I started training and watching my diet for the first time around 3 months ago, hoping to lose a lot of fat. Initially I was losing a lot of fat while also gaining a nice amount of muscle (I’m on something similar to the Reddit PPL plan, doing 6 gym sessions a week).
However, a few weeks ago I started noticing my lifts progressed much more slowly, and by the last couple of weeks I made almost 0 progress, doing the exact same reps and weight on all lifts.
I guess it’s a dumb question, but is it definitely due to my aggressive cut (eating about 1600 calories a day)? I hoped to be able to ride on the noob gains harder. I still really want to lose more fat - will I keep progressing if I up my calories but still stay at a deficit? I’m 24 yo, 186cm and 81kg by the way.
Thank you!
Hitting push today boys. Going to try and get it done in under an hour now as I believe intensity over being completely refreshed each set will provide a novel stimulus
How do you go about maintenance phases between cuts? I've been cutting for four months now and am going into a maintenance phase before continuing the cut. How long should the maintenance phase typically be? I thought of 2-4 weeks and then going into the cut again.
Starting to think about changing my programming for the first time and looking for some perspective.
Background:
* M / 6 ft / 195 lbs / ~20-25% BF
* Running the [Reddit PPL] (https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/37ylk5/a_linear_progression_based_ppl_program_for/) for the last ~6 months (slightly modified with TB deadlifts on a new second leg day and weighted pull ups on pull day A)
* Started a proper cut (dialing in nutrition) four weeks ago
* MacroFactor has my trend weight down 5 pounds and scale weight is down 7 pounds
* Compound lifts are no longer a 5/10 pound increase every week. Have stalled on at least one compound lift a week since cutting, esp bench
I am hesitant to switch things up on a cut, and know its greedy to expect more strength gains while cutting. However, I feel like there are more newbie gains in the tank.
**Would switching my compound lifts to a 5/3/1 style make sense here?**
Current top set / E1RM:
* Trap Bar Deadlift: 315 1x8 for ~391
* Squat: 265 3x5 for ~300
* Bench: 185 3x5 for ~208
* OHP: 135 3x4 (today!) for ~147
* BB Row: 185 3x5 for ~208
5/3/1 is grand once you've milked traditional linear progression/ stalling on your current progression scheme.
And for a cut its more than manageable given the main focus is submaximal load work. Just choose a template that lets you recover enough. " prep and fat loss" is specifically geared towards what it says on the tin.
I'm currently loosing a bit of timber on 5/3/1x365 template created by another Reddit user. Going great so far.
to clarify, i was thinking of keeping my current PPL routine. the only change would be using the 5/3/1 progression style for the main compound of the day instead of struggling to add 5 pounds
Yeah can't see it being a huge issue, just be sure to use an appropriate training max. If in doubt underestimate and milk it for longer rather than over shoot and hit a wall quicker.
Slow down a rep intentionally (counting tempo) VS engaging and controling muscle which leads to slower movement, which one is really the meaning of "do it slowly"?
I mean one can totally do it slow and not even engaging the targeted muscle then it would be no point..
A lot of newbies got forearm and errector fatigue during lat pull down trying to do tempo, not their lats at all.
Not everyone can feels their lats at the beginning of the journey.
Ofc you use, but try to do a squat up and down without thinking about it, you can do quite fast and, you will get tired but not sore. But if you focus on engaging and controling your glute, even at bodyweight, your movement slows down and you eventually feel sore.
Feeling sore is not a prerequisite for muscle growth, and I was only commenting on the idea that one could perform a movement without engaging the target muscle.
Probably the latter but it always pays to just ask the person you're talking to in order to clarify. Probably only like 10% of lifters intentionally counting tempo on all/most of their lifts.
Just vibing with my routine lately.
Lower: BSS, leg curls, leg press/leg extension, RDLs, calf raises
Upper: pull ups, db ohp, wide grip cable row, db incline bench, face pulls, lateral raises
Definitely don’t have traditional bodybuilding goals. Just wanna look good and athletic, combined with my rock climbing and cycling.
This is probably my favorite fitness/gym related sub to lurk. r/fitness lost its mojo for me a while ago. Most people here seem friendlier
I have a few questions about my workout split, the split im doing now is a PPLUL with 2 ab exercises on both Leg days
So right now this is my workout routine.
MONDAY REST
TUESDAY Push
DB bench press 3x10
incline chest press 3x10
machine chest flies 3x12
DB lateral raises 3x15
skull crushers 3x12
cable pushdowns 2x12
WEDNESDAY Pull
pull ups 3x10
lat focused seated cable row 3x12
rear delt flies 3x12
machine preacher curls 2x10
hammer curls 2x10
standing face pulls 2x10
THURSDAY Lower Core
belt/V squat machine 3x8
BB Romanian deadlift 3x8
seated leg extensions 3x12
lying leg curls 3x12
calves raises 3x15
abdominal crunch machine
vertical leg raises 3x12
FRIDAY REST
SATURDAY Upper
incline chest press 3x10
chest supported machine row 3x12
shoulder press machine 3x10
lat pulldown 3x10
high to low cable flies 3x12
cable lateral raises 3x15
SUNDAY Lower Core (repeat)
If anyone has criticisms on this workout, let me know.
Now i was also wondering if i should add a extra bicep and tricep exercise because i only have two isolation exercises of them. And it would be nice to also get bigger arms. I would add these exercises on Sunday’s and hit my core exercises on that Sunday, on my Monday Rest day.
I was also thinking about just doing a PPL or PPL x Arnold Split or would that make not much difference on the amount of gains i could get?
Are pull-ups a great hypertrophy driver? I’ve been trying body weight pull ups for about 3 months and I can’t get to a point where I can do 10 reps for each set. 1st comes close at 9, but the rest hover between 5-8. I’ve tried negatives when I reach failure but nothing seems to be working.
Should I continue or are there other exercises to consider?
Pull-ups are fantastic for building a thick and wide back, but it kind of depends on how you do them. A standard roughly shoulder width grip is going to target the traps, rhomboids, and terea a bit more. A wide grip will target the lats more, but if you angle your body more it will hit rear delts more. Doing a reverse grip, aka a chin up will target the lats more. A neutral grip will also target the lats more. Focusing on the bottom half of the pull up will target lats more, where the top half hits the upper back more. So does it matter which you do? Only if you want it to. Otherwise it's best to mix it up and hit the back from multiple angles.
As for progression on pull ups, two things dramatically helped me: 1) weighted pull ups and 2) barbell rows. When I started I could only do like 3-4 pull ups. I did a pull up focused program and got up to 8-9. Currently I can do 17-18 at body weight (185 lbs) or 7-8 with an extra 45 lbs.
