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Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Perth, Australia Age: 27 Posts: 1,181 Rep Power: 0 
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Here is an article wort reading when deciding trainning split
Divide and Conquer: Designing the Perfect Split
How to customize your weight-training schedule.
By Pavel Tsatsouline, Master of Sports
Are you having a hard time deciding how many times a week should you lift and how often you should hit each lift or body part? Worry no more. The purpose of this article is to teach you how to customize your iron schedule, split or otherwise..
First, let us consider the pros and cons of full body workouts versus split routines. A full body workout is the most foolproof and harder to overtrain on—clear plusses in a beginner’s book. It is time efficient—an asset, unless you dig the gym scene. Finally, a full body session can help you focus on the gainful exercises and reduce the number of flaky, non-productive moves.
On the down side, a full body workout does not allow for specialization training and prevents a bodybuilder from doing a high volume of work. Both are advanced issues. A beginning to intermediate bodybuilder has no business specializing unless he specializes on the squat. And a high volume of loading does not become a must until you already have some meat on your bones. This does not imply that a full body routine is for beginners only! Guess how drug-free bodybuilders of the golden age built their Muscle Media cover physiques?
If you have picked a full body routine, the only decision you have to make is the frequency of training. Here are your choices.
Once a week or less. Although hitting each body part once a week works well on a split routine that provides indirect daily stimulation, this frequency—or rather “infrequency”—will not fly unless all you do is squat and deadlift.
Three times in two weeks, e.g. Monday-Friday-next Wednesday. An appropriate schedule if you are super busy or your lifestyle does not help quick recovery. Be prepared to be sore a lot.
Two times a week, e.g. Monday-Thursday. Fitting if you are short on time. Also good for advanced comrades who are not good at varying their volume and intensity from workout to workout.
Three times a week. The old Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule has persevered for decades because it is most foolproof.
Four times a week. One of the best setups for a serious drug-free iron man or woman. As gymnastics coach Chris Sommer put it, it “allows maximum work combined with substantial rest.” Surprisingly, according to Prof. Arkady Vorobyev, the author of the Russian equivalent of Arnold’s Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, Mon-Tue-Thur-Fri is superior to Mon-Wed-Fri-Sat. The reasons are outside the scope of this article; just remember that the Party is always right.
Five times a week or more. Perfect if you have the discipline to follow an ultra abbreviated routine such as Power to the People! and strength is more important to you than size.
Do the splits
Onward and upward to split routines. There are two types of splits: by muscle group or body part and by lift. The latter is the powerlifting approach but it does not mean it will not work for a bodybuilder. The classic powerlifting split is as follows:
Monday: squat
Wednesday: bench
Friday: deadlift with a second bench press session often added on Saturday.
Start by working the primary lift and wrap up with exercises that would help it, regardless of the body part involved. For instance, on squat days you could do good mornings, usually known as “a back exercise”, to make your squats feel lighter and presses behind the neck to stretch out your shoulders for a better bar position on your back.
Why bother with the powerlifting split? To actually be as strong as you look. Two more effective power splits include squats on Mondays and Fridays, deadlift on Wednesdays, and bench on all three days (great Mike Bridges’ schedule).
Or lift three days a week benching every other session and rotating squats and deads, for example: Monday –SQ, Wednesday –BP, Friday –DL, Monday –BP, Wed –SQ, Fri –BP, etc. (Paul Kelso’s split). By the way, there is no reason you cannot dedicate your Saturdays to curls and other beach work. The best of both worlds.
If you go the traditional bodybuilding route and split your workouts by body parts, the rule of thumb is to make sure that each muscle group gets to be trained when it is maximally fresh. Pair up body parts that have a minimal negative impact on each other. Legs + arms is better than chest + triceps. Shoulders + biceps rocks and back + biceps sucks. You get the idea.
Do as the pros do
Dorian Yates’ early split teaches you how it is done. Mr. Olympia would work his legs and arms on day one, take a day off, then train his torso: chest, back, and shoulders. The fourth day was a day off. Neat: the arms get blasted once directly and then get a light day when the torso is worked. And the chest, back, and delts cannot help getting an indirect training effect on the arm day, at least if you do real exercises such as dips and cleans rather than weenie triceps kickbacks.
The story of another Mr. Olympia, Lee Haney, will drive the point of minimal overlap home even further. In his day, Haney used to follow the popular push/pull split. He would train for three days on, one off: Day 1—chest, shoulders, triceps, Day 2—legs, Day 3—back and biceps. Gains were not great and Mr. O’s shoulders were hurting, thanks to the triple assault on this vulnerable joint on day one.
As high achievers tend to be, Haney was confident enough to admit that he did not have all the answers. Someone suggested that he switched to this arrangement: Day 1—chest, biceps, triceps (the tris were worked separate hours later), Day 2—legs , Day 3—shoulders and back. Instead of smoking all the ‘pushing’ muscles on one day and the ‘pulling’ ones on the other, all were getting heavy days and light days, an essential element of continuous progress. The shoulders healed, and the scale needle started climbing up again.
Following are two more splits that follow the minimal-overlap principle. Plug in the abs and forearms where you think it is best.
1 Shoulders, biceps
2 Legs
3 Chest, triceps
4 Back
5 off
1 Chest
2 Biceps
3 Legs
4 Triceps
5 Back
6 Shoulders
7 off
More sophisticated splits are an option for experienced bodybuilders. For instance, you could tran your legs three times in two weeks, your chest twice a week, and your arms three times a week as suggested by Shawn Phillips in an old Muscle Media. Dr. Fred Hatfield’s books will give you plenty of ideas if you want to go the custom split route.
And if you feel like keeping things simple, I will make the choice for you. Train your whole body on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, each time with a slightly different emphasis. For instance, on Mondays start with many sets for the chest and have an easy workout for your legs. On Wednesdays focus on the squats and do just a couple of light sets of benches. On Fridays prioritize your back and take it easy on everything else. On Saturdays just go and have fun with curls and what have you. Simple, fun, and effective.
Most importantly, keep it simple and do not obsess about getting your recovery ‘just right’. Your body is highly adaptable and your schedule needs to be good but it does not have to be perfect. That narrow overcompensation window you have read so much about is a fairy tale; if it was for real only PhDs with labs could build muscle. I do not have the time to go on this tangent so pick up a copy of Prof. Vladimir Zatsiorsky’s textbook and read about ‘fitness/fatigue’ if you want to know why. But first—divide and conquer!
Pavel Tsatsouline, Master of Sports is a former Soviet Special Forces physical training instructor and a consultant to the Marine Corps and the Secret Service. Pavel’s books and videos are available to the public from (800) 899-5111 or dragondoor.com. |
