3 hours too much for full body weightlifting 3 days/week?

[godisworking101]

Hi everyone,

I found comfort in my current routine, which is lifting Mon-Wed-Fri so i have at least 48 hours in between.

3 hours sounds like a lot, but i will break down my exercises for clarity

- 9 sets biceps (3 sets wide grip curl, 3 sets close grip curl, 3 sets hammer curl)

- 9 sets triceps (3 sets overhead extension, 3 sets kickbacks, 3 sets close grip push ups)

- 3 sets chest (wide grip push ups)

- 3 sets front delts (front raise)

- 3 sets side delts (side raise)

- 3 sets rear delts (bent over reverse fly)

- 3 sets traps (shrugs)

- 3 sets calf raises

- 3 sets quads (leg extension)

- 3 sets hamstrings (romanian deadlifts)

- 3 sets lats (bent over row)

- 12 sets core (3 sets side crunch, 3 sets weighted incline crunch, 3 sets long lever posterior tilt planks, 3 sets ab roller)

A few takeaways are that i am on the better end of my wrist injury recovery, which is fine with most exercises but any chest related workouts strain the wrists, so it's just 3 sets there. i'd say i have 1-3 minutes rest between sets (longer rest for stuff like RDLs, rows and planks, they hit hard)

Also, as you can see, each muscle group has usually 3 sets, except for a few groups where i am still having 3 sets per exercise. of course there can be some overlapping muscle groups between different exercises as some of them are compound.

I like this routine, and I am just wondering if the length is efficient being 3 hours, and would appreciate some feedback.

As a side note, i use the cycling machine at a brisk pace on Tuesdays and Thursdays which i understand helps with quad and hamstring recovery as long as i don't go too fast.

thanks!

EDIT: i am sorry but i should have mentioned this before. my "gym" isn't a proper gym, it's one corner of my home office. i have a cycling machine, a bench, dumbbells, barbells and plates, and going out to a gym creates a scheduling conflict that's too difficult to maintain

 

[dawn16]

@godisworking101 This seems really inefficient/excessive. You’re not choosing the most bang for your buck movements.

I’d drop to one exercise each for bi’s and tri’s. Swap push-ups for a weighted pressing movement. Drop front raises. A chest press movement will cover that. Drop trap shrugs. Lateral raises and RDL’s should be sufficient trap builders. Swap a compound movement in place of leg extensions (squat variant or leg press).

Consider some slight variations from day to day to make sure you’re hitting everything (incline press, flat press, overhead press, for example, or a horizontal pull in place of vertical pulling).

If you’re training for 3 hours, you’re most certainly not training with the requisite intensity the whole session.

 

[ash002]

@dawn16 If you can do 9 sets of, presumably, 8-12 reps, for just one muscle in one workout, it's either because you're expending far too little effort on each rep, or you're so geared you sweat tren.

 

[nwbcm]

@dawn16 Not to mention so much volume (You kinda alluded to it). There is so much junk volume and OPs body will just not be able to allocate the amount of resources needed to repair all of those muscles at once. Not to mention enough resources to be able to train any of them efficiently. They will have tons of CNS fatigue by the end of each workout assuming they do anything with any intensity. It just makes no sense. A 1 or 1.5 hour workout would be recommended at max for most individuals. Anything more is just excessive - assuming they’re only taking 2-3 minute rest breaks between sets and are actually really trying for each set.

 

[glory2god4evar]

@dawn16 This…

 

[limobustruckfleet]

@godisworking101 If you can lift for 3 hours, you’re not lifting anywhere near heavy enough, and if it’s not heavy enough, your rest between sets is too long

 

[repelsteeltjie]

@limobustruckfleet This. All current exercise science and research supports this.

 

[melintokyo]

@limobustruckfleet This!

 

[justincann]

@godisworking101 Few things.

Will it work?

You roughly are mirroring old silver age bodybuilding programs. Look up Steve Reeves who did something similar. It will work but there also is a reason bodybuilding moved on from there. Notably the super workouts. And anything you do near the end will be suffering from the general fatigue of the long workout.

Exercise Selection

Way too much arms. Cut it to 3 sets only every day. Front raises are also generally acknowledged to be unnecessary now because your front delts are in every other pushing movement. Wide pushups are fine enough but there’s much better and scalable chest movements. If you can only do one chest, do DB bench.

Is it too long?

You probably shouldn’t be taking that long. Reeves and other super long programs rested 45s to 90s max between sets. And generally weren’t going screaming to failure every set, maybe just the last one. They did their warmups brisk too. Reeves and Reg park would do like 2 warmup sets for each in a brisk, warmup, add weight while rest 60s, 2nd warmup, put on work weight during 60s rest. 3 work sets with 60s rest. The point was to get the work done and let the high frequency over the week do the work.

 

[ksina]

@justincann Long time cardio guy very new to strength training-can you explain arms every day?

 

[nataliebrooke]

@ksina Every training day, small muscles recover fast typically and you can benefit from spreading your volume across more sessions so you're training fresher and more intensely.

By set 7 of curls you're probably gassed in that muscle. However if that's set 1 of session 3 of curls you'll be hitting them harder.

 

[barneyb]

@godisworking101 Short answer: it is. You shouldn't be taking more than 90 min a session

 

[countrypastor]

@barneyb Serious question — Is 90 mins an arbitrary number or is there a scientific basis for this claim?

 

[barneyb]

@countrypastor It's a bit arbitrary tbh, but the current recommendations for health of physical activity is just 150 min a week, and most studies show optimal hypertrophy at around 9-12 weekly sets per muscle group at rir 4 or less. Add up and there's no reason to spend 9 hrs at the gym a week

 

[guaguar]

@barneyb The only metaanalyses concluded that more volume than that is better for hypertrophy.

The old was essentially 10+ sets and a newer studied "high volume" studies and found a benefit for 12-20 sets compared to

 

[barneyb]

@guaguar I hadn't seen the last systematic review, but in that case, spreading the volume over more weekly sessions should be a better strategy than 3 eternal sessions, where exhaustion should make difficult to keep proper intensity

 

[guaguar]

@barneyb OPs sessions are definitely too excessive. There are also many ways to hit that range that won't take 9 hours per week.

 

[garthgrt]

@countrypastor I posted before reading this and arbitrarily put 90 minutes as well. Just been my experience whether it be training alone, with a partner or as a class.

 

[barneyb]

@countrypastor There are some claims that sessions over 90 minutes/over 6 weekly workouts are worse for mental health it seems (higher correlation with eating disorders and OCD)

 

[ivans]

@godisworking101 You couldn't pay me to run that.