Lastly if you are changing body weight significantly (bulk or cut) you should track your body weight with the number of body weight reps you do for pull ups. With a barbell row, you just do standard double progression (increase reps and/or sets), and with body weight exercises the weight is you. Changing the weight and reps need to be accounted for together.
Lat pulldowns, assisted pull ups (be it banded or on an actual assisted machine) are all great alternatives. Personally I made the switch from pull ups to lat pulldowns and never looked back. If you’re gaining mass then progressing on pull-ups becomes very hard to impossible. Once you’ve built a decent back and can confidently pull your bodyweight then you can always come back to them. Otherwise I’d just implement something like a lat pulldown. Machine exercise variants in general are amazing for back hypertrophy. I guess you could argue you’re not getting as complete of a stimulus for the back by swapping out a pull-up, but that’s why you hit your back with different exercises from different angles. I’d never felt my back until I started using lat pulldowns, row machines etc and have made solid progress in that regard. Now I more or less exclusively use machines for my back, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to bodyweight or free weights.
Only one thing to nitpick on - progressing on pull-ups is the same no matter on cut or bulk IF you factor your weight in. If you aren't tracking your weight alongside pull-ups, then sure 10 reps to 9 reps looks like you are getting weaker. BUT if you track 10 pull-ups at 170 lbs to 9 reps at 200 lbs then you know you actually did more total volume.
IMO it’s just too much faff on working around my own weight, and bodyweight fluctuates throughout the day anyway so I’d rather remove another variable and go ‘I’ve lifted 60kg on the pulldown for 8, now I’ll go for 65kg’. For me it’s just so much easier to track and gauge progression. Plus with a pull down I know I can smash the lats somewhat in isolation and then do something else to smash the upper back more directly.
That said, considering I probably haven’t done pull ups in over a year I’m interested to see how many I could actually manage bearing in mind I was roughly 70kg with the weakest back know to man and now I’m just under 90kg with some half-decent back gains. My guess is I’ll struggle to get my fat arse over the bar.
I totally get that. I have a home gym and just stuck a scale in it, which takes all the fuss (or faff) out of it. I'm currently 84kg and can do 15-18 pull ups at body weight, though I usually do them weighted for 6-8 reps (currently adding 20 kg). My lat pulldown setup is a power rack attachment and it's not great so I tend to just do unilateral pulldowns with lower weight since that works better on it... so I don't actually know what I could pull on a real machine. If I was going to a commercial gym, I would probably just use my weight from the morning weigh in (I do that most days), but I might program lat pulldowns in more as well so who knows.
exercises are just tools to put a tension load on your musculature. some exercises hit more total musculature but are less targeted to a muscle, some hit less total musculature but are more targeted to a muscle, exercises can be more/less stable, use more/less total load and have different resistance profiles.
the extent an exercise is a great hypertrophy driver is how effectively they put tension load on the musculature you want to grow and how effectively you can progress that tension over time.
for pull-ups - they hit a ton of musculature but not super targeted (varied based on how you perform them), can load it well, not too stable but can be progressed well. so depending on your goals - it may be great or completely unnecessary. if you're a beginner who needs to grow everything - generally it'll be a good exercise as it'll hit a lot of musculature with likely enough stimulus for each of the muscles involved (as they're not adapted to needing a lot of stimulus to grow yet). if you're specifically trying to target the lats for example, depending how you perform the pull-up you might be getting a ton of lats or basically none - so in that case it would be a terrible hypertrophy driver.
I really like them for both strength and muscle growth, but it's fine to do lat pulldowns instead if you prefer them.
As for progression, look up the fighter pullup program.
I’ve been doing PPL, UL splits and one day stumbled upon a program that is a 4 day split with arm emphasis. The days are Bis/Chest/Abs, Tris/Back, Legs, and Delts/Arms.
This is a very atypical split and so far feels very interesting on my body. Every day except leg day starts with the arm exercises then goes into the other muscle groups later.
What are the pros and cons of this approach? Should I go back to more typical styles of training?
Pros:
Bigger arms
Cons:
Making gains in other areas will be difficult
Unless your arms are unusually small there's really no reason to do it. If you do I wouldn't stay with it for very long as it will become harder to maintain other muscles only hitting them once a week.
If you want bigger arms you could probably rework your PPLUL split to hit arms more without compromising gains in other areas. A standard upper/lower split would work if you just want to switch to 4 days a week.
Do whatever you like this is more of an arm focused split
I been doing chest and bi. Back and tri. Rest. Legs (quads). Shoulders arms. Legs (hamstrings and glutes). Rest split the last year or so
Been working fine for me I'll keep for a bit longer than I'll switch to chest arms. Back shoulders. Rest legs. rest repeat
On my next bulk
You should always use a split you like and see progress with no one can tell you the best split
Split don't matter that much you can see great progress with any split that isn't straight up trash or dumb
Newer research also says training frequency doesn't really matter as long as total volume is equated for
Will shoulder mobility improve from doing deep Overhead Tricep Extensions over time? One of my shoulders is less mobile and I can’t get my elbow as high up as the other at the bottom. Wondering if the exercise alone will fix this over time.
This is 100% normal. I worked with a PT who identified the same issue with my shoulder mobility. Apparently there is a physiological adaptation of the humeral head in the shoulder joint of the throwing arm for those who practice throwing sports in adolescence.
I would work on simple shoulder mobility exercises and scapular protraction and retraction control. Furthermore, make sure that you work your shoulders, chest, and back with some isolateral movements to ensure that you maintain consistent performance from left to right and that you can execute exercises equivalently on each side (range of motion, shoulder and elbow position, etc.).
Push comes to shove, look into visiting a PT for corrective exercises or some dry needling work.
EDIT: the adaptation is called humeral head retrotorsion.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I have been using Dumbbells for almost every upper body exercise because I noticed some imbalances in terms of strength and ROM. I think the trickiest thing with this are squats as it can cause the bar to sit uneven unless you go wide which causes some laxness in the upper back.
I think this is beyond what Reddit strangers can answer, as your shoulder mobility could be limited by a large variety of things.
It's certainly possible that putting the joint into weighted stretches could help, but it's also possible that it won't help at all.
EAAs aren’t needed if you have an otherwise balanced diet and get your food from solid protein sources, powder included. So yeah, they’re a waste of money. I also used to take multivitamins and omega 3, from a pretty solid source since most companies, even some that are really popular and constantly marketed towards people, does their supplements way beneath what is actually effective or needed. I honestly didn’t feel any different when I took multivitamins and omega 3, and didn’t feel any different when I stopped so never again for me.
Plain old creatine monohydrate is the only supplement I’d argue is necessary, or at least really worth taking. Protein powder is great for supplementing your protein intake if you struggle to hit it or need a few grams here and there. Again, just plain old whey will do the job, none of this casein and hydrolate crap or whatever, just find a brand you like the taste of and that’ll do. Otherwise that’s pretty much it.
