Fitness Question General Chat

[Legion]

I know there are a few qualified gym instructors and trainers on here, can you look at my workout below.

What, if anything, would you change in this 2 day upper/lower split?

Barbell Bench 3 x 8
Lat pull down 3 x 10
Seated shoulder press machine 3 x 10
Seated cable row 3 x10
DB Curl 3 x 10
——————————————
DB Lunge 4 x 8 each leg
Leg Press 3 x 10
DB Step Up 3 x 8 each leg
DB Romanian Deadlift 4 X 8
DB Bulgarian Split Squat 3 x 8 each leg

 

[Gemma]

Nothing, really. It looks fine.

 

[Legion]

Great to hear.

The leg day is more than enough for me. Would you add anything to upper day? Was thinking maybe rope pull down after curls?

 

[Janey]

You could add another isolation movement in there after the curls without any issue, although probably something like a tricep pushdown would be a more traditional accompaniment to a curl.

Really though, you could do an isolation movement for shoulders, lats, or whatever else if that's what you wanted.

Some people design their upper days so the body parts are hit with a compound and an isolation, but for time purposes, choices usually have to be made.

The only other thing I'd say is, assuming you've been doing your A and B workout 3-4 times a week, it might be an idea to write yourself another upper and lower set of workouts and rotate them in. To keep yourself sane and also stop hitting a wall as quickly, in terms of progressive overload.

For example, putting options below in brackets -

• Barbell Bench 3 x 8 (DB bench, or a machine press)
• lat pull down 3 x 10 (Pull-ups, assisted if necessary, or a pulldown with different grip variation)
• seated shoulder press machine 3x10 (Seated barbell or DB press)
• Seated cable row 3 x 10 (Chest-supported DB rows, BB row, inverted row)
• DB Curl 3 x 10 (Hammer curls, cable curls, whatever)

——————————————

• DB Lunge 4 x 8 each leg (Barbell reverse lunges, split squats)
• Leg Press 3 x 10 (Any compound squat or quad dominant trap bar dead)
• DB Step Up 3 x 8 each leg (Feel like a second single-leg movement here is a bit redundant tbh)
• DB Romanian Deadlift 4 x 8 (Barbell RDL, back extensions)
• DB Bulgarian Split Squat 3 x 8 each leg (Again it's a lot of single-leg volume, and similar enough movements. Maybe calves here for a change?)

On the lower day, I do wonder why there are three unilateral movements in there, but overall still fairly sane looking.

 

[Legion]

Thank you Janey, very detailed.

Another question, if hypertrophy is the goal, should adding more weight always be how to progress? Or is it better to focus on more reps at lower weight? I'm probably overthinking it, but no harm checking.

I'm only really beginning (about 8 months in) but I've been making progress I'm happy with by following something along the lines of this for most exercises:

• Lift something at 3 x 6.
• If/when I can comfortably do that, then up to 3 x 8.
• If/when I can comfortably do that, then up to 3 x 10.
• If/when I can comfortably do that, then up the weight and start again.

I've made good beginner progress in everything and I'm still fairly consistently moving up weight across the board - I'm at a point now 3 x 10s in whatever exercise are reassuringly difficult before upping weight and lowering reps - do I just continue as is?

 

[Janey]

This is a fine approach. Doing more of weight and/or reps over time is all that matters.

Once you're getting stronger, the main driver of hypertrophy will be eating enough.

 

[Legion]

OK good to know - thanks.

This is the 1st time I've been focusing on eating more - have been eating at a surplus for the last 3 weeks and slowly gaining. I've always found it easy to eat at a deficit when losing weight and eating healthily at a surplus is actually harder than I thought it'd be.

 

[EmmaDot]

Another question, if hypertrophy is the goal, should adding more weight always be how to progress? Or is it better to focus on more reps at lower weight? I'm probably overthinking it, but no harm checking.

You can progress multiple ways. For the best results the way I've always trained clients was by keeping the reps between 6-8 and once they could do 3 sets of 8, we'd increase the weight.

But it's perfectly ok to increase the reps until 15. Once you're over 15, you're not getting much hypertrophy

 

[Legion]

Yeah, that's similar alright - will stick with what I'm doing until it stops working or slows down in that case. Thanks.