What is your Workout Routine?

[Emrie]

Here's mine:

Monday:
Ab Machine 3x12
Squats 5x5
Deadilft 1x5

Tuesday:
Bench Press 5x5
Barbell Row 5x5

Wednesday:
Squats 3x12
Deadlift 1x12
Calves Machine 3x12

Thursday:
Bench Press 3x12
Barbell Row 3x12
Triceps Machine 3x12

Friday:
Sprinting

Saturdays and Sundays are rest days but I'm still typically very active. I go hiking, skiing, swimming, or any other activity, it's typically very low effort though.

I like this workout routine because I have big compound movements as well as isolated exercises and I think as a whole I train the entire body that way. Also switching between 5x5 and 3x12 allows me to work both for raw strength in the 5x5 as well as more volume in 3x12. And I also still have a sprint workout so it's not all about just big muscles, I do cardio to keep myself healthy.

What are y'all's workouts?

[Nilsi]

Either you're training way too lightly or you're overtraining with this schedule.

I follow Mike Mentzers HIT protocol, which are short, snappy, super intense workouts every 4-5 days.

Not saying I've got it all figured out, but you're definitely doing too much.

[Emrie]

Do you have any data to back that up? I hit every body part between 3 and 10 sets a week, I have only one cardio workout, and I never hit the same body part two days in a row. These are very standard numbers.

Personally I don't feel any pain, tiredness, or anything negative from this. And I see strength, muscle mass, and cardio improvements.

[Nilsi]

You're muscles won't recover that fast, that's just basic exercise science.

I guarantee you're not training at 100%, if you do so much volume (especially with stuff like squads and deadlifts - 48h is way too little rest).

Regardless of the gains you're making, you're leaving a lot on the plate with this kind of training (and this is definitely not sustainable).

Edited March 11, 2023 by Nilsi

[Jannes]

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

I follow Mike Mentzers HIT protocol, which are short, snappy, super intense workouts every 4-5 days.

From what I heard is that Mike Mentzer isn’t a representation of science as a whole when it comes to training. His minimalistic trainings philosophy is pretty unique. 

[Emrie]

Found this video on overtraining.

Very informative.

I've never heard anyone recommend more than 48h of recovery. Do you have any studies that could prove me wrong?

It's worth pointing I started with twice a week, then increased to three times a week, now four. Then I added the cardio. Over a course of two years. It felt right every step of the way. I give myself three minutes of break between sets if I complete them, five if not, and I get pretty close to failure, I'd say typically 1-3 reps left in the tank.

But thanks for your input, if I feel unhappy with my gains in the future, I'll look into potentially lowering how much I work out.

[Emrie]

3 minutes ago, Jannes said:

From what I heard is that Mike Mentzer isn’t a representation of science as a whole when it comes to training. His minimalistic trainings philosophy is pretty unique. 

Oh btw yeah I didn't mention at all. There's a lot of really interesting science on minimalistic training. You can get a lot out of very little and it's a super valid way of exercising for people who only want or can work out once every four or five days.

[Jannes]

You are missing side delta, biceps, hamstrings maybe (depends how much you hit it with one deadlift set), calves to little. 

Why do you have such small exercise selection, you would get more out of it if you changed things up. 

Have you mad good progress over the 2 years you have been training? Because the volume seems a little low for someone who trained (with good gains) for 2 years. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jannes]

2 minutes ago, Emrie said:

Oh btw yeah I didn't mention at all. There's a lot of really interesting science on minimalistic training. You can get a lot out of very little and it's a super valid way of exercising for people who only want or can work out once every four or five days.

Is this your approach with your training?

Do you have a source for it?

Doenst that mostly apply to newbies?

[Emrie]

7 minutes ago, Jannes said:

You are missing side delta, biceps, hamstrings maybe (depends how much you hit it with one deadlift set), calves to little. 

Why do you have such small exercise selection, you would get more out of it if you changed things up. 

Have you mad good progress over the 2 years you have been training? Because the volume seems a little low for someone who trained (with good gains) for 2 years. 

Actually this has been my main concern for the past few months, I'm definitely thinking I'm not hitting enough muscles.

I've had very good progress in the beginning but not as much any more. It'll definitely take me two or three times at a given weight before I can increase it.

I would argue that biceps are hit pretty well with the bench press and the barbell row, and hamstrings by the squats and deadlifts (I do two sets btw). But it might be worth adding some exercises specialized in them.

Thing is I can really only do ten total sets per workout otherwise it starts to get too long.

13 minutes ago, Jannes said:

Is this your approach with your training?

Do you have a source for it?

Doenst that mostly apply to newbies?