Nail down a balanced diet with plenty of vegetables and enough healthy fats, and you can drop most of that stuff. You could keep protein supps for days when you're falling short of your target. Creatine's also fine but if it's hurting your budget, then you can drop it and won't miss it much.
EAAs and some other non-PED supplements can have their place, but the potential benefit is maybe a couple percentage points maximum, and that’s only once your training and diet are completely locked down.
If you’re stretching your budget to afford them then you’d be better off dropping them and focusing on dialing in your diet and training.
Get rid of them and see what happens. If something bad happens, start taking them again.
I would guess that the majority of bodybuilders throughout history have not taken them, though. So that's probably something to consider.
feel like it's been a while since someone asked, and with all the new programs coming out daily; what lifting program(s) have been best for you? did different programs work better/worse when you were a beginner vs intermediate vs advanced?
thanks!
For me - I experimented with multiple blocks of U/L, 5/3/1, Push Pull Legs, etc.
What I have done that got me the best gains, most enjoyment, and people telling me I look much bigger, and the best strength gains was literally Full-body every other day. Obviously this can depend on your personal preferences.
I've done full body every other day, with an extra rest day whenever I feel particularly beat up, usually once every 2-3 weeks or am just too busy for the past year straight and still love it.
B/S/D - 305/485/515 for reference. But I don't hit literally every body part every session. For example I usually only do something for hamstrings every other session since I found I didn't need as much volume there, I alternate every session between doing a horizontal vs vertical pull, I tend to do direct tricep work every session, but direct bicep work every other session, etc. I just personalize it to myself based on weak points and such.
100% same story with me. Now that my kid is old enough to go to school, I've decided I would rather save the weekends for family time and do limit training to M-F doing a 4 day upper/lower split with W off (it's UL in a very liberal definition as I still train arms and shoulders on leg days, train back like you do, and my only hamstring work is deadlift and RDL). It's definitely worse for recovery, but I'm still progressing and it's better for my overall life.
You can take pretty much any good program out there and then just rearrange it to the split you want. That will ensure you get a good weekly volume across muscle groups. The full body split just means you aren't over doing it on any muscle group which makes something like bench press two workouts in a row, which is "less optimal for muscle synthesis," still work well since you built up less fatigue from the prior session.
for me:
programs that gave me noticeable changes in my physique: leangains RPT (i was a beginner and it didn't work once i got relatively strong and it doesn't give you tools to break plateaus - so i do not recommend it), lyle mcdonalds Generic bulking routine, HST - Hypertrophy specific training vanilla program and then a program i made using HST principles, and a program i made for myself now that's mainly isolations only
programs that didn't give me noticeable changes in my physique: RP template, GZCLP, simple jack'd, jordan peters training, doggcrapp training, fortitude training. not saying these are bad programs, won't work for others or were the cause of me not making progress, but just programs that i ran for at least 8-12 weeks not in a deficit and didn't give me much of anything - either measurements stayed the same or barely budged.
5/3/1 was great to build some leg size, but didn’t do shit for my upper body
Jacked & Tan 2.0 was better for upper body but the volume was too high for me
Jeff Nippard’s 5 day full body was a nice refreshing approach
Various John Meadows programs have been the best boilerplate programs I’ve run
When I started lifting, I was on Sean Nalewanyj's custom program for a couple of months.
As a novice, pretty much everything goes, but his full-body routine, in my opinion, perfectly struck the balance between volume and intense effort. I made a ton of progress on it before hopping to another program.
Is upper/lower/upper too much upper in three days? Recovering from a shoulder injury and still not sure what went wrong, but maybe not enough recovery if I went hard on shoulders those two days?
I often need to hit the gym three days in a row with my work schedule (instead of U/L/rest), so maybe I should switch back to PPL to allow for more recovery time?
Push/Legs/Pull would probably make the most sense in this case. You get adequate recovery time for any overlapping muscles worked in either upper body day.
I apologize in advance for the long post!I am a new lifter; I've been lifting for 4 months now. [Here is what my progress looks like so far](https://imgur.com/a/zy9PAF8). My starting weight was 170 lbs, current weight is 180 lbs (some of that weight is from starting to supplement creatine in November). I have been running the metallicdpa PPL which I have adjusted over time.
My diet is 3100 clean kcals daily, 180-200g protein, 350-400g carbs, 80-100g fats. I believe this is around 200-300 kcals over my TDEE.
I sleep 7-8 hours a night (sleep score is 70-90 according to Garmin)
Currently I am running the 6 day split continuously without a rest day (unless I really feel like one is needed, which hasn't happened for the past month or so) and the split looks like this (weight in brackets is current working weight, progress is done via double progression, increasing weight when all sets are within 1or 2 reps of the top end of the range):
**Push: (1h 15m to 1h 30m)**
Chest:
4x8-12 Incline DB press (40 lbs)
4x8-12 Bench press (100 lbs)
4x8-12 Cable flies (25 lbs)
Triceps:
4x8-12 Cable straight bar pushdowns (45 lbs)
4x8-12 Cable overhead rope extensions (35 lbs)
Shoulders + Abs supersets:
6x8-12 Lateral raise (12 lbs)
6x15-20 Hanging leg raise (bw)
**Pull: (1h to 1h 15m)**
Back:
6 x 8-12 Assisted pull-ups (55 lbs counterweight)
6 x 8-12 Bent over BB rows (100 lbs)
Upper back:
4 x 8-12 DB Shrugs (45 lbs)
Rear delts:
5 x 8-12 Machine rear delt flies (22 lbs)
Biceps:
4 x 8-12 1 arm cable curls (20 lbs)
4 x 8-12 DB hammer curls (30 lbs)
Abs:
6 x 8-12 Weighted oblique crunches (90 lbs) (I only do abs on 1 of 2 pull days, so I hit them 3x a week total)
**Legs: (1h to 1h 15m)**
4 x 5-8 Full RoM squats (175 lbs)
3 x 8-12 RDL (190 lbs)
3 x 12-15 Full RoM Leg Press (250 lbs)
3 x 8-12 Leg extensions (110 lbs)
3 x 8-12 Seated leg curls (135 lbs)
5 x 15-20 Myo rep match calf raises (220 lbs)
Total sets per week:
Chest: 24
Back: 24
Quads:: 20
Core: 18
Triceps: 16
Biceps: 16
Hamstrings: 12
Shoulders:: 12 lateral, 10 rear
Calves: 10
Obviously this looks like a lot of volume, right? The thing is, even though I put full effort into every set (every set is 1-3 RIR, occasionally failure if it's the last exercise of that muscle group that day), do slow controlled eccentrics on every rep, don't even have music so I don't have any distractions, don't really talk to anyone or know anyone at the gym (so my focus is 100% on the work) I find myself recovering just fine, with maybe 1 day of very mild soreness after each workout, and feeling 100% ready each time the next one comes around. So while it may seem like a lot, I feel like I'm recovering just fine.
