Full Body 3 Day A Week Plan
jayb0ne
Posts: 644 Member
I'm planning on switching my routine up from a traditional 4 day split to a 3 day a week full body routine.
Each day to include:
1 compound pushing movement - bench, incline bench, decline/dips
1 compound pulling movement - pull ups, seated rows, t-bar/bent over rows
1 compound lower body movement - squat (any variation), lunge, deadlift
1 shoulder movement - military press, lateral raise, bent over raise, upright row
2 isolation exercises of choice out of 6 areas - biceps, triceps, calves, traps, abs, rotator cuff
I'll be rotating the specific exercise for each area on each day, so I'll do say flat bench on day 1, incline on day 2, dips on day 3. So over the week, I've focused on each area from 3 angles.
I'll rotate the isolation exercises so over the week I'll hit all 6.
I'll also be rotating the rep/set scheme each day between 5 sets of 5, 4 sets of 8 and 3 sets of 12. This way, over the week I'll have hit each area with about 90-100 reps.
Of course I'll be rotating the order of movement too, so I may hit push movements first one day, pull first another and lower body first another. So each area will have it's chance to get in first with full energy available.
I reckon it should take me about 60-90 minutes per workout allowing for 60 seconds rest between sets and a few minutes between exercises.
Appreciate your feedback/thoughts.
Jay
Each day to include:
1 compound pushing movement - bench, incline bench, decline/dips
1 compound pulling movement - pull ups, seated rows, t-bar/bent over rows
1 compound lower body movement - squat (any variation), lunge, deadlift
1 shoulder movement - military press, lateral raise, bent over raise, upright row
2 isolation exercises of choice out of 6 areas - biceps, triceps, calves, traps, abs, rotator cuff
I'll be rotating the specific exercise for each area on each day, so I'll do say flat bench on day 1, incline on day 2, dips on day 3. So over the week, I've focused on each area from 3 angles.
I'll rotate the isolation exercises so over the week I'll hit all 6.
I'll also be rotating the rep/set scheme each day between 5 sets of 5, 4 sets of 8 and 3 sets of 12. This way, over the week I'll have hit each area with about 90-100 reps.
Of course I'll be rotating the order of movement too, so I may hit push movements first one day, pull first another and lower body first another. So each area will have it's chance to get in first with full energy available.
I reckon it should take me about 60-90 minutes per workout allowing for 60 seconds rest between sets and a few minutes between exercises.
Appreciate your feedback/thoughts.
Jay
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bump0
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I'd prefer to just do the first four, but if you really think you can benefit from the isolation exercises, it doesn't sound like a bad plan really. Though, personally I wouldn't do decline benching.0
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What a nice plan i would give a shot starting from this coming week
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Did the first day yesterday. I did flat bench, lat pulldowns, squats, smith shoulder press, seated DB curls & weighted crunches. I did 3 sets of 12 on each.
Honestly wasn't sure it would be enough - reading it, it doesn't look like much after being used to a split focusing 4 or 5 different movements on one body part per session - but by the time I was through with squats I was pretty pooped. I think shoulders suffered a bit from my being tuckered so I'll have to remember to bump them up the ranking in another workout this week.
Day 2 tomorrow. Which order I do it in depends on how busy the gym is, but I plan on doing some seated rows, lunges, incline DB press, bent over shoulder raises for rear delts and tri's and calves for isolation. I'm shooting for 5 sets of 5 on each so I can go a bit heavier.
Thursday I'll probably switch it for dips, bent over rows, deadlifts, upright rows, traps and a little rotator cuff work - not necessarily in that order - for 4 sets of 8.
Jay0 -
will you be giving your major muscles appropriate rest, though, when you start to add weight? the reps look high to begin with and hitting the back/shoulders so often seems like it would be counterproductive.0
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3 days a week, so I'll be resting 2 or 3 days between each session.
The idea is to hit each area with low volume but often rather than high volume and only once a week. So on back day for a regular 4 day split, I'd probably do 3 or 4 back exercises for 3 or 4 sets, totaling about 100 reps. With this routine, I'm only doing one back exercise per session but in 3 sessions a week I'm hitting it with roughly the same volume over the week.
Same with chest for example, I'm hitting it from 3 angles on 3 different days whereas my old training split I'd hit all 3 angles on one day. Shoulders I'm hitting the 3 deltoid heads on different days.
Some research I've read (primarily HST style training) suggests that the muscles only need about 48 to 72 hours to recover rather than the traditional week. The theory is that you're convincing your body that the overload is chronic (all the time) rather than acute (from time to time) and therefore it needs to adapt to the overload to better handle the weight being regularly moved.
For weight, I'm not really concerning myself with the actual numbers on the plates, just how it feels within the rep range so that I can just about reach the full amount of set/reps that I'm shooting for. Of course, the plan is that every other week or so, I'll be able to add some weight to the bar and still reach failure at the end of the rep/set range - progressive overload being the key. We'll see how that goes though.
Jay0 -
You will need to keep improvising your plan. Is about results really. If your nutrition is in check then your results will pan out brother.0
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Thanks bro.
