 Workout Schedule Questions that I’ve had for *years*…please help!
Hey guys, I’ve been reading these forums for a few months now and have learned an enormous amount. But, there are still a few pressing questions that I’ve literally been wondering about for years. My apologies if someone has already addressed this in a previous post—I hadn’t found anything in my readings / searches thusfar.
Workout schedule / split
Typically, I do a 4/5-day cycle, with two upper-body days and one lower-body day. For upper body, I’ve been pretty much doing a “push / pull” workout split:
Day 1: Upper-body “push” exercises, basically working out chest / tris
-bench (either bar or dumbbells)
-incline bench (either bar or dumbbells)
-triceps exercises
Day 2: Upper body “pull” exercises, basically working out back / bis
-pull-ups
-variety of row exercises (lateral pull-down, one-arm dumbbell rows)
-biceps exercises
Day 3: Legs
Day 4: Rest
Day 5 (optional): Rest, depending how sore my muscles still are
My questions are:
1) Should I have a day in-between between my upper-body “push” and “pull” days? I do the “push/pull” split in order, obviously, to avoid training the same muscle groups, under the assumption that the “push” muscles are different from the “pull” muscles. But I wonder if this is an appropriate assumption? For instance, after I do intense bench workouts, my upper back is often sore as well. In that case, wouldn’t working out my back the next day (Day 2: “Pull” day) be counter-productive, since I’m working out the same muscle group two days in a row?
2) How would you work shoulders exercises into this kind of split? I feel like I use my shoulders a lot in both the push AND the pull exercises.
a. For instance, if I did shoulder press on Day 1, wouldn’t I also be using the same shoulder muscles when I do pull-ups on Day 2? Or would this not be the case, because the “push” exercises work the anterior deltoids, while the “pull” exercises use the posterior deltoids?
b. What about exercises working the medial deltoids, like lateral raises? I wonder especially about this because so many medial deltoid exercises also heavily involve the anterior or posterior deltoids. For instance, lateral raises while learning forward involves medial + posterior. Lifting the dumbbells out laterally, and then bringing them forward, involves both the medial + anterior, etc.
Any advice would be MUCH appreciated! I’ve read a lot of books, read these forums, etc., but for some reason I’ve never run across these questions, and they’ve been on my mind for a long time…hopefully someone here can give me some insight!
Andrew  | 
Linear Mode