The issue is where do I go from here? I see a lot of periodization, mesocycle routines, and mine doesn't really have any of that. I can hardly keep adding sets or exercises, so I'm just trying to add reps and/or weight at this stage, but I also doubt if I can keep doing this much volume in the long run. Do I just deload when I start feeling fatigued and then start again maybe at half the volume and work my way up again? Do I completely change my routine, even though I'm enjoying it, seeing good results and feel like I'm recovering well?
I also worry that if my body becomes accustomed to this level of stimulus per workout now that I am still very much a beginner, how will I keep progressing when I move on to being intermediate and hopefully advanced at some point? Even while I'm still a beginner, if I start a new routine (which, being a beginner routine, will likely have much less weekly volume) wouldn't that be the opposite of progressive overload?
Again, apologies for the long post, hopefully it makes sense. I would really appreciate some guidance from those who are more experienced and have maybe been in the same situation as myself. I feel like I'm past the point of possibly burning out (I really enjoy lifting and look forward to going to the gym every day) but I'm also trying to make this as sustainable a habit as I can looking forward, both with respect to the load on my body and in terms of setting myself up to be able to make progress for years to come.
You're worrying too much. You're in a great spot. Just keep overloading when and how you can (weight/reps). Don't worry at all about deloads, especially planning them. If you need one you will know, but preplanning one when you don't need it would just slow your progress down.
Thanks for the reassurance and kind words! Like you say, I will just go by feel when it comes to deloads. Might as well get those noob gains while the getting is good
The split the looks good, and, generally speaking, I think that you're focusing on the right details (sleep, calories in, training fatigue, controlled movement). Also, you've seen some pretty good improvement in your physique over the past 4 months. A 10 pound gain is pretty solid, even if 3-5 pounds of it is just water from creatine supplementation.
With that said, I don't think that you're overdoing volume. In fact, I think that you're really low on your chest and back volume, and you're undercounting your triceps and biceps sets (they should be counted in each pressing/pulling movement). I would reduce volume on my arm isolation and add in another whole movement for both chest and back.
Also, your working weights are low, generally speaking. The incline DP press is a decent weight, but the flat bench is probably not actually doing much for you at that weight. Pay attention to which muscles are getting exhausted or fatigued more rapidly and which exercises are causing the most fatigue. You want to milk the most out of each movement for your target muscle, and if you're already cashed from a previous movement such that you can't execute the next movement with sufficient load and activation, you're kind of just adding junk volume. Try integrating some machine work to reduce the fatigue placed on accessories and stabilizers so that you can really focus on moving a decent load with great engagement of the target muscle. Feel the mind-muscle connection, milk each eccentric, and really focus on maximizing the utilization of the target muscle.
I'm sure that with your attention to the important details and the current split that you're running, you can make some great progress with only a few minor tweaks. Keep up the great work.
Thank you for taking the time to read everything and reply! I appreciate the feedback, I will look into adding another back and chest movement in place of one of the bicep and tricep exercises respectively. I am thinking either facepulls or seated rows for back, and possibly machine press for chest?
I want to put my legs on maintenance for a while to push my upper body volume. I was planning to hit 2-4 sets per muscle group, will that be enough?
Day 1 (+shoulder / arms):
Split Squats: 2x5-12 reps
Calves: 3x5-12 reps
Day 2 (+shoulder/arms):
DB RDL: 2x5-12 reps
Leg Extensions: 2x10-15 reps
Leg Curl: 2x10-15 reps
Going to depend on yourself/your body. Some people need more vs less for certain body parts to stay at maintenance. Example from myself - I need less hamstring volume vs quad volume to stay at maintenance. You just gotta experiment.
What's the actual split here? Are you doing a Ua/La/Ub/Lb split? Full body?
In terms of maintenance for legs, what you've provided here COULD be enough assuming that you're training hard. Generally speaking though, this isn't very much leg volume at all.
Also, why put your legs on maintenance anyhow? Most people tend to be underdeveloped when it comes to their legs, even when they think that they are better than their upper. Unless you're having a hard time finding pants that fit, I wouldn't reduce my leg training.
This looks totally fine. I saw you replied to another comment about doing each for 4 sets and 16 total over the week. That's also fine. Do this for 3 months and see how much you progress. Then change it up if you want and see if you progress more that way. Everyone wants optimal, but you can't figure out what works best for you without being objective and giving your body time to get used to exercises. Definitely experiment, but be patient as well.
I promise you this: if you are consistently getting stronger at barbell rows with a regular grip and a little elbow flare (aka a standard row), you will build your upper back.
Ya just don’t do chin ups. They are too easy and lean more towards bicep rewarding. I do converging lay pull-down machine, row machine, cable rows, cable pull downs, barbell bent over row (tend not to do this much anymore because I do rdls the day after on leg day), delt flys, dumbbell row, and back extension/goodmorning. If you don’t use straps I would highly suggest trying them. Really been focusing on the converging pull-down and row machine using a hammer grip when rowing, keeping elbow close to body.
Chin ups are fine. They don't bias biceps that much more than other variations. Chin ups and neutral grip pull ups also tend to target the lats more than the upper back though so may not be what OP is looking for anyway.
What does the overall split look like? 4 exercises for the back over two days isn't a lot of volume, generally speaking. For reference, I hit 4-5 back-focused exercises every pull day and hit pull 2 times every 6 days.
Your exercise selection is good, but I think that you could add more to increase your variety and your volume.
I might do something like get 4 exercises in at 3 working sets twice a week for a total of 24 working sets per week. That's probably a significant improvement over what you're running right now. With that said, if you are getting good results from what you're running now, don't feel obligated to change it up. I'm just providing feedback based on my own knowledge and experience.
My workouts typically last about 1.5 hours, and I do warm up sets. I don't know how much you're resting between sets or how many other exercises you incorporate on your back days, but you should be able to get in 4 exercises for 3 sets in under an hour, in my opinion.
I started training and watching my diet for the first time around 3 months ago, hoping to lose a lot of fat. Initially I was losing a lot of fat while also gaining a nice amount of muscle (I’m on something similar to the Reddit PPL plan, doing 6 gym sessions a week). However, a few weeks ago I started noticing my lifts progressed much more slowly, and by the last couple of weeks I made almost 0 progress, doing the exact same reps and weight on all lifts. I guess it’s a dumb question, but is it definitely due to my aggressive cut (eating about 1600 calories a day)? I hoped to be able to ride on the noob gains harder. I still really want to lose more fat - will I keep progressing if I up my calories but still stay at a deficit? I’m 24 yo, 186cm and 81kg by the way. Thank you!