Nutrition's pretty much in check. Just finishing off a cut at the minute so it's very clean foods at a moderate deficit (except Saturdays when I eat a bit above maintenance because I just aint got the discipline to go 7 days a week!). In the new year, I'll start a fairly clean bulk in an effort to grow a little while keeping within the realms of fairly lean.
Did day 2 of this plan yesterday. I started with some seated rows, then some lunges, followed by incline DB press, facepulls for shoulders (focusing on rhomboids), and for the isolation moves I did some overhead tricep extensions and some standing calf raises.
On Thursday I plan on starting off with deadlifts, then jumping shoulders up the ranks to second and hitting the rear delts, dips for pushing, bent over rows for pulling (or I might use the iso-lateral hammer strength Y row thingy if it's free), and finish off with some shrugs for traps and a couple of different rotator cuff exercises to strengthen up that weak area.
Seems to be going well so far. I'm getting that nice achy feeling that means something's worked.
Jay0 -
Jay. Whats the goal here mate?
Theres a great full body workout floating about the forums which is all you need at your level mate.
Squats 10 x 3
Bench 8 x 3
Bent row 8 x 3
Military press 8 x 3
Stiff leg deadlift 8 x 3
Bb curls 8 x 3
And you should add pullups: max reps x 3.
This is all you need. Start with somethig you can rep for 12-15 reps on each then progressively add weight each session. 2.5-5lbs. If your nutrition is infact in check, and you eat at a slight surplus youll get stronger and bigger without question.
From your avatar i can tell how big you are... 70-75kg?0 -
Thanks dude. That looks good - not far from what I'm doing except bi's every session and quads/hams split out.
The avatar's about a year old (know, I need to get a new one desperately!) and I was just under 11 stone there (154 lbs or just shy of 70kg). I'm about 13 stone now (182 or 82.5kg) with a bit more fat. All told in the last year I probably gained 15lb good mass and 10lb fat left to be re-trimmed.
I guess the goal is to mix it up a little running up to Xmas while I finish the cut. I'm a 4 day split kinda guy, but work's been eating into my gym time lately so I wanted to:
a) drop a day's training without losing anything I'd normally work in my 4 day split (with a bit of cardio in the day 4 if I do manage it)
b) try and work full body in every workout so that if I do still manage to let life get in the way here and there, I'm not missing a whole body part until the next week, just move onto the next full body day.
c) keep my workouts under 90 minutes if possible.
I'm also kinda trying this out to see if it's a style of training that suits me. In the new year, I plan on lean bulking for a while, see if I can't pack on a few more pounds of muscle.
I'm starting to learn a little as I go about what exercises work well together so I get a full and exhausting workout each time and don't end up doing all the shattering exercises together at the beginning so the muscles at the end of a workout end up getting submaximal effort.
Appreciate all your feedback guys.
Jay0 -
bumping for review later0
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As far as I've heard splits only developed for the body building community that took hardcore supplements and illegal drugs... and the most optimal way to train a part is multiple times in a week (2-3x's) This being said with one day of rest in between workouts. I have a fairly demanding job, which is why I do splits because I never get a full "rest" day.0
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The number one thing you can to to get big.....is progression. If you keep switching exercises around, how will you progress. Pick one exercise and every workout either add at least 1 more rep, or add more weight. This BS about "muscle confusion" is just that, BS,
Unless you stick with one exercise, you will never reach your top weights, and will never progress. The only "Confusion" your muscles need is when you keep adding reps or weight, thats how they are forced to get bigger and stronger.
muscles dont get bigger from doing different exercises at stagnent weights, they grow from being forced to do the same thing, either more often (reps) or with more weight.0 -
what is better for gaining strength ?
Someone told me to try 5 reps of heavier weight, 3 times, with the last time , do as many as you can .
Before that , I was doing reps of 12, but at about 30% less weight.
Now I am thinking of changing it up every other time I go
But I am new at weight training, so not sure0 -
I am doing 5/3/1! Just starting today, but I was doing 5x5 progressive loading - not bad strength gains!0
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2warmup sets of 15 coming nowhere near failure.Working sets: 3-5 for upper body & 4-6 for lower body, failure between 5-8 reps one week & 8-12 the next. U are hitting the different muscle fibers by alternating week to week. U also avoid overtraining & joint injury by having a light-moderate week. As long as your intensity & diet is on point U will make great strength gains.0
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Couple of things: One, it's really hard to critique a plan like this without understanding some things. For example, what are your goals? How long have you been training? What did your previous training look like? Any injuries or known weaknesses you need to/have to overcome? Two, please don't take offense, but I don't understand why people want to develop their own training plans when there are so many great plans out there from well known, respected trainers/coaches. It's not as easy as stringing a few reasonable sounding exercises together. At best you'll have suboptimal gains or muscular imbalances, at worst, you could really hurt yourself.0
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i agree....working 3 days a week is a great plan....i work 3 days a week and do cardio three days a week maybe four....i spit the days i work out into 2 sessions....this is routine
monday at lunch: - biceps
monday in the evening: - chest
tuesday at lunch: - run 3 miles
tuesday in the evening: maybe swim
wednesday at lunch: shoulders
wednesday in the evening: back
thursday: same as tuesday
friday at lunch: triceps
friday in the evening: legs
saturday: ride stationary bike about 20 miles
sunday: run 3 miles0 -
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