Looking for feedback on my upper body weight routine
dkeckley426
Posts: 5 Member
I am doing a four day split. Two days upper body; two days lower body. Each routine takes about 40 minutes with three sets including warmup.
pull-ups pull-ups
chin-ups first
(all three sets with rest in between).
Then, I do the following in groups in superset fashion so that I had proper rest by the time I cycled back to the first one in that group. These exercises are all done with dumbbells, except the obvious push-ups.
These exercises are:
bench press
chest fly
double pullover
(these three for pecs but also some deltoids, triceps, and biceps.)
biceps curls (biceps)
skull crushers (triceps)
one-arm shoulder press (deltoids)
single-arm lateral raise (lateral deltoids)
alternating front raise (anterior deltoids)
wide-grip upright row (lateral deltoids)
push-ups on knees (pecs, triceps, anterior deltoids). Working up to regular push-ups.
farmers carry
Should I add reverse flys for posterior deltoid? Also, it looks like I’m doing two exercises for lateral deltoids and two exercises for anterior deltoids (I adore these muscles). Is it too redundant? I don’t mind doing them. For my side lateral raises, my palms are facing down. I’ve also seen them done with palms facing out. What would you suggest? I do have resistance bands I’m missing something that would benefit from those (I used to do pull-aparts). I used to also do narrow grip press for triceps. Should I add this?
I use a website called weighttraining.guide which is such an awesome site. I’ll send you my lower leg program in a bit.
pull-ups pull-ups
chin-ups first
(all three sets with rest in between).
Then, I do the following in groups in superset fashion so that I had proper rest by the time I cycled back to the first one in that group. These exercises are all done with dumbbells, except the obvious push-ups.
These exercises are:
bench press
chest fly
double pullover
(these three for pecs but also some deltoids, triceps, and biceps.)
biceps curls (biceps)
skull crushers (triceps)
one-arm shoulder press (deltoids)
single-arm lateral raise (lateral deltoids)
alternating front raise (anterior deltoids)
wide-grip upright row (lateral deltoids)
push-ups on knees (pecs, triceps, anterior deltoids). Working up to regular push-ups.
farmers carry
Should I add reverse flys for posterior deltoid? Also, it looks like I’m doing two exercises for lateral deltoids and two exercises for anterior deltoids (I adore these muscles). Is it too redundant? I don’t mind doing them. For my side lateral raises, my palms are facing down. I’ve also seen them done with palms facing out. What would you suggest? I do have resistance bands I’m missing something that would benefit from those (I used to do pull-aparts). I used to also do narrow grip press for triceps. Should I add this?
I use a website called weighttraining.guide which is such an awesome site. I’ll send you my lower leg program in a bit.
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Replies
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Welcome.
Male/female? What are your goals?
When you say 4-day split do you mean four days total per week?
I don't know your goals yet, but there are a few things there that I personally wouldn't do. Again, could just be we have different goals.
1. When you say 3 sets including warmup, that means 2 working sets. You want to target 10-15 working sets per muscle group per week. So I wonder if that amounts to enough volume.
2. You don't have any rows, or pulldowns, for back. If you only have db's, you can do seal rows (laying chest down on bench with slight incline), or bent over one arm rows.
3. I wouldn't superset from a chest exercise into another chest exercise. If you've had a sufficiently hard working bench set, then you won't be rested enough for the fly's.
4. With your limited time, personally I'd do the shoulders and arms isolation work less frequently, to give more time and energy for the bigger exercises.
I find that bench and shoulder press does my front delts enough so I don't do anything additional for those. I do facepulls for the rear delts and upper back area, by putting some weight in the middle of a towel, wrapping the ends of the towel, and bending over.
I some times superset from skullcrusher immediately into close grip press with my EZ-bar. I can do more weight on the close grip, so exhausting with the skullcrusher first works there. Diamond pushups are great for tris too.
I don't do upright row. I've seen enough sources warning about shoulder issues doing that, and there are plenty of other shoulders options.0 -
Howdy! You'll get a million different interpretations on proper exercise order, volume, sets/reps etc. To whit, my thoughts (note I'm NOT a personal trainer, just a guy with a dozen years lifting experience):
One of the main ideas should drive you when setting up a lifting program: balance. You are already doing equal amounts of upper vs lower body, so major kudos there, too many lifters either neglect legs completely or give them just a passing glance. But your upper routine does feature far too much "mirror muscle" (what you see in the mirror) while neglecting the opposite. As in you have 4 chest but 1 back, along with multiple anterior delts but no posterior delts. You can get away with this for a bit, but over time this will cause the front muscles to become stronger, pulling your shoulders and spine forward even when resting, which at minimum results in improper posture and at worst severe pain and injury. (You are far from the first person to fall into this trap. Virtually every lifter does when starting out. Welcome to the club!)
