Really having trouble with my split

[Nakor]

I've done starting strength, 5x5, HST, and through these programs, put on 50 pounds and made great strength and size gains. I'm looking to try a split for the first time but I'm having some issues. Some things to keep in mind

-I prefer to train 3 days a week. It's what I've been doing and I have had great results with it.
-I've noticed my chest in particular responds much better to 2x a week training. This can be problematic with a 3 day split.
-My lower body stuff mainly consists of Squats, Front Squats, and Deads. I don't really see a reason to do much more.

Here is where I am now. Feel free to tear it apart.

Day 1: Push, Squats

Squats 5x5
Bench 5x5
Dips 3 to failure
Incline dumbells 3x10
Tris 3x10

Day 2: Pull

Deads 3x5
Rows 3x5
Chins 3 to failure
Bis

Day 3: Squats, Push

Squats 5x5
OHP 5x5
Close grip Bench 5x5
More shoulder work?

Obviously this is pretty rough. I would really appreciate any ideas, additions, changes, or comments you guys could give me.

 

[C0LUMB0]

I've done starting strength, 5x5, HST, and through these programs, put on 50 pounds and made great strength and size gains. I'm looking to try a split for the first time but I'm having some issues. Some things to keep in mind

-I prefer to train 3 days a week. It's what I've been doing and I have had great results with it.
-I've noticed my chest in particular responds much better to 2x a week training. This can be problematic with a 3 day split.
-My lower body stuff mainly consists of Squats, Front Squats, and Deads. I don't really see a reason to do much more.

Here is where I am now. Feel free to tear it apart.

Day 1: Push, Front Squats

Front Squats
Bench 5x5
Dips 2x8 do 3 sets to failure
Incline dumbells 3x5 do 3x10
Tris 3x10 skull crushers

Day 2: Pull

Deads 3x5
Rows 3x5
Chins 2x5 do 3 sets to failure
Bis alternating DB curls - good form and nice slow negative reps.

Day 3: Back Squats, Push

Squats 5x5
OHP 5x5
Some extra chest work? close grip bench 5x5More shoulder work? up right rows 3 x 10
Obviously this is pretty rough. I would really appreciate any ideas, additions, changes, or comments you guys could give me.

^^^^^^^ text in red.

 

[_cato_]

Why not do a full body on day 3, since you have a lower body lift on each of the other days. Ie. squat+1 push+1pull+maybe 1 other. Similar to the other routine you posted, you have a lot more pushing than pulling if you're going to do 2 days push vs 1 pull.

 

[Nakor]

^^^^^^^ text in red.

Thanks. I made the changes that you suggested. Only thing I didn't like were the upright rows. They're just an injury waiting to happen. Any other suggestions?

 

[Nakor]

Why not do a full body on day 3, since you have a lower body lift on each of the other days. Ie. squat+1 push+1pull+maybe 1 other. Similar to the other routine you posted, you have a lot more pushing than pulling if you're going to do 2 days push vs 1 pull.

I know I have much more push than pull but I really don't know what to do about it. I don't really do a whole lot pulling aside from the stuff I have on here already.

 

[_cato_]

I know I have much more push than pull but I really don't know what to do about it. I don't really do a whole lot pulling aside from the stuff I have on here already.

You can do whatever you want, I'm just curious why you keep making routines with roughly twice as much push as pull. It seems to me like you are basically trying to create your own 5x5 program cause you had success with that type of training, but also trying to turn it into a split (I guess just to try it out?). Because you're sticking lower body lifts on all three days you are pretty much making a 5x5 style routine with 2x as much push as pull. Full body push, full body pull, full body push is what you currently have. If that is consistent with your goals, then go ahead and do it.

If you're dead set on making one of these quasi-5x5/split routines, and you would rather it be more balanced, then just alternate between full body push and full body pull routines, whether there is just one or two different variations of each. This would be similar to alternating upper/lower.

Maybe add a fourth workout to rotate in with power cleans, stiff leg deads, chinups and a bi exercise (or something along those lines), or else repeat your pull day.

Otherwise what I was suggesting before was to do something like squat, overhead press, chinups for your day three, which would hit pushing and pulling muscles.

 

[Nakor]

You can do whatever you want, I'm just curious why you keep making routines with roughly twice as much push as pull. It seems to me like you are basically trying to create your own 5x5 program cause you had success with that type of training, but also trying to turn it into a split (I guess just to try it out?). Because you're sticking lower body lifts on all three days you are pretty much making a 5x5 style routine with 2x as much push as pull. Full body push, full body pull, full body push is what you currently have. If that is consistent with your goals, then go ahead and do it.

If you're dead set on making one of these quasi-5x5/split routines, and you would rather it be more balanced, then just alternate between full body push and full body pull routines, whether there is just one or two different variations of each. This would be similar to alternating upper/lower.

Maybe add a fourth workout to rotate in with power cleans, stiff leg deads, chinups and a bi exercise (or something along those lines), or else repeat your pull day.

Otherwise what I was suggesting before was to do something like squat, overhead press, chinups for your day three, which would hit pushing and pulling muscles.

Yea I guess that is what I'm trying to do. I've had all my success with 5x5 type programs and that's really all I know. I guess I don't really feel like I worked out unless I Squat or Deadlift, hence the reason for one of them being on each day. I guess my goals were to make a program similar to 5x5 but with more focus on size gains with stuff like incline and all my pushing stuff on one day. Don't know if that makes sense. Either way, I really appreciate your insight.

