About three weeks ago, I injured my shoulder (see previous blog post). I've still been working out and through some experimentation, I've put together a routine I can do without shoulder pain.
I found out last week that I can do deadlifts without shoulder pain. I'm now using a deadlift and squat program of 10 sets of 5 reps with 1 minute's rest between sets. This way, even though the last few sets will be brutal, the overall weight will not be that heavy so it will take some stress off my shoulder on the deadlifts. 'll workout every other day like this:
Squats or Deadlifts (alternate each workout) 10 x 5
Pushups - work up to 200 as many sets as it takes with 1 minute rest between sets. This includes a variety of pushups such as feet elevated, pushups between chairs, etc.
Dumbbell Curls
Dumbbell Hammer Curls
Tricep Pressdowns
It's not the best workout but none of them hurt my shoulder and if I work really hard on the squats and deadlifts, I may even be able to gain some muscle.
No BS, No Excuses,
Gregg
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In the past, I've talked about weight training splits and how they can affect your progress. As I mentioned before, most people don't give much thought to how they split up their body part workouts and this can cause some real problems. Problems like not building muscle and not increasing strength, exactly what bodybuilders don't want.
I was reminded again recently how widespread this problem is when reading a training quetion. The trainer's split was as follows (3 days on, 1 day off).
Day 1 - Chest and Delts
Day 2 - Back and triceps
Day 3 - Legs and biceps
Day 4 - Off
Day 5 - Repeat Split
So, what's the problem? In a nutshell, overtraining. Even forgiving the fact that there are too many training days, there is too much overlap. The delts and triceps get worked very hard two days in a row on days 1 and 2. And if he's doing the right exercises for legs and back (deadlifts, squats) he's working his lower back hard two days in a row as well.
This is going to be trouble in no time flat, especially if he's doing any kind of volume or intensity.
What's a more effective split, assuming they still want a three on - one off routine? You want to minimize the overlap so a better example of a good training split would be as follows:
Day 1 - Chest and triceps
Day 2 - Legs
Day 3 - Back, biceps and delts
Keep in mind, this still isn't ideal because the back and legs get worked on consecutive days but it's much improved over the original training routine.
No BS, No Excuses,
Gregg
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