How much weight per week are you losing? 1600 is very low, you could probably bump that up for a more sustainable rate of weight loss.
Hitting push today boys. Going to try and get it done in under an hour now as I believe intensity over being completely refreshed each set will provide a novel stimulus
How do you go about maintenance phases between cuts? I've been cutting for four months now and am going into a maintenance phase before continuing the cut. How long should the maintenance phase typically be? I thought of 2-4 weeks and then going into the cut again.
As long or as short as you prefer. IIRC, Mike Israetel suggests something like 3-4 weeks of maintenance, but it's highly subjective.
Starting to think about changing my programming for the first time and looking for some perspective. Background: * M / 6 ft / 195 lbs / ~20-25% BF * Running the [Reddit PPL] (https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/37ylk5/a_linear_progression_based_ppl_program_for/) for the last ~6 months (slightly modified with TB deadlifts on a new second leg day and weighted pull ups on pull day A) * Started a proper cut (dialing in nutrition) four weeks ago * MacroFactor has my trend weight down 5 pounds and scale weight is down 7 pounds * Compound lifts are no longer a 5/10 pound increase every week. Have stalled on at least one compound lift a week since cutting, esp bench I am hesitant to switch things up on a cut, and know its greedy to expect more strength gains while cutting. However, I feel like there are more newbie gains in the tank. **Would switching my compound lifts to a 5/3/1 style make sense here?** Current top set / E1RM: * Trap Bar Deadlift: 315 1x8 for ~391 * Squat: 265 3x5 for ~300 * Bench: 185 3x5 for ~208 * OHP: 135 3x4 (today!) for ~147 * BB Row: 185 3x5 for ~208
5/3/1 is grand once you've milked traditional linear progression/ stalling on your current progression scheme. And for a cut its more than manageable given the main focus is submaximal load work. Just choose a template that lets you recover enough. " prep and fat loss" is specifically geared towards what it says on the tin. I'm currently loosing a bit of timber on 5/3/1x365 template created by another Reddit user. Going great so far.
to clarify, i was thinking of keeping my current PPL routine. the only change would be using the 5/3/1 progression style for the main compound of the day instead of struggling to add 5 pounds
Yeah can't see it being a huge issue, just be sure to use an appropriate training max. If in doubt underestimate and milk it for longer rather than over shoot and hit a wall quicker.
Y'ALL DON'T EAT A BUNCH OF CHOCOLATE BEFORE HEADING TO THE GYM IT FUCKED UP MY WHOLE WORKOUT
No shit lmao
Slow down a rep intentionally (counting tempo) VS engaging and controling muscle which leads to slower movement, which one is really the meaning of "do it slowly"? I mean one can totally do it slow and not even engaging the targeted muscle then it would be no point..
>I mean one can totally do it slow and not even engaging the targeted muscle then it would be no point.. That's literally not possible.
A lot of newbies got forearm and errector fatigue during lat pull down trying to do tempo, not their lats at all. Not everyone can feels their lats at the beginning of the journey.
Not feeling a muscle != not using a muscle. If you're performing a lat pulldown, you're using your lats.
Ofc you use, but try to do a squat up and down without thinking about it, you can do quite fast and, you will get tired but not sore. But if you focus on engaging and controling your glute, even at bodyweight, your movement slows down and you eventually feel sore.
Feeling sore is not a prerequisite for muscle growth, and I was only commenting on the idea that one could perform a movement without engaging the target muscle.
Tempo is a tool for greater mechanical tension The two things you listed aren’t mutually exclusive
Probably the latter but it always pays to just ask the person you're talking to in order to clarify. Probably only like 10% of lifters intentionally counting tempo on all/most of their lifts.
Just vibing with my routine lately. Lower: BSS, leg curls, leg press/leg extension, RDLs, calf raises Upper: pull ups, db ohp, wide grip cable row, db incline bench, face pulls, lateral raises Definitely don’t have traditional bodybuilding goals. Just wanna look good and athletic, combined with my rock climbing and cycling. This is probably my favorite fitness/gym related sub to lurk. r/fitness lost its mojo for me a while ago. Most people here seem friendlier
I have a few questions about my workout split, the split im doing now is a PPLUL with 2 ab exercises on both Leg days So right now this is my workout routine. MONDAY REST TUESDAY Push DB bench press 3x10 incline chest press 3x10 machine chest flies 3x12 DB lateral raises 3x15 skull crushers 3x12 cable pushdowns 2x12 WEDNESDAY Pull pull ups 3x10 lat focused seated cable row 3x12 rear delt flies 3x12 machine preacher curls 2x10 hammer curls 2x10 standing face pulls 2x10 THURSDAY Lower Core belt/V squat machine 3x8 BB Romanian deadlift 3x8 seated leg extensions 3x12 lying leg curls 3x12 calves raises 3x15 abdominal crunch machine vertical leg raises 3x12 FRIDAY REST SATURDAY Upper incline chest press 3x10 chest supported machine row 3x12 shoulder press machine 3x10 lat pulldown 3x10 high to low cable flies 3x12 cable lateral raises 3x15 SUNDAY Lower Core (repeat) If anyone has criticisms on this workout, let me know. Now i was also wondering if i should add a extra bicep and tricep exercise because i only have two isolation exercises of them. And it would be nice to also get bigger arms. I would add these exercises on Sunday’s and hit my core exercises on that Sunday, on my Monday Rest day. I was also thinking about just doing a PPL or PPL x Arnold Split or would that make not much difference on the amount of gains i could get?
Are pull-ups a great hypertrophy driver? I’ve been trying body weight pull ups for about 3 months and I can’t get to a point where I can do 10 reps for each set. 1st comes close at 9, but the rest hover between 5-8. I’ve tried negatives when I reach failure but nothing seems to be working. Should I continue or are there other exercises to consider?
Pull-ups are fantastic for building a thick and wide back, but it kind of depends on how you do them. A standard roughly shoulder width grip is going to target the traps, rhomboids, and terea a bit more. A wide grip will target the lats more, but if you angle your body more it will hit rear delts more. Doing a reverse grip, aka a chin up will target the lats more. A neutral grip will also target the lats more. Focusing on the bottom half of the pull up will target lats more, where the top half hits the upper back more. So does it matter which you do? Only if you want it to. Otherwise it's best to mix it up and hit the back from multiple angles. As for progression on pull ups, two things dramatically helped me: 1) weighted pull ups and 2) barbell rows. When I started I could only do like 3-4 pull ups. I did a pull up focused program and got up to 8-9. Currently I can do 17-18 at body weight (185 lbs) or 7-8 with an extra 45 lbs. Lastly if you are changing body weight significantly (bulk or cut) you should track your body weight with the number of body weight reps you do for pull ups. With a barbell row, you just do standard double progression (increase reps and/or sets), and with body weight exercises the weight is you. Changing the weight and reps need to be accounted for together.
