Which upper body exercises should I combine and alternate?

[yankeepoodle]

We are using a Total Gym for strength exercises and they have exercise cards to target different areas. I know the correct thing to do is exercise different muscles on different days. The categories are: biceps, triceps, shoulders, chest, and back. Some of the exercises seem very similar...for example a back or chest exercise seems to work triceps too. I don't want to "accidentally" work the same muscles 2 days in a row. Can some fitness expert tell me what exercises to do on the same day? initial plan was to do biceps & triceps on same day; chest & shoulders next day; and back the next day, then start over. But now I'm thinking that may not be the right combination. I plan to do a leg day also, but I really want to focus on upper body.

[Boss Man]

Hi Yankeepoodle good to talk to you.

I've never touted myself as an expert, but I do believe I can give you some useful help and actually training different muscles on different days is not automatically the right thing to do, as some people train all muscle groups in a session and do that 3x a week, or have something like an upper body and a lower body workout done twice a week, so their workout schedule is 4 days a week for lifting.

You can also have three different workouts that encompasses 2 muscle groups and then work the whole body 3x a week.

Looking at your training ethos and what you say you're trying to do, I'd actually favour the last approach over the other two.

So this is what I suggest.

Day 1. Legs and shoulders

Day 2. Chest and triceps

Day 4. Back and biceps

You'd have a day in between these workouts, so you don't do them all consecutively.

Having a leg day is a good idea and it's just as important to focus on your legs as it is the arms and torso, so you get a good all over progression.

I'm guessing by your username that you're a female and I wanted to let you know that you should be proud of embracing the concept of female strength and not falling for the old stupid myths about looking like a man or it being wrong, because it isn't and I want you to be proud of your choice and to embrace the person you want to be.

I will always, always endorse the idea of female strength and I hope that you can find the progress and happiness with future results you will deserve.

It will be hard but don't stop believing in yourself, because this is your body and you need it to be capable for the rest of your life, but I'm sure you can do this, so GOOD LUCK and whatever happens we are here for you as a community and please do keep us updated, because you will have our support, acceptance and encouragement for as long as you want it okay .

[yankeepoodle]

THANKS Boss Man! Now to clarify, you wrote Day 1, 2, and 4, but you meant day 1, 3, and 5 (every other day)?

[Boss Man]

Yes I meant 1,3 and 5. Good spot on that as I clearly didn't notice before or after posting .

Still I've never claimed to be infallible .

[yankeepoodle]

OK. Appreciate your comments...I have always done some sort of exercise, always wanted to be stronger, I am stronger than the average female but still nowhere near where I'd like to be. I am not afraid of adding bulk but problem is motivation and energy. I have limited time in the mornings and no energy/motivation at night. And I hate exercising - the results take too long, I am impatient.

I would like to use the total gym every day (maybe 6 days, take 7th off) so it becomes a routine. Your suggested workout makes sense but I am trying to figure out how to work out the upper body more than the legs. This is not what I'd like to do -
Mon - shoulders
Tues - legs
Wed - chest & triceps
Thurs - legs
Fri - back & biceps
Sat - legs

I'd rather do legs once a week and do arms twice or chest twice. But the TG's chest exercises work out other muscles too...this "give them a day to rest" is a pain in the . If I am doing an exercise that focuses on the chest, and minimally works out biceps or triceps, can I work the biceps or triceps the following day?

[Boss Man]

You're doing too much leg stuff and you don't need to really.

This would work better and it's basically what I posted anyway, with some cardio chucked in.

Mon - legs & shoulders
Tues - cardio
Wed - chest & triceps
Thurs - day off
Fri - back & biceps
Sat - cardio
Sun - day off

Don't worry too much about subsidiary work on synergist muscles, when you train big muscle groups anyway, as with the system I've given you it's taken into account and in the case of a chest workout the triceps will get some work from pressing movements, so you're priming them for the direct stuff later on and on back days, any rowing movements will get the biceps primed for the direct stuff afterwards.

I still think what I posted will be better for you, otherwise you could be doing too much consecutive weights stuff and the alternative would be to do a 5 day split which you could do and that would look like this.

Day 1. Legs + cardio

Day 2. Chest

Day 3. Back + cardio

Day 4. Day off

Day 5. Biceps and triceps

Day 6. Shoulders + cardio

Day 7. Day off

The best cardio to do would be one that causes minimal impact on the muscles you've been working so exercise bike for leg days and bike, elliptical or stepper for back and shoulder days.

[yankeepoodle]

Thanks for the workout choices. I agree I don't want to spend so much time on the legs. Let me ask you about working out the same muscles 2 days in a row....then a day off...then 2 days in a row again. I understand if you're a bodybuilder that wouldn't be good. But for the average person doing 4 exercises a day, 2 sets of 15, if I worked biceps on that schedule I just mentioned, what would happen? I wouldn't see progress? What happens to them on the 2nd day that is so bad? (if they are not sore)

[Boss Man]

I would advise against that as you need to give muscles a rest, so don't train them on consecutive days.

I would also ditch the 15 rep mentality and go for 8-10 reps with a slightly heavier weight, as you'll get more muscle building potential that way .

[toddhicks209]

Because it's not wise to do strength training on the same muscle group on consecutive days and you mainly want to work your upper body, I suggest that you set aside three days a week to work out. Spend a small fraction of your session doing leg exercises and devote the rest of your session to doing upper body exercises. I stick to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday format.

[MatthewCocking]

Hi there,

From the sounds of it you are eager to get yourself in the gym and hitting all your muscles fairly regularly! Thats good, and that is exactly mentality.

I personally use an upper, lower split as below:

Monday - Upper Body
Tuesday - Off
Wednesday - Lower Body
Thursday - Off
Friday - Upper Body
Saturday - Lower Body
Sunday - Off

This routine allows me to work all muscles groups twice a week, while still offering sufficient rest. I never have more than 1 day at a time out of the gym. For the average gym goer, I would recommend looking up a person called Anthony Mychal. He has an excellent amount of knowledge regarding training splits for busy people as well as good diet plan advice that I myself follow and implement. I would never disagree with his stuff, along with the information that the Fasting Twins provide! However if diet isn't your thing that's okay, I would still recommend checking out Anthony's "solutions for the skinny fat ectomorph part iii programming and training" for an excellent training split.

Hope that helps!

[briarpatch]

The routine that Boss Man posted is basically what I follow. I'm a little older, so I try and stay with a lower impact cardio, and it helps me work out some of the soreness from the weight training. I need two off days per week, due to work/house/kid stuff, so there are times when life interferes and i need to shift the days around a little.