How can we remedy this? The easiest method would be to remove your arm work and slap in more back work instead, along with replacing the upright rows with something rear delt related. I know, I know, doing curls and triceps stuff is fun, but if you work the compound chest/back exercises hard enough, the biceps/triceps will grow even without a single rep devoted to just them. (I read a professional bodybuilder once who said, "if you have energy to do a curl, you have energy to do a pullup instead" or words to that effect. Guy never did a single curl, but still had arms to die for. Ask yourself this: will I lift heavier doing a curl, or lifting my entire body with a pullup, or a heavy DB in a row?)
Including what you're already doing, these changes may look something like this:
Bench Press
DB Fly
DB Pullover
Pullup
DB Row
Inverted pullup (lie beneath a bench press bar, pull yourself to the bar)
Alternating front raise
Single-arm Lateral raise
Resistance band face pull
You can do these 9 exercises in superset format, 3 times around at working weight. Or do the 3 chest exercises as one superset, the 3 back as a second superset, the 3 shoulders as a third. Or mix and match the exercises to have 3 supersets, each one with a single chest/back/shoulder. If you still have time and are inclined, you can wrap things up with 2 sets of biceps curls and skull crushers.1 -
Female. Goals: Some fat loss (hard to say how many pounds since scales don’t distinguish fat from other weight loss, but let’s say five pounds), and I’m far more interested in muscular arms and shoulders than I am in having more leg definition. I think deltoids are my favorite muscle ever. I’m also lifting to combat bone mass loss (I’m 50 and post-menopausal) and to improve hormone profile, which lifting does.
Sorry, yes, four days of lifting a week. Two days upper body, two days lower body.
I mean I do a warmup. Then in total, for each exercise (which varies in the number of reps based on muscle worked and weight lifted — usually 10-15 reps) — I do three sets. So, for example, biceps curls, I do three sets, each set has 15 reps of lifting (right now, 15 pound dumbbells). The rep number varies somewhat as I try to lift to where I cannot lift that muscle anymore with proper form.
I was doing bent over one arm rows, but I didn’t like the way it made my lower back feel despite following proper form, so I started doing pull-ups, hoping then strengthening may make the rows more comfortable.
Thank you! I will look up all the moves you recommended and work on incorporating bent over rows. I’m still working out best way to move these exercises around so one group isn’t being worked right after the other.Retroguy2000 wrote: »Welcome.
Male/female? What are your goals?
When you say 4-day split do you mean four days total per week?
I don't know your goals yet, but there are a few things there that I personally wouldn't do. Again, could just be we have different goals.
1. When you say 3 sets including warmup
, that means 2 working sets. You want to target 10-15 working sets per muscle group per week. So I wonder if that amounts to enough volume.
3. You don't have any rows, or pulldowns, for back. If you only have db's, you can do seal rows (laying chest down on bench with slight incline), or bent over one arm rows.
4. I wouldn't superset from a chest exercise into another chest exercise. If you've had a sufficiently hard working bench set, then you won't be rested enough for the fly's.
5. With your limited time, personally I'd do the shoulders and arms isolation work less frequently, to give more time and energy for the bigger exercises.
I find that bench and shoulder press does my front delts enough so I don't do anything additional for those. I do facepulls for the rear delts and upper back area, by putting some weight in the middle of a towel, wrapping the ends of the towel, and bending over.
I some times superset from skullcrusher immediately into close grip press with my EZ-bar. I can do more weight on the close grip, so exhausting with the skullcrusher first works there. Diamond pushups are great for tris too.
I don't do upright row. I've seen enough sources warning about shoulder issues doing that, and there are plenty of other shoulders options.Retroguy2000 wrote: »Welcome.
Male/female? What are your goals?
When you say 4-day split do you mean four days total per week?
I don't know your goals yet, but there are a few things there that I personally wouldn't do. Again, could just be we have different goals.
1. When you say 3 sets including warmup, that means 2 working sets. You want to target 10-15 working sets per muscle group per week. So I wonder if that amounts to enough volume.
2. You don't have any rows, or pulldowns, for back. If you only have db's, you can do seal rows (laying chest down on bench with slight incline), or bent over one arm rows.