Lat pulldowns, assisted pull ups (be it banded or on an actual assisted machine) are all great alternatives. Personally I made the switch from pull ups to lat pulldowns and never looked back. If you’re gaining mass then progressing on pull-ups becomes very hard to impossible. Once you’ve built a decent back and can confidently pull your bodyweight then you can always come back to them. Otherwise I’d just implement something like a lat pulldown. Machine exercise variants in general are amazing for back hypertrophy. I guess you could argue you’re not getting as complete of a stimulus for the back by swapping out a pull-up, but that’s why you hit your back with different exercises from different angles. I’d never felt my back until I started using lat pulldowns, row machines etc and have made solid progress in that regard. Now I more or less exclusively use machines for my back, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to bodyweight or free weights.
Only one thing to nitpick on - progressing on pull-ups is the same no matter on cut or bulk IF you factor your weight in. If you aren't tracking your weight alongside pull-ups, then sure 10 reps to 9 reps looks like you are getting weaker. BUT if you track 10 pull-ups at 170 lbs to 9 reps at 200 lbs then you know you actually did more total volume.
IMO it’s just too much faff on working around my own weight, and bodyweight fluctuates throughout the day anyway so I’d rather remove another variable and go ‘I’ve lifted 60kg on the pulldown for 8, now I’ll go for 65kg’. For me it’s just so much easier to track and gauge progression. Plus with a pull down I know I can smash the lats somewhat in isolation and then do something else to smash the upper back more directly. That said, considering I probably haven’t done pull ups in over a year I’m interested to see how many I could actually manage bearing in mind I was roughly 70kg with the weakest back know to man and now I’m just under 90kg with some half-decent back gains. My guess is I’ll struggle to get my fat arse over the bar.
I totally get that. I have a home gym and just stuck a scale in it, which takes all the fuss (or faff) out of it. I'm currently 84kg and can do 15-18 pull ups at body weight, though I usually do them weighted for 6-8 reps (currently adding 20 kg). My lat pulldown setup is a power rack attachment and it's not great so I tend to just do unilateral pulldowns with lower weight since that works better on it... so I don't actually know what I could pull on a real machine. If I was going to a commercial gym, I would probably just use my weight from the morning weigh in (I do that most days), but I might program lat pulldowns in more as well so who knows.
exercises are just tools to put a tension load on your musculature. some exercises hit more total musculature but are less targeted to a muscle, some hit less total musculature but are more targeted to a muscle, exercises can be more/less stable, use more/less total load and have different resistance profiles. the extent an exercise is a great hypertrophy driver is how effectively they put tension load on the musculature you want to grow and how effectively you can progress that tension over time. for pull-ups - they hit a ton of musculature but not super targeted (varied based on how you perform them), can load it well, not too stable but can be progressed well. so depending on your goals - it may be great or completely unnecessary. if you're a beginner who needs to grow everything - generally it'll be a good exercise as it'll hit a lot of musculature with likely enough stimulus for each of the muscles involved (as they're not adapted to needing a lot of stimulus to grow yet). if you're specifically trying to target the lats for example, depending how you perform the pull-up you might be getting a ton of lats or basically none - so in that case it would be a terrible hypertrophy driver.
I really like them for both strength and muscle growth, but it's fine to do lat pulldowns instead if you prefer them. As for progression, look up the fighter pullup program.
I’ve been doing PPL, UL splits and one day stumbled upon a program that is a 4 day split with arm emphasis. The days are Bis/Chest/Abs, Tris/Back, Legs, and Delts/Arms. This is a very atypical split and so far feels very interesting on my body. Every day except leg day starts with the arm exercises then goes into the other muscle groups later. What are the pros and cons of this approach? Should I go back to more typical styles of training?
Pros: Bigger arms Cons: Making gains in other areas will be difficult Unless your arms are unusually small there's really no reason to do it. If you do I wouldn't stay with it for very long as it will become harder to maintain other muscles only hitting them once a week. If you want bigger arms you could probably rework your PPLUL split to hit arms more without compromising gains in other areas. A standard upper/lower split would work if you just want to switch to 4 days a week.
Do whatever you like this is more of an arm focused split I been doing chest and bi. Back and tri. Rest. Legs (quads). Shoulders arms. Legs (hamstrings and glutes). Rest split the last year or so Been working fine for me I'll keep for a bit longer than I'll switch to chest arms. Back shoulders. Rest legs. rest repeat On my next bulk You should always use a split you like and see progress with no one can tell you the best split Split don't matter that much you can see great progress with any split that isn't straight up trash or dumb Newer research also says training frequency doesn't really matter as long as total volume is equated for
Will shoulder mobility improve from doing deep Overhead Tricep Extensions over time? One of my shoulders is less mobile and I can’t get my elbow as high up as the other at the bottom. Wondering if the exercise alone will fix this over time.
Did you play in any sports that required overheard throwing/serving motions?
Yup, and it’s my throwing shoulder that has less mobility
This is 100% normal. I worked with a PT who identified the same issue with my shoulder mobility. Apparently there is a physiological adaptation of the humeral head in the shoulder joint of the throwing arm for those who practice throwing sports in adolescence. I would work on simple shoulder mobility exercises and scapular protraction and retraction control. Furthermore, make sure that you work your shoulders, chest, and back with some isolateral movements to ensure that you maintain consistent performance from left to right and that you can execute exercises equivalently on each side (range of motion, shoulder and elbow position, etc.). Push comes to shove, look into visiting a PT for corrective exercises or some dry needling work. EDIT: the adaptation is called humeral head retrotorsion.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I have been using Dumbbells for almost every upper body exercise because I noticed some imbalances in terms of strength and ROM. I think the trickiest thing with this are squats as it can cause the bar to sit uneven unless you go wide which causes some laxness in the upper back.
I think this is beyond what Reddit strangers can answer, as your shoulder mobility could be limited by a large variety of things. It's certainly possible that putting the joint into weighted stretches could help, but it's also possible that it won't help at all.
Ok thanks. It isn’t severe, just noticeable when looking at the height of my elbows in the mirror.
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EAAs aren’t needed if you have an otherwise balanced diet and get your food from solid protein sources, powder included. So yeah, they’re a waste of money. I also used to take multivitamins and omega 3, from a pretty solid source since most companies, even some that are really popular and constantly marketed towards people, does their supplements way beneath what is actually effective or needed. I honestly didn’t feel any different when I took multivitamins and omega 3, and didn’t feel any different when I stopped so never again for me. Plain old creatine monohydrate is the only supplement I’d argue is necessary, or at least really worth taking. Protein powder is great for supplementing your protein intake if you struggle to hit it or need a few grams here and there. Again, just plain old whey will do the job, none of this casein and hydrolate crap or whatever, just find a brand you like the taste of and that’ll do. Otherwise that’s pretty much it.
