Alternating Upper and Lower strength Training

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Hey Everyone

Quick Question, do you alternate your upper and lower training days

IE

MON - Upper body

WEd - Lower

Friday - Upper

Mon - Lower

Replies

  • ClairBears84
    ClairBears84 Posts: 531 Member
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    :smile:
  • MJ5898
    MJ5898 Posts: 1,549 Member
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    I am fairly new to strength training - i.e. not using big weights yet. But when setting up my routine, my research suggested that total body workout 3 days per week is better than split days because it enables you to hit all the muscles 3x per week. I set up 3 different total body workouts picking 1-2 exercises per muscle group per workout and usually a different exercise for that group in each workout. For instance, in Workout #1, I do flat bench press and bent arm pullovers for chest, for #2, I do flat dumbbell flies and #3 is inclined bench press. This is supposed to target different spots in the chest area. For quads and hammies, it is hard to get away from squats and deadlifts, so I do squats in all 3 workouts and some type of deadlift (stifflegged, romanian) in each as well. Good luck!
  • ClairBears84
    ClairBears84 Posts: 531 Member
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    Thanks, yeah I am also really new to it :)
  • Gallowmere1984
    Gallowmere1984 Posts: 6,626 Member
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    I generally pick one compound per gym session, and base my accessories around that.
    An example week for me:

    Mon: Heavy deadlift.
    Tue: Light squat
    Wed: Heavy bench
    Thu: Light deadlift
    Fri: Heavy squat
    Sat: Overhead press+light dead or light bench depending upon how I feel

    ETA: only been lifting since August, so this will be getting changed up a bit in the near future.
  • HMVOL7409
    HMVOL7409 Posts: 1,588 Member
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    I do upper/lower splits but I've been lifting off and on for over 15 years; consistently the last 14 mths after a 2 year break. It is what works for me after all the different variations I've done. Newbies are more encouraged to start with full body workouts and move on from there but a U/L can be just as effective as your hitting both areas twice a week.
  • Riemersma4
    Riemersma4 Posts: 400 Member
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    yep and give your self periods of rest for muscle repair. Most body builders today do a 6 day cycle focusing on each muscle only once duringthe cycle.

    my routine: Upper, Cardio, Lower, Cardio, Yoga, Rest.... start over.
  • danimalkeys
    danimalkeys Posts: 982 Member
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    As a beginner don't worry about an upper/lower split yet. Do full body, if you only have 2 days a week to do it, that's fine. Then as the weights get heavier and you get more experienced, you'll need more time to recover, so a 2 day a week split like you posted will work. When I was powerlifting I'd only do 2 days a week, one day would be oriented around bench, then the other workout would be squat/deadlift centric. Usually Monday and then Thursday for workout days to allow plenty of recovery time.
  • jimmie65
    jimmie65 Posts: 655 Member
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    Current routine is:
    Monday: Squat and bench
    Wednesday: Deadlift and overhead press
    Friday: Bench and squat.
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,139 Member
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    i just refined my routine to upper/lower split...this is my first week..

    Monday = upper (barbell chest press, dumbbell incline, over head press, low row, lat pulldown, chin + 35#)
    tuesday lower (barbell squat, sumo deadlift, lunge, calf ext, ext0

    wens off (5 minutes treadmill/abs
    thurs - upper
    friday lower (deadlift, front squat, leg extensions, etc)

    sat - HIIT
    sun - off

    Trying to get to 10% body fat...
  • ladymiseryali
    ladymiseryali Posts: 2,555 Member
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    I spread mine out and alternate. Some weeks I do more leg oriented, and some more arm oriented. So my schedule looks something like this:

    Sunday--- arms/shoulders/back
    Monday---HIIT
    Tuesday---legs/butt
    Wednesday---HIIT
    Thursday---arms/shoulders/back
    Friday---HIIT

    I also do pilates on my weight training days.
  • ArroganceInStep
    ArroganceInStep Posts: 6,239 Member
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    yep and give your self periods of rest for muscle repair. Most body builders today do a 6 day cycle focusing on each muscle only once duringthe cycle.

    my routine: Upper, Cardio, Lower, Cardio, Yoga, Rest.... start over.

    Depending on your recovery capacity and the intensity of your workouts, Your 'upper' day could be rest for your 'lower' day and vice versa.

    The point I'd like to add is make sure you're hitting your whole body.

    A good upper body workout should have at least one vertical push (ex overhead press) one vertical pull (ex pullups) one horizontal push (ex bench press) and one horizontal pull (ex rows). Also helpful would be one inverted push (ex dips) and one inverted pull (ex shrugs). I like doing arm stuff because I'm vain, but if you're pressed for time the stuff listed above should take priority. That's also not including stuff targetting smaller musculature (ex cuff work) for prehab/rehab or variations on the basic movement (ex DB movements instead of barbell to account for strength imbalances in the arms). This makes for a pretty darn long session to get through at once (I'm not saying you have to do all of this stuff, the big movements should be the bread and butter but you shouldn't out of hand disregard the other stuff).

    A good lower body workout should have a quad dominant exercise (ex Squats) and a hamstring dominant exercise (ex Deadlift). Other things that would be nice would be calf work (ex Calf Raises) and targeted lower back work if you didn't do that on your upper body day (ex Good Mornings). There's also ab work if you didn't do it on your upper body day (ex Ab Wheel). You also have the prehab/rehab and variation options, similar to those with upper body work. The other thing with lower body work that I've found helped me a lot is volume. Nothing upped my squat like doing lots and lots of squatting. I think lots of volume is important for leg work, particularly the squat side. That makes lower body day ALSO a potentially huge time sink.

    I love UL splits, but unfortunately I can only really do them when I have large blocks of time at the gym to dedicate to them. Since I don't I've modified my plans slightly. I basically do a similar thing to Gallow. Other folks do full body workouts, which can be useful particularly if you're a beginner (though I tend to think those should be supplemented with some accessory work, that's my own personal bias).

    Whatever you do make sure you get a complete workout over your training cycles, it'll help you in the long run.