Rest days during bulking phase

I'm 6'1" and bulking up to 220. I am at 206 now. I was doing chest and bis- back and tris - legs and shoulders. Calves with legs and abs every two days. That kinda burnt me out. I find a five day workout is better for healing and growing, especially if you do manual labor or are older like me. The 3 day routine is for professional body builders who can workout twice a day and do nothing else. Chest - back- shoulders- legs - bis and tris. You can work your muscles harder-push more weight when rested properly and heal (grow) faster. Abs every two days, lower and upper , unless too sore. Calves twice in the 5 days once they can handle what you throw at them. seated , donkey and standing . Been doing the 5 day plan for many years and it always seemed to work fine.

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MrM27 wrote: »

JohnRHII wrote: »

I'm 6'1" and bulking up to 220. I am at 206 now. I was doing chest and bis- back and tris - legs and shoulders. Calves with legs and abs every two days. That kinda burnt me out. I find a five day workout is better for healing and growing, especially if you do manual labor or are older like me. The 3 day routine is for professional body builders who can workout twice a day and do nothing else. Chest - back- shoulders- legs - bis and tris. You can work your muscles harder-push more weight when rested properly and heal (grow) faster. Abs every two days, lower and upper , unless too sore. Calves twice in the 5 days once they can handle what you throw at them. seated , donkey and standing . Been doing the 5 day plan for many years and it always seemed to work fine.

You're actually pretty wrong there. Twice a day, who told you that? Nothing better to do? Advanced bodybuilders actually do the bro splits you are recommending to a beginner. You have everything completely backwards.

So basically what I'm saying is I disagree with all of your advice.

LOL - but I agree with your disagreement.

What's your training split look like currently?

Dude as long as you're hitting your caloric needs "clean, not Burger King 3 times a day" with enough protein and carbs you're on the right track. With your training schedule/programme, I'd hit legs twice a week with a different compound lift for each session "as said, deads for say Tuesday, squats for Friday"

I was advised not to squat and dead in the same session because they are the two main compound lifts. You want to be on form and be able to put all of you're energy into both of these lifts, for example if you start with squat then move onto deads after, your deads will suffer "BIG TIME" if you have gone as hard as you can on squats.

On training these "compound lifts" and with bench aswell. I'd advise 5 sets of 5 reps progressively getting heavier "if you only manage 2 reps on your last set, you're doing it right" this is for targeting your strength gains, and then after drop the weight and go for 3 sets of 10 reps "of possible progressively getting heavier" and this will do the job for gaining size... Guessing you do want to get strong as well as big lol.

So for example for a chest day "bench";

5 reps of 85kg
5 reps of 90kg
5 reps of 95kg
5 reps of 100kg
2 reps of 110kg

10 reps of 65kg
10 of 70kg
10 of 70kg

Work to whatever you can do but give this a go, it is a brilliant way to train "your main/first lifts"
Peace

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Sounds like a deload is a good idea. I would say you're ok doing it that way as long as the load is lighter overall. You could simplify it even more and stick with the same sets and reps and just lessen the weight. Somewhere in the 50-70%.

leanmuscleway wrote: »

Thats great - i'll aim for that. And reduce calories also in view of not gaining more body fat than i have to? Or is it important to keep calories the same as my body is really supposed to be recovering during a lighter week?

Keep them the same.