This is my first post here and I need opinions about my gym schedule. So Long story short is that I have been training for a year and 4 month. The past 4 months I started with doing a split. Before this split I used to workout for maximum 1 hour. 6 days a week. My Chest got bigger and triceps too, but the rest of my body did not get bigger. I struggled with biceps and back, because I did not see any development. Now after I have started this split, which is 2 hours long of training with 3-5 minutes of rest between sets. 4 days and then a rest day then start again. All the muscles got bigger and defined and I am now getting complements about the difference I have made in a short time. On the other hand others critisize how long the workout session is, saying 2 hours is a long time. What do you guys think about my schedule.
@padres1969 Firstly, yes your workout takes way too long and looking at you schedule I can see why. 1 hour is enough for optimal gains.
Secondly, 14 exercise per workout is way too much, exercises are out of order, reps are out of order and everything is out of order. Way too many exercises per muscle group everything seems to be random like the bench press on one day and have triceps on another when you can have both together.
Lastly, get a new split with 5-6 exercises, compound stuff first, appropriate weight/reps and everything else including a warm-up.
I used to train for maximum 1 hour and 10 mins everytime I workout and maximum 7 6 exercises. 6 times a day with a rest day between. chest triceps, back biceps shrugs, and legs and shoulders I saw some gains but nothing like this schedule. 2 hours is too long too. My plan for this winter is to bulk. I will lower the volume of the workout.
I forgot to mention that I do warm up and stretch after the training too.
@padres1969 Think about it this way. If at the beginning you are really pushing hard, forcing the muscles to adapt for 45 minutes. The next 1:15 you are just “moving weight around” because you are fatigued, or at least if the first 45 minutes is done with the right intensity, you should be fatigued.
I thought that same. But a bodybuilder/Personal Trainer taught me that workouts should last no less than 60 minutes and no more than 90 minutes. To get the good results. So I started to follow what he told me. Now my body is bigger and the results are visable. Btw I forgot to mention that the warm up and the stretch is included in the 2 hours. I usually warm up for 10 mins. and stretch for 5 mins after the workout and around 5 mins rest between sets.
@padres1969 There is always grey area in every fitness tip. It may work for them, genetics, food intake, etc. That said generalizations on best practices can still be made. It’s a matter of figuring out what’s best for your body at a certain point. During a workout the graph is not linear to amount of time lifting. It’s a bell curve. There is a large climb of effectiveness, it flattens out, and at a certain point you can be doing so much damage to the muscles that all the resource pool is going to just repairing the damage you did. That’s not the goal, you want to do just enough damage to force adaptation and growth, not so much damage the body has too many resources to heal before it can even begin using resources to adapt.
@williammikesy You are right! If something works best for my body does not mean that it will work the same for others! And maybe you are right about the damaging part! I want to ask you this because you probably know more than me! But even when I workout for 2 hours sometimes I can still do more without feeling tired or fatigue? Is that normal?
@padres1969 I don’t mean any disrespect with this, but it’s usually because people are “moving weight around” as opposed to intentionally using weight to grow muscle. Will
It work, sure it can grow muscle, but it’s far from the most effective way to do so. Really focusing on every rep, make them identical every time. This gives you a baseline metric to determine if you are actually getting stronger because if every rep is identical then the next week when you add 5lbs or add a rep, you know you are progressing. Check out Renaissance Periodization on YouTube. Do what he says and you get huge. He offers no bs science based muscle growth information
@williammikesy Honestly I am not the guy that just moves weights, I train really hard and sometimes have too much energy that I need to use in order to be able to sleep. Thanks for the recommendation, I will check the YouTube channel. Btw how long have you been training for and what is your goal?
