help: switching routine

[ksteward]

Hi, I've been lifting for about 2.5 years now and am currently on a progressive overload program. After taking a week off I'll be starting on a new program and I wanted to get some advice on what to do. I've done some research and I'm interested in a couple of programs. I have the time to go to the gym 4 days a week, so I'd prefer a 3 or 4 day split. For the last year or so I've been on a 4 day split:

Mon: chest/back
Tues: rest
Wed: shoulders/abs
Thurs: bi's/tri's
Fri: rest
Sat: legs
Sun: rest

I'd like to swtich up my split, possibly an upper/lower split hitting each 2x a week (with a heavy day and an intermediate/light day/week), a push/pull/legs split or a full body hypertrophy specific program. I'm 28, male, 6'1" 180lbs, fairly strong upper body (bench 1rm is around 280lbs) but legs are lagging because of knee problems. I just started doing barbell squats again after a few years, and would like to incorporate deadlifts into my routine also.

What do you guys think? I appreciate your feedback

[jasthace]

The upper lower body split at 6wo a week is tough
I've done it before naturally for about 6months without a lot of real muscle gains but did add a lot of bulk{ha}
I hit my strength plateaus according to my anabolic state and that was it.

I think you should stay not too far off of what you have,but split chest and back with bis and tris
i.e chest and tris or bis
back and bis or tris
You could also do chest and delts with tris or bis and back and traps with tris or bis

You will probably get new gains from adding a new exercise or changing the order of the ones you have.
keep changing it around.and increase or decrease the intensity according to you goals.


It's up to how you feel as to how many days a week you should train.

If you are natural you need to be a bit more conservative and realistic.

[ksteward]

Thanks for the advice. If I were to do a upper/lower split it would only be working out 4x a week, upper on Mon/Thurs and lower on Tues/Fri, with rest/cardio on Wed and all weekend. I'm interested in a split like this because I thought it might be beneficial to switch things up and train each bodypart 2x a week instead of the way I've been doing it for the last couple of years at 1x a week. Do you have experience with HST? By the way, I am training natural. I supplement with whey protein post workout, a casein/whey blend at night, creatine ethyl ester, and pre-workout caffeine and White Blood (not sure how I feel about it so far, I was taking Animal Pump before and liked that much better). I am definitely not on any type of bodybuilding diet, but I try to eat healthy when I can. My recovery is pretty good, but like I said, I've been on a split training each bodypart 1x a week for a while now, so I've been getting plenty of time to rest/recover.

[Grizzly]

I think you're confused about training principles, due to the fact that "progressive overload" isn't a training method, but, rather, the goal of all programs. Without constantly overloading the muscle in some manner, you will not experience gains.

[ksteward]

Sorry, wasn't being too clear. The program I am currently finishing up is broken up into three smaller phases. The first phase was lighter weights, doing 4x10-20 reps (I tried to get 15 reps per set for all four) with short rest periods. Each week I tried to go up 5-10 pounds on each exercise. The next four weeks was 4x6 using heavier weights and longer rest periods. Again, I tried to increase the weight 5-10 pounds a week on each lift. Right now I'm doing 3 weeks of 3x3 at heavy weight, with long rest periods. After this cycle, I'm going to take a week off to recover, then start a new program.