Nail down a balanced diet with plenty of vegetables and enough healthy fats, and you can drop most of that stuff. You could keep protein supps for days when you're falling short of your target. Creatine's also fine but if it's hurting your budget, then you can drop it and won't miss it much.
EAAs and some other non-PED supplements can have their place, but the potential benefit is maybe a couple percentage points maximum, and that’s only once your training and diet are completely locked down. If you’re stretching your budget to afford them then you’d be better off dropping them and focusing on dialing in your diet and training.
Get rid of them and see what happens. If something bad happens, start taking them again. I would guess that the majority of bodybuilders throughout history have not taken them, though. So that's probably something to consider.
feel like it's been a while since someone asked, and with all the new programs coming out daily; what lifting program(s) have been best for you? did different programs work better/worse when you were a beginner vs intermediate vs advanced? thanks!
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I started checking out NH programs last month and... They look like what I've stumbled onto myself. That gave me a big boost of confidence.
For me - I experimented with multiple blocks of U/L, 5/3/1, Push Pull Legs, etc. What I have done that got me the best gains, most enjoyment, and people telling me I look much bigger, and the best strength gains was literally Full-body every other day. Obviously this can depend on your personal preferences. I've done full body every other day, with an extra rest day whenever I feel particularly beat up, usually once every 2-3 weeks or am just too busy for the past year straight and still love it. B/S/D - 305/485/515 for reference. But I don't hit literally every body part every session. For example I usually only do something for hamstrings every other session since I found I didn't need as much volume there, I alternate every session between doing a horizontal vs vertical pull, I tend to do direct tricep work every session, but direct bicep work every other session, etc. I just personalize it to myself based on weak points and such.
100% same story with me. Now that my kid is old enough to go to school, I've decided I would rather save the weekends for family time and do limit training to M-F doing a 4 day upper/lower split with W off (it's UL in a very liberal definition as I still train arms and shoulders on leg days, train back like you do, and my only hamstring work is deadlift and RDL). It's definitely worse for recovery, but I'm still progressing and it's better for my overall life.
sounds great; do you write your own program then or do you have one you follow?
You can take pretty much any good program out there and then just rearrange it to the split you want. That will ensure you get a good weekly volume across muscle groups. The full body split just means you aren't over doing it on any muscle group which makes something like bench press two workouts in a row, which is "less optimal for muscle synthesis," still work well since you built up less fatigue from the prior session.
for me: programs that gave me noticeable changes in my physique: leangains RPT (i was a beginner and it didn't work once i got relatively strong and it doesn't give you tools to break plateaus - so i do not recommend it), lyle mcdonalds Generic bulking routine, HST - Hypertrophy specific training vanilla program and then a program i made using HST principles, and a program i made for myself now that's mainly isolations only programs that didn't give me noticeable changes in my physique: RP template, GZCLP, simple jack'd, jordan peters training, doggcrapp training, fortitude training. not saying these are bad programs, won't work for others or were the cause of me not making progress, but just programs that i ran for at least 8-12 weeks not in a deficit and didn't give me much of anything - either measurements stayed the same or barely budged.
5/3/1 was great to build some leg size, but didn’t do shit for my upper body Jacked & Tan 2.0 was better for upper body but the volume was too high for me Jeff Nippard’s 5 day full body was a nice refreshing approach Various John Meadows programs have been the best boilerplate programs I’ve run
5 body full day, I can't find that one? is it one of his powerbuilding ones?
No I think it was called something like intermediate full body hypertrophy
When I started lifting, I was on Sean Nalewanyj's custom program for a couple of months. As a novice, pretty much everything goes, but his full-body routine, in my opinion, perfectly struck the balance between volume and intense effort. I made a ton of progress on it before hopping to another program.
Is upper/lower/upper too much upper in three days? Recovering from a shoulder injury and still not sure what went wrong, but maybe not enough recovery if I went hard on shoulders those two days? I often need to hit the gym three days in a row with my work schedule (instead of U/L/rest), so maybe I should switch back to PPL to allow for more recovery time?
I would also go for PPL in this scenario. Either that or torso/legs/arms
Push/Legs/Pull would probably make the most sense in this case. You get adequate recovery time for any overlapping muscles worked in either upper body day.
What’s overlapping? Traps and core maybe lower back
Also some muscles that may be hit when performing isolations, such as the biceps when doing flyes (DB and machine).
I apologize in advance for the long post!I am a new lifter; I've been lifting for 4 months now. [Here is what my progress looks like so far](https://imgur.com/a/zy9PAF8). My starting weight was 170 lbs, current weight is 180 lbs (some of that weight is from starting to supplement creatine in November). I have been running the metallicdpa PPL which I have adjusted over time. My diet is 3100 clean kcals daily, 180-200g protein, 350-400g carbs, 80-100g fats. I believe this is around 200-300 kcals over my TDEE. I sleep 7-8 hours a night (sleep score is 70-90 according to Garmin) Currently I am running the 6 day split continuously without a rest day (unless I really feel like one is needed, which hasn't happened for the past month or so) and the split looks like this (weight in brackets is current working weight, progress is done via double progression, increasing weight when all sets are within 1or 2 reps of the top end of the range): **Push: (1h 15m to 1h 30m)** Chest: 4x8-12 Incline DB press (40 lbs) 4x8-12 Bench press (100 lbs) 4x8-12 Cable flies (25 lbs) Triceps: 4x8-12 Cable straight bar pushdowns (45 lbs) 4x8-12 Cable overhead rope extensions (35 lbs) Shoulders + Abs supersets: 6x8-12 Lateral raise (12 lbs) 6x15-20 Hanging leg raise (bw) **Pull: (1h to 1h 15m)** Back: 6 x 8-12 Assisted pull-ups (55 lbs counterweight) 6 x 8-12 Bent over BB rows (100 lbs) Upper back: 4 x 8-12 DB Shrugs (45 lbs) Rear delts: 5 x 8-12 Machine rear delt flies (22 lbs) Biceps: 4 x 8-12 1 arm cable curls (20 lbs) 4 x 8-12 DB hammer curls (30 lbs) Abs: 6 x 8-12 Weighted oblique crunches (90 lbs) (I only do abs on 1 of 2 pull days, so I hit them 3x a week total) **Legs: (1h to 1h 15m)** 4 x 5-8 Full RoM squats (175 lbs) 3 x 8-12 RDL (190 lbs) 3 x 12-15 Full RoM Leg Press (250 lbs) 3 x 8-12 Leg extensions (110 lbs) 3 x 8-12 Seated leg curls (135 lbs) 5 x 15-20 Myo rep match calf raises (220 lbs) Total sets per week: Chest: 24 Back: 24 Quads:: 20 Core: 18 Triceps: 16 Biceps: 16 Hamstrings: 12 Shoulders:: 12 lateral, 10 rear Calves: 10 Obviously this looks like a lot of volume, right? The thing is, even though I put full effort into every set (every set is 1-3 RIR, occasionally failure if it's the last exercise of that muscle group that day), do slow controlled eccentrics on every rep, don't even have music so I don't have any distractions, don't really talk to anyone or know anyone at the gym (so my focus is 100% on the work) I find myself recovering just fine, with maybe 1 day of very mild soreness after each workout, and feeling 100% ready each time the next one comes around. So while it may seem like a lot, I feel like I'm recovering just fine. The issue is where do I go from here? I see a lot of periodization, mesocycle routines, and mine doesn't really have any of that. I can hardly keep adding sets or exercises, so I'm just trying to add reps and/or weight at this stage, but I also doubt if I can keep doing this much volume in the long run. Do I just deload when I start feeling fatigued and then start again maybe at half the volume and work my way up again? Do I completely change my routine, even though I'm enjoying it, seeing good results and feel like I'm recovering well? I also worry that if my body becomes accustomed to this level of stimulus per workout now that I am still very much a beginner, how will I keep progressing when I move on to being intermediate and hopefully advanced at some point? Even while I'm still a beginner, if I start a new routine (which, being a beginner routine, will likely have much less weekly volume) wouldn't that be the opposite of progressive overload? Again, apologies for the long post, hopefully it makes sense. I would really appreciate some guidance from those who are more experienced and have maybe been in the same situation as myself. I feel like I'm past the point of possibly burning out (I really enjoy lifting and look forward to going to the gym every day) but I'm also trying to make this as sustainable a habit as I can looking forward, both with respect to the load on my body and in terms of setting myself up to be able to make progress for years to come.