 

[_cato_]

Yea I guess that is what I'm trying to do. I've had all my success with 5x5 type programs and that's really all I know. I guess I don't really feel like I worked out unless I Squat or Deadlift, hence the reason for one of them being on each day. I guess my goals were to make a program similar to 5x5 but with more focus on size gains with stuff like incline and all my pushing stuff on one day. Don't know if that makes sense. Either way, I really appreciate your insight.

Based on what you said, if it was me, I think it makes the most sense to do something like 4 day full body push/full body pull rotation, and then repeat it on a 3 day or 4 day per week schedule. That way you can do a squat or deadlift variation every workout and still put in more volume to make it like a body part split, while still keeping it balanced. Start off with something like the following and see how you tolerate the volume, and then add or subtract from there.

Day 1: FBPush1 (horizontal pushing emphasis)

Squats 5x5
Bench 5x5
Incline dumbells 3x10
Tris 3x10 (skullcrusher/french press?)

Day 2: FBPull1 (horizontal pulling emphasis)

Deads 3x5 (or 5x5 if you're doing less than 400)
BB Rows 5x5
Chins 3 to failure or 3x8 weighted if you can do more than 10 at BW
Bis 3x10 (ez bar curl?)

Day 3: FBPush2 (vertical pushing emphasis

Front Squat 5x3
OHP 5x5
Close grip Bench 3x8
Tris 3x10 (cable vbar pushdown?)

Day 4: FBPull2 (vertical pulling emphasis)

BB SLDL/RDL 5x5
Pullups 5xfailure or add weight and do 5x5 if you can do 10+ BW
DB Row 3x8
Bi 3x10 (DB curl/hammer curl?)

Then you can do this as 3x/week: M-push1, W-pull1, F-push2, M-pull 2, W-push1, F-pull1, etc
or 4x/week: M-push1, W-pull1, F-push2, Sat-pull2, repeat

 

[_cato_]

I may have said this to you before (don't recall), but you've obviously made great progress with high frequency, 3 day a week stuff. I'd be pretty hesitant to change it up too much, unless you're really losing/have already lost motivation to train. I think ultimately that's the most important thing for most people.

 

[Nakor]

I may have said this to you before (don't recall), but you've obviously made great progress with high frequency, 3 day a week stuff. I'd be pretty hesitant to change it up too much, unless you're really losing/have already lost motivation to train. I think ultimately that's the most important thing for most people.

Thanks a lot for your help and insight. I was trying to change it up slightly but not too drastically (hence the quasi 5x5 body part split).

Be honest though, do you think I'm changing it up too much given my success with what I've been doing? I actually made my best gains doing HST but I felt like doing the program as it was written was holding back my strength gains (after a certain amount of time you're supposed to decondition and then scale back the weight and start ramping up again).

 

[_cato_]

Thanks a lot for your help and insight. I was trying to change it up slightly but not too drastically (hence the quasi 5x5 body part split).

Be honest though, do you think I'm changing it up too much given my success with what I've been doing? I actually made my best gains doing HST but I felt like doing the program as it was written was holding back my strength gains (after a certain amount of time you're supposed to decondition and then scale back the weight and start ramping up again).

A bit of a long winded response but...

I think it depends on what is most important to you: strength or size. Generally, it's better to focus on one thing or the other for a period of time than try to do both at the same time. That's not to say that there isn't a program that will work good for both, but over a period of say 16 weeks, you'll almost certainly get better results focusing on one for 8 weeks and then the other for 8 weeks, compared to the results you'd get from trying to mash a routine together to do both things.

You already know that HST gives you some pretty amazing results. Therefore, you know you respond very well to very high frequency, low volume per workout stimulus. You may be able to match or approach those results with a different program, but given that you gained 50 lbs (I'm assuming over the course of 1-2 years or something like that), you are very unlikely to exceed that with any program.

On the other hand if strength is your goal, you're probably better off doing 5x5, 5/3/1, westside, or some other strength focused program. By the way, I'm operating under the assumption that you are at intermediate strength levels and would be gaining 5-10 pounds per week on most or all of your lifts if you were doing a 5x5 right now. If not, then there may be actually a better suited strength geared program for you.

Personally, I think of these 3 day/week 2-way splits as being more of a hybrid between the two.

None of this is to necessarily say that you shouldn't do what you've been proposing here. Nothing wrong with trying something out even if the results are more or less suboptimal. It's not as if you won't make any progress on anything at all using those types of routines--far from it. Ultimately, if switching routine's up will keep you more interested in the gym, and therefore hitting it more consistently and with more focus, then go ahead and do it. Long term consistency is probably the most important thing as it relates to results over a period of years.

From a purely progress point of view, routine changes are probably best left to situations when you are at hard plateaus or your goals change (or in the case of having two goals of equal importance and you are switching between two routine's as a result).

As an aside, another option if lack of variety is a particular problem would be to do a 5x5 style routine with totally different lifts from whatever ones you've done in the past.

 

[stevesmi]

let me simplify it for you

1. push
2. pull
3. legs

 

[FlexManning]

If I was training 3 days a week- and I've done this at times in the past- I'd simply split it into upper/lower and alternate between the two. You mentioned your chest responding better to 2x/wk, and although that's not quite 2x/wk, you're never going a full week without training a given bodypart.

To do this and still utilize some of the push/pull concepts you might try jump sets with push/pull muscle groups, for instance alternating the bench press with the barbell row or chins with adequate rest between sets. When I started getting back into a regular routine I used a lot of the 5x5 concepts and jump/alternating sets. I added a little more work for hamstrings and some higher rep work for lower back with exercises such as the good morning and hypers, and gradually added some isolation work for a little bit more volume, leg curls for example.

If you decide at some point you want some pure density/hypertrophy work but want to stay within a simple 3x/week split It'd be a great idea to try some German volume training. Great way to to keep a workout quick and simple and gain.