PPL plan review please

[billyjoe]

38yr, 6.0' guy here trying to do a recomp with the plan below. 6 days a week (PPL x rest x PPL) + 1-2 days of soccer per week.. Doing my best with the diet but not keeping strict track. Eyeballing and eating less than I'd normally do, with a focus on high protein.. Will appreciate any feedback on the PPL plan I have below. I do it with the max weights I can do until I can complete all my sets and try to increase the weights every 2-3 weeks with a fallback to previous weight if I can't complete the set.

I have access to a treadmill, dumbbells, leg machine (no idea what it's called), and a cable machine.

I'm especially curious if I'm working certain muscles groups too much, if there are better exercises that I should replace some of these with and also if I should change the order of exercises.

Push:

• Incline walk, 13, 3.0, 30min
• Chest Press (30dgr), 3 x 10 (dumbbell)
• Chest Press (Flat), 3 x 10 (dumbbell)
• Incline Dumbbell Fly: 3 x 10 (dumbbell)
• Standing Dumbbell Shoulder Press: 3 x 10 (dumbbell)
• Dumbbell Lateral Raise: 3 x 12 (dumbbell)
• Dumbbell Front Raise: 3 x 12 (dumbbell)
• Overhead Triceps Extension: 3 x 10 (dumbbell)
• Triceps Pushdown (M): 3 x 10 (cable machine)
• Plank: 3x30-60 seconds

Pull:

• Incline walk, 13, 3.0, 30min
• Lat Pulldown: 3 x 10 (cable machine)
• Lat Midrow: 3 x 10 (cable machine)
• Face Pulls: 3 x 12 (cable machine)
• Hammer Curl: 3 x 10 (dumbbell)
• Alternating Dumbbell Curl: 3 x 10 (dumbbell)
• Dumbbell Shrugs: 3 x 12 (dumbbell)
• Russian Twists: 3 x 30 (dumbbell)

Legs:

• Incline walk, 13, 3.0, 30min
• Leg Curl, 3x10 (machine)
• Leg Extension, 3x10 (machine)
• Bulgarian Split Squat, 3x10 (dumbbell)
• Squat, 3x5 (dumbbell)
• Kneeling woodchop, 3x10 (dumbbell)
• Standing March, 3 x 2,10 (dumbbell)
• Weighter getups, 3 x10 (dumbbell)

 

[amn]

@billyjoe A lot of people like PPL, I think because it’s easy to write the program. But it locks you into 2x frequency for everything. I think it also makes your leg days too hard — which either means a massive fatigue spike or junk volume.
That’s just a plug for non PPL programming

One thing that does jump out at me, not sure if you need front raises on the push day. You’re already getting so much front delt work, all your presses. You might want to try an extra set of laterals here though. If you’re not getting massively sore, and you’re progressing, you’re probably not doing too much volume.

Squat 3x5 with dumbbells - explain to me what’s going on there? You have heavy enough dumbbells that sets of 5 are near failure? That sounds like it might end up being more of a shoulder fatigue thing (assuming you mean front squats with two dumbbells). Or these just aren’t hard enough.

On leg day, maybe incline walk at the end instead of at the beginning. If you need general warmup do some body weight squats, arm circles, stuff like that.

 

[billyjoe]

@amn Ok good advice on replacing the front raise with the lateral on push day, thank you. Any advice what else I can do besides dumbbell fly & lateral raise?

Yes the squat is a front squat I guess. I hold up two dumbbells (2x30lbs now) at chest level and do the squats. I have lower back problems so keeping it manageable without pushing myself too much.

 

[amn]

@billyjoe You’re doing plenty of exercises on push day. If you need more volume to progress I would add a set to a couple exercises, and reassess. At some point though you will exceed a practical amount of work per muscle group, per session, and then you need to move away from PPL to a more elaborate program. If you want more variety of chest work, you can try different pressing angles, explicit tempos or pauses, different rep ranges. 8-12, 12-20, etc.

For laterals (side delts) if you’re feeling capped out on how many sets you can do in a session, adding a third day for these could be a good move. Definitely consider some different rep ranges here: 10-15, 15-25

But if you want another exercise for side delts (or any body part), check out this source: https://rpstrength.com/expert-advic...403.889810478.1698328523-144808695.1698328523

Re: squats. If your back is limiting you from using more external load at this time, keep the 5 reps with weight, these will be therapeutic for you, and help restore your confidence in your back. But you’re training legs here, so supersetting with a set of tempo body weight squats to failure will actually cook your quads. And use a 2-3 inch heel elevation if you can, this makes them harder, so you don’t have to do as many reps, but if flat foot is plenty hard, you don’t need to.

Suggestion is Basically replace 3x5 front squat with :

3 rounds:

5 front squats

superset with (meaning no rest)

4-2-4-0 tempo body weight squats (to failure or 1 rep shy)

Then rest 2-3 minutes, or when you’re feeling ready to go again

..
4-2-4-0 tempo
(4 seconds eccentric, 2 second pause at the bottom, 4 second concentric, 0 pause at the top)
Avoid resting or stopping at the top of the rep. If you stop you’ll need more reps to actually reach failure — this a bad thing! ). Breathe continuously as needed, but keep your midsection braced and tight through the bottom paused position.

The first week out you may only want to do one of these tempo squat sets with your first set of dumbbell front squats. If you recover really fast, i.e not a lot of soreness after a day or two, add 1 set per session until you’re up to 3.

Good luck, let me know if you need any clarification here.

Edit: I’d also suggest trying leg curl and leg extension after all your Squats. Especially since you’re doing Bulgarian split squats as well.

 

[billyjoe]

@amn Amazing, thanks for the advice, I'll def give this tempo squats a try. Didn't know about them until now actually. Sounds like it'll kick my butt which is exactly what I want

 

[uzezi]

@billyjoe Did you make this up yourself ?

 

[billyjoe]

@uzezi I made the initial version myself by looking at bunch of youtube videos.. Initially I had 3-4 exercises for each group, but I just updated it with more exercises looking at some other videos, articles etc because I didn't feel like I was pushing myself, and would be done in 20-30min.. I tried finding exercises that I'd enjoy doing with the tools I had at hand.

 

[uzezi]

@billyjoe Okay , we’ll don’t . Do a sensical , proven program created by a professional .

And if you were completing these workouts in 20-30 minutes. You likely need to learn intensity and how to lift properly .

 

[uzezi]

@billyjoe Okay , well don’t . Do a sensical , proven program created by a professional .

And if you were completing these workouts in 20-30 minutes. You likely need to learn intensity and how to lift properly .