weight when you're near failure, finish the set without weight.

On calves you can cut rest between sets to the point you can knock them out in 5-10 minutes.

If you can only do 3 chins, do 3, rest 10 seconds, do another, rest 10, do another, and so forth. If you can do 12, add weight, drop the weight when you hit failure, finish the set.

Not a huge fan of the leg press but it can definitely be supersetted with squats, especially if you like puking.

Lot of no-brainer ways to make workouts more HIT and quicker that I rarely if ever see done.

 

[heavyduty-club]

So flexmanning are we in favour of HIT over volume, a few years ago i did the dorian yates 6 week trainer that was featured on bodybuilding.com and although i only did 2 weeks out of the 6 (i got a new training partner and he wanted to do the whole CT Fletcher thing), i moved on, kinda wish i didn't coz after only 2 weeks my lifts increased and i barely believed the results i saw looking back at me after only a small amount of work we're talking only 14 sets for chest in 2 weeks and that includes warm ups, i'm not sure if i could have continually seen results but i was very surprised at the 2 week mark.
I'm never happy just going along with something for even a few weeks my mind always wonders and i end up with something really shit at the end of it, but HIT agreed with me at least for that time being. A friend gave me this routine which is still quite low in volume but is kind of on par with what exame you gave me:

MONDAY & THURSDAY

BENCH PRESS 5X10
DUMBBELL FLYS 5X10
SHOULDER PRESS 5X10
LATERIAL RAISES 5X10
TRICEP PUSHDOWNS OR EXTENTIONS 5X10

TUESDAY & FRIDAY

SQUAT 5X10
CALF RAISES 5X10
LAT PULLDOWNS 5X10
BARBELL ROW 5X10
BARBELL CURL OR DUMBBELL CURL 5X10

when i write that to be honest it looks alot compared to what you just told me, and it's still way more than what DY would recommend, i love basic training princibles my man i'm always open to new ideas i'm just not sure how to applied these methods or stick to what i think might work in other words i want to know how these types of training programs have worked for others hopefully nattys and whether i should be training every muscle once or twice a week

 

[Saiyan7]

No deadlift?

 

[George Spellwin]

I agree with saiyan in adding deadlift, maybe do it once a week and swap it with barbell rows for that day. Also, maybe reduce your calf raises to 3 sets per workout (or keep it at 5), and add 2-3 sets of leg curls like you originally had.

 

[heavyduty-club]

So apart from the changes you lads have made, would you say i'm good to go, i'll alternate the deadlifts with barbell rows every week and do the leg curls as well, are we good on the sets and reps yeah? Or can i do like 15, 12, 10 & 8 etc. Or just stick to whats bloody been advised lol just thinking in terms of a major pump, and again to everyone your helps been fantastic

 

[Saiyan7]

5x10 is decent volume. I think you should try a heavy weight/low volume day and then a lower weight/high volume day. Say 5x5 on the heavier days. Move some heavy ass weight. Then on the other day go maybe 70% to start and hit a lot of reps. The pump gets me more that way than heavy.
The main thing is to get in there and see what works for you. Try each way until you find your style.

 

[heavyduty-club]

Trust me bro i'm taking all this in its great to have lads like yourselfs i can turn to, i can be a major pain in the arse but its just because i have to learn so i try to get as much from a subject as i can

 

[heavyduty-club]

George Spellwin would it be best advised to drop to 3 sets yeah, i like how you allowed me to branch out to 5 sets but if you really think it's not important?

 

[George Spellwin]

I think your 5-set workouts look good. I was just mentioning that you could drop calves to 3 sets if you're worried about volume/workout time, then add leg curls to get a little more variety on leg day. If not, you could just do 5 sets on both of these too.

 

[heavyduty-club]

I'll take your advice George and run the 3 sets and i'll defo do the leg curls, thr guy who gave me this program is a very big guy himself to be fair and he is a very no nonsence/take no bullshit type of character, he doesn't look into forums or read bodybuilding magazines and he has never even look at another bodybuilders routine or video, he gave me this program because as always i was struggling to find something i could really work with apart from dorian b&g routines, and because of the pairing of push/pulls exercises thought it might make me understand the function of each muscle abit better, and because the sets and reps are fairly high but not to draining to do he told me that would be all i needed and enough to make me grow drugs or not, i'd like your opinion on that aswell George if you have time, does it look like i could get results?