3. I wouldn't superset from a chest exercise into another chest exercise. If you've had a sufficiently hard working bench set, then you won't be rested enough for the fly's.
4. With your limited time, personally I'd do the shoulders and arms isolation work less frequently, to give more time and energy for the bigger exercises.
I find that bench and shoulder press does my front delts enough so I don't do anything additional for those. I do facepulls for the rear delts and upper back area, by putting some weight in the middle of a towel, wrapping the ends of the towel, and bending over.
I some times superset from skullcrusher immediately into close grip press with my EZ-bar. I can do more weight on the close grip, so exhausting with the skullcrusher first works there. Diamond pushups are great for tris too.
I don't do upright row. I've seen enough sources warning about shoulder issues doing that, and there are plenty of other shoulders options.
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This was exactly my concern though I didn’t think of it in terms of balancing my body, but I wondered if my only posterior deltoid work was getting done on the pull-up bar. I was wondering about adding reverse flys for that.
Okay, good point about the pull-ups. The bar was a very recent addition. My son had it installed, and a few weeks after I started lifting, I bought an assist band and started adding it to my routine.
Nice schedule. Okay, I don’t have a bench bar. I only have a sturdy plastic bench that can also sit upright. Hmmmm. I’m sure I can find something around here to use instead. I’ll see if I have a band I can use with my pull-up bar for the face pulls. If not, I can get that thing that holds into a closed door and use my bands. I have a small house, so my living room doubles as my gym. Pull-up bar is in the garage.Howdy! You'll get a million different interpretations on proper exercise order, volume, sets/reps etc. To whit, my thoughts (note I'm NOT a personal trainer, just a guy with a dozen years lifting experience):
One of the main ideas should drive you when setting up a lifting program: balance. You are already doing equal amounts of upper vs lower body, so major kudos there, too many lifters either neglect legs completely or give them just a passing glance. But your upper routine does feature far too much "mirror muscle" (what you see in the mirror) while neglecting the opposite. As in you have 4 chest but 1 back, along with multiple anterior delts but no posterior delts. You can get away with this for a bit, but over time this will cause the front muscles to become stronger, pulling your shoulders and spine forward even when resting, which at minimum results in improper posture and at worst severe pain and injury. (You are far from the first person to fall into this trap. Virtually every lifter does when starting out. Welcome to the club!)
How can we remedy this? The easiest method would be to remove your arm work and slap in more back work instead, along with replacing the upright rows with something rear delt related. I know, I know, doing curls and triceps stuff is fun, but if you work the compound chest/back exercises hard enough, the biceps/triceps will grow even without a single rep devoted to just them. (I read a professional bodybuilder once who said, "if you have energy to do a curl, you have energy to do a pullup instead" or words to that effect. Guy never did a single curl, but still had arms to die for. Ask yourself this: will I lift heavier doing a curl, or lifting my entire body with a pullup, or a heavy DB in a row?)
Including what you're already doing, these changes may look something like this:
Bench Press
DB Fly
DB Pullover
Pullup
DB Row
Inverted pullup (lie beneath a bench press bar, pull yourself to the bar)
Alternating front raise
Single-arm Lateral raise
Resistance band face pull
You can do these 9 exercises in superset format, 3 times around at working weight. Or do the 3 chest exercises as one superset, the 3 back as a second superset, the 3 shoulders as a third. Or mix and match the exercises to have 3 supersets, each one with a single chest/back/shoulder. If you still have time and are inclined, you can wrap things up with 2 sets of biceps curls and skull crushers.
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Nice goals. Do make sure you're getting plenty of protein, close to 1g per pound of lean body mass. It sounds like you're close to ideal weight so that's maybe 0.8g of your bodyweight. At least.dkeckley426 wrote: »Sorry, yes, four days of lifting a week. Two days upper body, two days lower body.
I mean I do a warmup. Then in total, for each exercise (which varies in the number of reps based on muscle worked and weight lifted — usually 10-15 reps) — I do three sets. So, for example, biceps curls, I do three sets, each set has 15 reps of lifting (right now, 15 pound dumbbells). The rep number varies somewhat as I try to lift to where I cannot lift that muscle anymore with proper form.
I was doing bent over one arm rows, but I didn’t like the way it made my lower back feel despite following proper form, so I started doing pull-ups, hoping then strengthening may make the rows more comfortable.
If you can do 3 sets of 15 of the same weight, you're probably ready to move up in weight, at least for the first working set. So long as you can do at least say 12 reps with the higher weight, stick with that for next set, otherwise drop to the previous weight for 15 reps. Next week try to add a rep, and so on.
