What do we think of this?

[heavyduty-club]

While thinking things over before i'm ready to start training again for the first time in nearly 3 years, i've been looking and making up routines as i go along whether it being a simple program with dumbbells at home or reading about various styles of training, i'm always egre to learn. Some of you have been very helpful in the past and as those people might know i am a huge follower of HIT training (less volume more intensity and heavy weight), but once again my imagination takes over and sooner than later i have another idea.....how does this sound.
Rather than putting all my efforts into training one muscle group a day, with say for example 4 exercises, i was thinking of breaking up the exercises into 3-4 different parts through the week i.e instead of just doing
Bench press
Incline press
Flys
Cable crossovers in one day, i was going to split all that up so i would be technically training chest 4 times over a certain peroid usually within a week and a half. Chest would then be accompanied by back, quads, hamstrings & calves. While on another day i would train delts, triceps, biceps & forearms, i would probably train either 2 days on/one day off or one day on/one day off and repeate the cycle so taking this as another example

Monday
Lat pulldowns 2x8
Bench press 2x8
Squat 2x8-10
Leg curl 2x8-10
Calf raises 2x15

Tuesday
Shoulder press 2x8
Skull crushers 2x8
Bicep curls 2x8
Wrist curls 2x8-10

Wednesday off

Then back in the gym thursday and so on, but instead of repeating mondays routine i would change the exercises for all the bodyparts so rather than lat pulldowns i would do barbell rows, incline bench press in for bench press if you see what i'm getting at, feel free to make changes i.e how many sets and reps stuff like that, as i said i'm trying to stick within the HIT rule book with less volume and heavy ass weights that i can control but because i'm not using all the exercises in one go i can hopefully train muscle groups more often

As always thanks in advance

 

[H_T_]

There's too much wrong with it, not enough time to correct it. Same amount of work for forearms as quads? Squats, DLs, presses, rows. There.

 

[heavyduty-club]

Should i just swallow my pride and say fuck it, do an arnold type routine lol

 

[Saiyan7]

Should i just swallow my pride and say fuck it, do an arnold type routine lol

I'm actually doing an Arnold style and its fucking brutal. Monday and Thursday are chest/back. Tuesday and Friday are legs/shoulders.
I go heavy one set of days and lighter for more reps on the other. Pick four exercises for each group and focus on them. Add some isos if needed.

 

[heavyduty-club]

Whats the sets and reps like man, do you have a wee sample i can look at, i'm now really thinking i should have done his workouts along time ago, i always admired his physique and back then there wasn't a HIT article to be seen anywhere lol, have you seen any improvments doing his stuff lad? I guess when you say 4 exercises of each group that would be like 4 for chest, 4 for back etc. Or like 2 for chest 2 for back?

 

[Saiyan7]

Four of each.
So chest I do flat bench. Incline bench. Flys. And one more.
Back I do T-bar rows. Pull ups. Bent over rows. And superset cable rows with pullovers.

Then legs are squat. DL. Etc.
And the mm four for shoulders.

It's brutal for sure. I've been on it three weeks and am breaking PR regularly.

Heavy days I do sets of 5 and a couple sets of 2-3.
Lighter days I do sets of 14, 12, 10, 8, etc all the way down for the bigger movements and then for some of the isos I shoot for 20+.

 

[heavyduty-club]

I suppose my biggest problem is looking at shit that is either being done by the roid monsters & expecting that i can get like that, or i change my mind more times than acctually doing the routines, technically i've sat on my arse for over 3 years reading about it and not doing anything to put myself to the test.
I'll look at arnolds routine and realise that there was no "guru" or internet to tell those boys how to get shit done, it was all broscience i suppose, but then looking at Dorian Yates i think well less work for better results, it beats you up, i'd just love to see an example from a natural persons point of view what has given the "non" drug users better results, don't get me wrong dude i love the work ethic of Arnie, man was a fucking monster in his own right but had a more achievable body over Dorian or Jay Cutler or Ronnie Coleman etc. Another idol of mine is Branch Warren. Again the work ethic of the boy is breathtaking despite the god awful form, credit has to be given he's a determined bastard, and yet his routine is very basic mostly does 3 sets of 10-15 on everything with the odd dropset here and there, if i can get a path to start on that would fantastic, but again it's who's road do i take man

 

[H_T_]

If you're not doing steroids, you have to use consistency as your barometer. You can't do 30 sets and expect to recover in 2 days for your next workout. 3 days a week with big basics. Spend 3 or 4 months doing a routine and then evaluate. Look at 5x5 or starting strength by Rippetoe.

 

[heavyduty-club]

Even say before looking at 5x5, how many times can i get away with training each muscle group over a week, i know where you are coming from in terms of volume/recovery but even i'm not daft enough to try the exact same split as Arnie, i would at the very least do 3 sets of about 10 with maybe 2 exercises less than his average routine, so like 3 exercises or something or again i'm reading all that stuff wrong? Again lads the help is very helpful i'm quite an awkward shit to work with lol

 

[H_T_]

If you're very sore, don't train that body part that day. If you aren't making consistent, reasonable gains, you are probably doing too much. When I say too much, I mean volume. You don't usually need an extra 4 sets of concentration curls or dumbell flyes at the end of workouts. It's ok to feel whipped after working out, once in a while. But learn to stop yourself from doing too much. Working out should leave you feeling good. Not dead on your ass for 3 days after....

 

[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?

 

[George Spellwin]

I think it looks like a pretty solid workout. Since you're doing 10 reps on every set, I would try to keep the total number of sets per workout to 30 or less. Me personally, I like to keep my sets per workout around 25, but since you're doing several muscle groups in a single workout, I think 25-30 sets is manageable.

 

[heavyduty-club]

Do you work a bodypart per day George?

 

[George Spellwin]

Currently I'm doing 2 per workout, but I've done routines like you're preparing to, where you work out several body parts in each workout.

 

[H_T_]

Try this:
SQ: 5X5
BP: 5X5
DL: 5X5
OHP: 5X5
BB Row: 5x5

You can do stiff leg DLs instead of regular and do power cleans instead of rows.
Also, feel free to do 3 sets on some if 5 feels too much.
Did this workout yesterday. I think I'm slowly dying from it.....
This is a Bradley Steiner workout, from an old magazine, can't remember which it was....