- Feb 2, 2005
- 17,252
- 19
- 81
So I've been lifting consistently for about a year and 7 months now using a exercise program that I basically designed myself. This is the first time I've ever followed a program that explicitly did NOT have optimal muscle growth as it's primary goal. What I mean by that is that I didn't have getting the maximum results in the minimum amount of time in mind when I came up with it. I've done that before and gotten results with it, for a time.
What I didn't seem to be able to do is stick with it long term. I always seemed to burn out eventually and that lead to stopping altogether somewhere down the line. This time I went in thinking about sustainability. Every workout had to be as short and easy as I could possibly make it while still including all the major compound movements and leaving myself a path for advancement in every lift. To that end, I cut away every exercise that I thought was redundant when considering my goals. If something was covered by something else, I left it out. As an example, anterior and posterior deltoids are largely covered by bench press on chest day and rows on back day, so all I do for shoulders is flies and shrugs. The vast majority of isolation exercises are not part of my routine, except for the days that I work biceps and triceps, which are both very short workouts for me anyway. I don't work things like calves or abs anymore, mostly because I'm happy with my calves and I feel the heavier compound lifts hit abs pretty well. I greatly cut down the volume of my workouts, going for no more than 6-8 reps on basically everything. I also split everything up across 6 days with a single muscle group on each day.
It goes shoulders, back, chest, bis, tris, legs on most weeks, but I change it up to fit my schedule when necessary. The end result is that none of my weight lifting sessions are longer than 30 minutes, most are closer to 20 minutes, though I have to work out 6 days a week to get everything in.
I'm not pretending to think that this is optimal for muscle growth. I could probably benefit from more volume or muscle group per-week exercise frequency. What I lose in optimization I make up for in consistency though. Knowing that I can be finished in no more than 30 minutes means that no matter how tired or pressed for time I am, I have little excuse for missing a workout ever, and I pretty much don't. I have been focused on progressive overload from the beginning, consistently going up in weight week over week for a long long time now, and my results have been pretty great.
With all that said, I've been looking at ways that I could increase the frequency in each week that I work each muscle group without overly increasing the volume in each workout to the point that I will end up burning out on exercise again and quit. This is far more challenging than I first thought it would be. Ideally each workout can be no longer than 30 minutes from start to finish, and I'm looking for ways to make it happen. A lot of it would depend upon further paring down of the number of exercises that I do for each muscle group, mainly depending on some major compound lifts being "enough" because they'll be happening twice a week instead of just once.
One thought I had went something like:
Mon - Chest/back - flat bench, Bent over rows, deadlifts
Tues - Bis/tris - Straight bar curls, alternating dumbell curls, brain crushers
Wed - Legs/shoulders - Squats, lateral raises, shrugs
Thurs - Off
Fri - repeat mon
Sat - repeat tues
Sun - repeat wed
Seems simple enough. My only problem is that I lose a lot of flexibility with this workout routine. It has to be in pretty much exactly that order because I want that bis/tris day in between the day I do deadlifts and the day I do squats. I can't switch things around like I very often have to do presently on days that I'm pressed for time. That's going to result in increased missed workouts, which could hurt me in the long run. Also, while every workout might be able to be finished in 30 minutes, it'll be a considerable harder 30 minutes than I'm used to. I really don't want to dread stepping into the gym. That way also lies missed workouts and failure. I'm also reducing my chest work to nothing but flat bench pressing. I don't think that's a huge concern because bench is arguably the most important chest exercise anyway, and I've already proven that great results can be had with far less volume than I ever though possible previously. I'll also probably be making faster strength gains benching twice a week. More strength = more muscle most of the time, so I'm thinking it won't be a problem.
Are there any thoughts that ATH&F has on this subject? I really can't adequately describe how happy I am with the results I'm already getting, but I like to think about ways I could further optimize my routine.
What I didn't seem to be able to do is stick with it long term. I always seemed to burn out eventually and that lead to stopping altogether somewhere down the line. This time I went in thinking about sustainability. Every workout had to be as short and easy as I could possibly make it while still including all the major compound movements and leaving myself a path for advancement in every lift. To that end, I cut away every exercise that I thought was redundant when considering my goals. If something was covered by something else, I left it out. As an example, anterior and posterior deltoids are largely covered by bench press on chest day and rows on back day, so all I do for shoulders is flies and shrugs. The vast majority of isolation exercises are not part of my routine, except for the days that I work biceps and triceps, which are both very short workouts for me anyway. I don't work things like calves or abs anymore, mostly because I'm happy with my calves and I feel the heavier compound lifts hit abs pretty well. I greatly cut down the volume of my workouts, going for no more than 6-8 reps on basically everything. I also split everything up across 6 days with a single muscle group on each day.
It goes shoulders, back, chest, bis, tris, legs on most weeks, but I change it up to fit my schedule when necessary. The end result is that none of my weight lifting sessions are longer than 30 minutes, most are closer to 20 minutes, though I have to work out 6 days a week to get everything in.
I'm not pretending to think that this is optimal for muscle growth. I could probably benefit from more volume or muscle group per-week exercise frequency. What I lose in optimization I make up for in consistency though. Knowing that I can be finished in no more than 30 minutes means that no matter how tired or pressed for time I am, I have little excuse for missing a workout ever, and I pretty much don't. I have been focused on progressive overload from the beginning, consistently going up in weight week over week for a long long time now, and my results have been pretty great.
With all that said, I've been looking at ways that I could increase the frequency in each week that I work each muscle group without overly increasing the volume in each workout to the point that I will end up burning out on exercise again and quit. This is far more challenging than I first thought it would be. Ideally each workout can be no longer than 30 minutes from start to finish, and I'm looking for ways to make it happen. A lot of it would depend upon further paring down of the number of exercises that I do for each muscle group, mainly depending on some major compound lifts being "enough" because they'll be happening twice a week instead of just once.
One thought I had went something like:
Mon - Chest/back - flat bench, Bent over rows, deadlifts
Tues - Bis/tris - Straight bar curls, alternating dumbell curls, brain crushers
Wed - Legs/shoulders - Squats, lateral raises, shrugs
Thurs - Off
Fri - repeat mon
Sat - repeat tues
Sun - repeat wed
Seems simple enough. My only problem is that I lose a lot of flexibility with this workout routine. It has to be in pretty much exactly that order because I want that bis/tris day in between the day I do deadlifts and the day I do squats. I can't switch things around like I very often have to do presently on days that I'm pressed for time. That's going to result in increased missed workouts, which could hurt me in the long run. Also, while every workout might be able to be finished in 30 minutes, it'll be a considerable harder 30 minutes than I'm used to. I really don't want to dread stepping into the gym. That way also lies missed workouts and failure. I'm also reducing my chest work to nothing but flat bench pressing. I don't think that's a huge concern because bench is arguably the most important chest exercise anyway, and I've already proven that great results can be had with far less volume than I ever though possible previously. I'll also probably be making faster strength gains benching twice a week. More strength = more muscle most of the time, so I'm thinking it won't be a problem.
Are there any thoughts that ATH&F has on this subject? I really can't adequately describe how happy I am with the results I'm already getting, but I like to think about ways I could further optimize my routine.
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