I highly recommend you get an adjustable bench. Ideally you want one that can do decline, flat, 30 degrees, 45 degrees and 85-90 degrees.
If you're worried about your lower back, the seal rows I mentioned should work well. If you're feeling it doing bent over rows then I wonder about your form. You should be able to control the weight up and down. If you need to jerk it up for some momentum, or if you're twisting at all, yeah that'll cause some lower back and hips movement to assist, which you don't want. Maybe set up your camera to record yourself doing it, to see what's going on. Don't do it with a knee on a bench like some will show. Do it like this below. I'm careful with my lower back too, and I don't feel any issues this way. Many of the comments here say similar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-k0Z2piOk4 0 -
Thank you for protein recommendation. I have been more intentional. It’s really easy for me to eat vegetarian for the most part, except salmon, which I love, but I’ve been changing that up for a few weeks. My sources are generally eggs, chicken/turkey, salmon, shrimp, cottage cheese, yogurt, and whey protein powder. I prefer eating whole food, but after I lift, it’s so easy just to blend milk, protein powder, cinnamon, and ice and drink it without working my workouts around meals. I’ve found it easy to reach the 0.8 goal, so I was relieved about that.
It does take some tweaking for sure trying to get the right weights. I started writing down what I use, but now I generally remember, and I do try to progress. Sometimes my issue is my dumbbell range. Like I can do flys with 15 lbs, but I’m not yet able to do them at all with 20’s. I may be ready to go from 20 to 25 pound for chest presses, but I’m betting not yet. But I do need to change something at least (if just increase reps) or there won’t be change. Good reminder. I do know I started double pullovers at 8 lbs each, and now I’m at 12 lbs each. Hurrah.
Those seal rows look like a great option! And the video is very helpful! Thank you.Retroguy2000 wrote: »Nice goals. Do make sure you're getting plenty of protein, close to 1g per pound of lean body mass. It sounds like you're close to ideal weight so that's maybe 0.8g of your bodyweight. At least.
If you can do 3 sets of 15 of the same weight, you're probably ready to move up in weight, at least for the first working set. So long as you can do at least say 12 reps with the higher weight, stick with that for next set, otherwise drop to the previous weight for 15 reps. Next week try to add a rep, and so on.
I highly recommend you get an adjustable bench. Ideally you want one that can do decline, flat, 30 degrees, 45 degrees and 85-90 degrees.
If you're worried about your lower back, the seal rows I mentioned should work well. If you're feeling it doing bent over rows then I wonder about your form. You should be able to control the weight up and down. If you need to jerk it up for some momentum, or if you're twisting at all, yeah that'll cause some lower back and hips movement to assist, which you don't want. Maybe set up your camera to record yourself doing it, to see what's going on. Don't do it with a knee on a bench like some will show. Do it like this below. I'm careful with my lower back too, and I don't feel any issues this way. Many of the comments here say similar.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-k0Z2piOk4
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It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking the only way to advance in weight lifting is to either increase weight or increase reps. Increasing intensity while lifting has so many possibilities. If I want to improve my bench press, for example, I can do any of the following:
- Increase weight lifted per rep
- Increase number of reps per set
- Increase number of sets per day
- Increase number of days per week lifting (from hitting chest once per week to twice, for example)
- Increase time per rep (think push up fast, but take anywhere from 2-10 seconds to lower the weight)
- Add a 2-5 second pause per rep at the lowest point (lower to chest, pause while counting, push up, immediately start next rep)
- Perform a second chest exercise immediately before/after the bench press, done without rest between exercises
- Perform DB bench press one arm at a time (either with no weight in one hand, or with one arm holding the weight fully up and not moving while the other arm moves up and down for reps, then repeat for the other arm)
- Decrease mechanical advantage (the same weight feels harder doing incline bench than flat bench, even by changing just a couple degrees by say placing a wooden board or two beneath the head of the bench)
- Decrease time resting between sets
...and so on. This list is not comprehensive, meaning there are other ways you can make your workout harder, but you get the idea. So if you feel like you've mastered one weight but are not ready for the next heavier, rather than stressing about increasing the weight you can instead keep the current weight while picking one of the methods in this list to add to your routine. Please, do NOT try to add ALL of these ideas at once! Pick one at a time, try it for a workout, see if you like it, the next time try something else. Over time you can add multiple tricks at once, just take it slow to avoid injury.0
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