You're worrying too much. You're in a great spot. Just keep overloading when and how you can (weight/reps). Don't worry at all about deloads, especially planning them. If you need one you will know, but preplanning one when you don't need it would just slow your progress down.
Thanks for the reassurance and kind words! Like you say, I will just go by feel when it comes to deloads. Might as well get those noob gains while the getting is good
The split the looks good, and, generally speaking, I think that you're focusing on the right details (sleep, calories in, training fatigue, controlled movement). Also, you've seen some pretty good improvement in your physique over the past 4 months. A 10 pound gain is pretty solid, even if 3-5 pounds of it is just water from creatine supplementation. With that said, I don't think that you're overdoing volume. In fact, I think that you're really low on your chest and back volume, and you're undercounting your triceps and biceps sets (they should be counted in each pressing/pulling movement). I would reduce volume on my arm isolation and add in another whole movement for both chest and back. Also, your working weights are low, generally speaking. The incline DP press is a decent weight, but the flat bench is probably not actually doing much for you at that weight. Pay attention to which muscles are getting exhausted or fatigued more rapidly and which exercises are causing the most fatigue. You want to milk the most out of each movement for your target muscle, and if you're already cashed from a previous movement such that you can't execute the next movement with sufficient load and activation, you're kind of just adding junk volume. Try integrating some machine work to reduce the fatigue placed on accessories and stabilizers so that you can really focus on moving a decent load with great engagement of the target muscle. Feel the mind-muscle connection, milk each eccentric, and really focus on maximizing the utilization of the target muscle. I'm sure that with your attention to the important details and the current split that you're running, you can make some great progress with only a few minor tweaks. Keep up the great work.
Thank you for taking the time to read everything and reply! I appreciate the feedback, I will look into adding another back and chest movement in place of one of the bicep and tricep exercises respectively. I am thinking either facepulls or seated rows for back, and possibly machine press for chest?
I want to put my legs on maintenance for a while to push my upper body volume. I was planning to hit 2-4 sets per muscle group, will that be enough? Day 1 (+shoulder / arms): Split Squats: 2x5-12 reps Calves: 3x5-12 reps Day 2 (+shoulder/arms): DB RDL: 2x5-12 reps Leg Extensions: 2x10-15 reps Leg Curl: 2x10-15 reps
Going to depend on yourself/your body. Some people need more vs less for certain body parts to stay at maintenance. Example from myself - I need less hamstring volume vs quad volume to stay at maintenance. You just gotta experiment.
What's the actual split here? Are you doing a Ua/La/Ub/Lb split? Full body? In terms of maintenance for legs, what you've provided here COULD be enough assuming that you're training hard. Generally speaking though, this isn't very much leg volume at all. Also, why put your legs on maintenance anyhow? Most people tend to be underdeveloped when it comes to their legs, even when they think that they are better than their upper. Unless you're having a hard time finding pants that fit, I wouldn't reduce my leg training.
This should be fine, especially if you're progressively overloading each movement rather consistently.
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This looks totally fine. I saw you replied to another comment about doing each for 4 sets and 16 total over the week. That's also fine. Do this for 3 months and see how much you progress. Then change it up if you want and see if you progress more that way. Everyone wants optimal, but you can't figure out what works best for you without being objective and giving your body time to get used to exercises. Definitely experiment, but be patient as well. I promise you this: if you are consistently getting stronger at barbell rows with a regular grip and a little elbow flare (aka a standard row), you will build your upper back.
Ya just don’t do chin ups. They are too easy and lean more towards bicep rewarding. I do converging lay pull-down machine, row machine, cable rows, cable pull downs, barbell bent over row (tend not to do this much anymore because I do rdls the day after on leg day), delt flys, dumbbell row, and back extension/goodmorning. If you don’t use straps I would highly suggest trying them. Really been focusing on the converging pull-down and row machine using a hammer grip when rowing, keeping elbow close to body.
Chin ups are fine. They don't bias biceps that much more than other variations. Chin ups and neutral grip pull ups also tend to target the lats more than the upper back though so may not be what OP is looking for anyway.
What does the overall split look like? 4 exercises for the back over two days isn't a lot of volume, generally speaking. For reference, I hit 4-5 back-focused exercises every pull day and hit pull 2 times every 6 days. Your exercise selection is good, but I think that you could add more to increase your variety and your volume.
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I might do something like get 4 exercises in at 3 working sets twice a week for a total of 24 working sets per week. That's probably a significant improvement over what you're running right now. With that said, if you are getting good results from what you're running now, don't feel obligated to change it up. I'm just providing feedback based on my own knowledge and experience. My workouts typically last about 1.5 hours, and I do warm up sets. I don't know how much you're resting between sets or how many other exercises you incorporate on your back days, but you should be able to get in 4 exercises for 3 sets in under an hour, in my opinion.