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[mpridham]

Hi Folks,

Just a quick question about my training schedule. I have been working out 5 days a week (M-F). I do Chest, Back, Shoulders, Biceps and Triceps on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Quads, Hams, Calves and Butt on Tuesdays and Thursdays (my lower body is in pretty good shape - my upper body not so much). I do 45-60 reps of ab exercises each day (I mix them up), and 20 minutes of cardio (elliptical) each day. I work out at home using free weights and an elliptical. Is this a reasonable workout schedule, or am I over-doing it, or simply doing it wrong?

Thanks for any advice.

[Boss Man]

You won't be overdoing it with an Upper Body, Lower Body split. Your Cardio is only 20 minutes, and 45-60 reps on Abs, is not breaking them big style, so you should be fine.

The only way you'd overdo it, is if say you did things like 12 sets on Biceps, 15 sets on Chest for example, and your workouts were about 2+ hours long.

[rapp27]

How Many exercises are you doing for Chest, Back, Bi's etc..... in a given day??

And what are your goals....Mass Gain, Toning?

[mpridham]

Thanks for the responses.

To give you some more information...I am 47, 5'11", 202 lbs, 26.4% Body Fat. My goal is to lose 20-25 lbs, improve my upper body (chest, biceps) and lose he beer belly. This is the routine I have been following so far. Any thoughts or comments are certainly appreciated.

Monday

Chest: Dumbbell Chest Press (3x10)
Back: One Arm Dumbbell Row (3x10)
Shoulders: Dumbbell Lateral Raises (3x10)
Biceps: Dumbbell Bicep Curls (3x10)
Triceps: Standing Dumbbell Tricep Ext’s (3x10)
Abs: Leg Pull-Ins (3x15-25)
Cardio: Elliptical (20 mins)

Tuesday

Quads: Leg Extensions (3x10)
Hamstrings: Lying Leg Curls (3x10)
Calves: Dumbbell Single Leg Raise (3x10)
Butt: Walking Lunges (3x10)
Abs: Oblique Crunches (3x15 per side)
Cardio: Elliptical (20 mins)

Wednesday

Chest: Dumbbell Flies (3x10)
Back: Dumbbell Stiff Leg Lifts (3x10)
Shoulders: Lying External Rotations (3x10)
Biceps: Dumbbell Preacher Curls (3x10)
Triceps: Seated Two Arm Tricep Ext’s (3x10)
Abs: Reverse Crunches (3x15-25)
Cardio: Elliptical (20 mins)

Thursday

Quads: Single Dumbbell Squats (3x10)
Hamstrings: Lying Leg Curls (3x10)
Calves: Seated Single Leg Calf Raises (3x10)
Butt: Reverse Dumbbell Lunges (3x10)
Abs: Crunches (3x15-25)
Cardio: Elliptical (20 mins)

Friday (Repeat of Monday)

Chest: Dumbbell Chest Press (3x10)
Back: One Arm Dumbbell Row (3x10)
Shoulders: Dumbbell Lateral Raises (3x10)
Biceps: Dumbbell Bicep Curls (3x10)
Triceps: Standing Dumbbell Tricep Ext’s (3x10)
Abs: Leg Pull-Ins (3x15-25)
Cardio: Elliptical (20 mins)

[Boss Man]

There's your problem.

Friday.

Firstly because you're doing 5 days of weights back to back.

Now if you were doing a split with one bodypart a day, and a Bi's/Tri's session on Fridays, that wouldn't too bad, but you're doing effectively 3 Upper body and two Lower Body sessions a week. It's potentially overkill.

Instead of doing about 9 sets on Bi's and Tri's, you could add a 4th set to Bi's and Tri's, then when you're working them twice a week. That's 8 sets, 2 lots of 4, not 3 lots of 3 sets.

Also, don't do 4 days of weights together, I would advise you do this sort of thing.

Upper Body

Lower Body

Day Off

Upper Body

Lower Body

Day Off

Day Off


I did something similar, in my old gym.

I went with this kind of system.

Chest / Bi's / Tris

Legs / Back / Shoulders

A little unusual, and not something I'm advising you to do, but my thinking was, some Chest work worked Tri's, so best to couple them, then Biceps are an Antagonistic muscle with Triceps, so why not add them in too.

The other workout, was just the leftovers, but as some Back work, can work Shoulders, that made sense, and Legs went first, so as not to split the Back and Shoulder stuff up.

I did those two splits twice a week, incorporated into my overall schedule like this.

Monday Legs/Back/Shoulders

Tuesday Class

Wednesday Chest/Bi's/Tri's

Thursday Legs/Back/Shoulders

Friday No training.

Saturday Class/Chest/Bi's/Tri's

Sunday, No training.

I only did that class before the Saturday session for two reasons.

1. Doing weights before would have been a rush, as the class started not long after opening time. Plus I'd have to get up about an hour earlier

2. The class involved boxing, and throwing Punches and doing stuff like Dips, Press-ups etc etc, with Beat up Arms, to me, wasn't right for their recovery.

I experienced no downsides doing things like that.

I'm just showing you basically how your Upper / Lower system, could fit into 4 days a week, not to show you how to train like I did, but there are some parallels there to highlight the point.

For now I'd say a 4 day system, without the extra Upper Body session, and the 4 workouts split, like I showed you, would be better.

Also another reason for the split inbetween sessions is, if you did 4 days weights back to back, you'd then do 3 days straight of virtually nothing, which could mess with your mindset, and make you lose drive, and will to train.

[swanso5]

the best split for most is this:

1 - on (lower)
2 - on (upper)
3 - off
4 - on (l)
5 - off
6 - on (u)
7 - off

you need to cut out most or all of the single joint movements...a template like this would be better

1 - squat or deadlift...single leg exercise...hamstring/glute exercise...calf exercise...core

2 - row exercise...bench press exercise...pull up / down exercise...shoulder press exercise...tricep exercise

4 - squat or deadlift (what ever you didn't do day 1)...single leg exercise...hamstring/glute exercise...calf exercise...core

6 - pull up / down exercise...shoulder press exercise...row exercise...bench press exercise...bicep exercise

choose different exercise for each day and rotate through

add cardio to day 1 and then 2 out of the 3 off days and you'll be set

[mpridham]

Thanks very much for your input and suggestions. I'll re-work my schedule and post it to get your thoughts.

Thanks again.

[mpridham]

[swanso5]

things like prone ab braces, bird dogs and leg lowering are good places to start