Upper/Lower split

richtra199 · August 2018

Hi,
I've been weight training about two months including 12 sessions with a personal trainer (power lifter background) after a year of starting from practically zero after stopping exercising for a few years, began walking , running, body weight exercises. I'm male 5' 7" late 40's and 155 lbs, skinny fat, I have made some physical improvements since I've done body weight exercises with pull ups especially being a great help for my back and arms although I've plateaued now at 3 sets of 10 at a miserable 5kg weighted.
I've now stopped all cardio except brisk walking a few times a week in order to gain weight, hoping to hit 165-170lbs , anyway after the long intro I'll get to the point, I'm currently doing a 4 day upper / lower split ( this suits me better than full body) but I find it hard to fit in all the movements on the upper body days within 90 mins , lower body days are coming in around 60 mins, I've started cutting some of the secondary movements for now to bring it down to 60 -75 mins, rest times are 2-3 mins which I do need to recover adequately. Any advice would be welcome, thanks

usmcmp · August 2018

Turn everything into supersets. That cuts out half of your breaks and a large chunk of transition time between exercises.

jeffjeff85 · August 2018

2-3 mins is quite a while between pressing. How many sets does that let you get in during 90 mins?

psuLemon · August 2018

OP, who designed your program? Is this self designed or did you find it online?

Personally, the way I design programs is incorporating supersets (like @usmcmp mentioned) but also depending on the rep range, I change the rest periods. If I am lifting 85% of 1RM for 3-5 sets, it's a 3-5 min rest; for reps 6-12, it would be 90-120 seconds; and anything over 12 reps, would be around 60-90. By using this method, I tend to hit each muscle group 2x in a workout with working sets around 6-10 per muscle group.

Keto_Vampire · August 2018

Yeah, same problem with upperbody only day; I tend to favor push-legs-pull-legs-repeat split due to the shear amount of upper body exercise variety I like including. Supersetting definitely helps too

richtra199 · August 2018

Hi all, thanks for the replies, it's a routine I got online which I switched around a bit after a while to try and lessen the time: weighted pull ups ( 3 sets x 10) , BB bench press ( 2 warm up sets then 3 x 12 working weight), BB row ( 1 warm up set then 3 x 12 working weight) , OH BB press ( 2 warm up sets then 3 x 12 working weight) , DB lateral raise 3 x 12, BB bicep curl 3 x 12, push ups 3 x 12, DB tricep ext 3 x 12
I have to take 3 min rest after each set of pull ups and OH BB press (working sets ) and 2 mins for all the others plus changing plates etc which I'm slow at , I think it's accumulation of fatigue as I'm only starting out, maybe the compound movements will cover me for now and I'll cut back on the secondary movements as mentioned until I'm more experienced, then super sets etc.

pbryd · August 2018

I wouldn't superset compound movements, it's too tiring to me.

Consider doing two upper routines, a push focused with a little back, and a back focused with a little push.

This will cut your exercises from 8 down to 5

Push focused

BB bench press
BB row
OH BB press
DB lateral raise
DB tricep

Pull focused

weighted pull ups
BB bench press
BB row
DB lateral raise
BB bicep

From9five · August 2018

I superset all my pushes with pulls ie. Bench press/pullup, shoulder press/row, incline bench/rear delt fly, skullcrusher/curl....etc.

richtra199 · August 2018

Thanks again for the replies, I think I've come a long way fitness wise from nothing, I'm now in a new domain where learning is key, the pull up for example I went from struggling to do 1 to doing 10 per set for body weight before i ever began weight training, now they are weighted it's like going back t o the beginning. I suppose the issue is i see myself as i am now and want to gain weight and muscle, instead i should see it as a progression from unfit to fit to gaining muscle and strength, sometimes i just see myself back at the start again and don't give myself credit for what I've done so far and for keeping going.

colors_fade · August 2018

pbryd wrote: »

I wouldn't superset compound movements, it's too tiring to me.

Consider doing two upper routines, a push focused with a little back, and a back focused with a little push.

This will cut your exercises from 8 down to 5

This. Follow this advice right here. Shift your primary focus on upper days and reduce the number of overall lifts.

I do a an upper/lower split because I don't care for the push/pull splits. Pbryd's suggestion is solid, but if ti were me I'd still do something different (bothers me to put bicep and tricep on different days; I prefer to work arms hard on one day and walk out of the gym with a good pump).

But in order to get all the upper body work in that I want to do, without spending 2 hours in the gym on upper body days, I had to modify my split, which is similar to what pbryd is suggesting.

Instead of four days per week for my total split, I go five. I have two lower body days, and then three uppers.

Two of the upper body days are chest/arms focused and the third is back/shoulder focused.

A decent split for you, if you still want to only go two upper body days, might be something like this:

Upper Day 1:

BB Bench
DB Fly/Pec Deck Machine
EZ Bar Skullcrushers
DB Bicep
Tricep Extension

Upper Day 2:

BB OHP
BB Row
Weighted Pull Ups
DB Side Lat Raises
Seated Cable Row/Lat Pulldown

Either way, the bottom line is the same: reduce the number of lifts and then make sure you're hitting all appropriate body parts during the week (preferably more than once, but if you're going to go only four days per week you do what you can).

Upper/Lower split

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