This is the video I saw regarding minimalistic training 

 

I guess that's been my approach yeah, even if unintentional. And yeah I'd say it doesn't work well for advanced trainees. But it's decent for newbies and intermediates.

I'd say I'm still a newbie.

[Jannes]

1 hour ago, Emrie said:

I've had very good progress in the beginning but not as much any more. It'll definitely take me two or three times at a given weight before I can increase it.

You are not a beginner anymore, congrats!

Quote

I would argue that biceps are hit pretty well with the bench press and the barbell row, and hamstrings by the squats and deadlifts (I do two sets btw). But it might be worth adding some exercises specialized in them.

Biceps are only hit by barbell rows. It will give you some growth for sure but not optimal growth. 
You don’t hit your hamstrings much with squats. You want to balance out your hamstring volume with your quad volume otherwise you will develope unbalances which lead to knee problems for example. Balancing out doenst mean 1:1 because the hamstrings don’t need a lot of volume to grow but a bit more is probably a good idea. How about you include some hamstring curls?  

Quote

Thing is I can really only do ten total sets per workout otherwise it starts to get too long.

You only have really tough exercises. If you switched to leg press at one of your squat days and to lat pulldowns on one of your rowing days you would free up some time. 
Biceps curls, hamstring curls, lateral raises.. are all exercises that can be done with little pause in between sets. 

Quote

This is the video I saw regarding minimalistic training 

 

I guess that's been my approach yeah, even if unintentional. And yeah I'd say it doesn't work well for advanced trainees. But it's decent for newbies and intermediates.

I'd say I'm still a newbie.

Very interesting. The 13 studies with untrained folks aren’t really saying much but the fact that 2 studies with advanced trainees shows the same results pretty cool. 
There are also genetic differences to consider. Some people get great gains with way way less volume then other people. 

I have been training once a week for maintenance for the last year. I wonder if I can keep my gains with one workout a week as it is said in the video with 1/9 of the volume. 
 

 

 

Edited March 11, 2023 by Jannes

[Emrie]

21 minutes ago, Jannes said:

You only have really tough exercises. If you switched to leg press at one of your squat days and to lat pulldowns on one of your rowing days you would free up some time. 
Biceps curls, hamstring curls, lateral raises.. are all exercises that can be done with little pause in between sets. 

Sounds good, I'll try these. And on these days I can do supersets where I'm doing two exercises at once back to back. What do you think of this?

Monday:
Ab Machine 4x12
Squats 5x5
Deadilft 1x5

Tuesday:
Bench Press 5x5
Barbell Row 5x5

Wednesday:
Leg Press & Calves Superset, 4x12 for each exercise
Hamstring Curl 4x12
Deadlift 1x12

Thursday:
Bench Press 3x12
Lat Pulldown & Bicep Curl Superset, 4x12
Triceps Machine & Lateral Raises Superset, 4x12

[player1995]

[Jannes]

2 hours ago, Emrie said:

Lat Pulldown & Bicep Curl Superset, 4x12

You also hit the biceps at Lat Pulldowns so your back won't get the best stimulus if your biceps are tired from the curls. So I would do a different superset with bicep curls. 

I would do lateral raises more than once a week because the shoulder can recover quickly. You didn't train the side delt before so 2 sets twice a week is fine as a starting point. 

Otherwise your workout looks good. 

[The0Self]

  Tue — Upper Speed

DB rotations with 10%1rm BP — 2x16+8external-only

 SS-circuit Band FP-PD-Row WU 2x25

Speed BP 9x3 3wide-med-close 1min (as fast and explosive as possible)

{

Optimal for all speed work:

32-39%1rm + 15-33%1rm (pref 25%) CHAINS (75 lb chain works with 225 all the way up to 500lb max, but the sweet spot is 25%1rm)

/alternate in 3 week blocks with/

50%1rm + 15-33%1rm (pref 25%) BANDS

  That is all but 100% optimized, on many levels.

The accommodating resistance (AR; band/chain) works against your acceleration allowing you to actually force the bar up without throwing it or injuring yourself — don’t do speed work without AR.

}

CGBP 5x10 (SS w/ SR)

Strict Row Axle Bar 5x10 162.5 max speed (rotste e3w w/ Inverted Row)

Chin 3x10 (SS w/ Lateral)

(SS) Lateral 3x12-20 seated

Tri Long head extension 3x10-20

 SS Band Curl 1o

Band FP-PD (facepull-pressdown superset) 3x20-35 2red (or doubled orange; elite fts)

 

 

 

  Wed — Lower Speed

Leg swings & bw SQ WU. SQ & GM 45x5

bw 45° back ext 15 or 25 rep sets

Chaotic SQ WU 25’s,35’s 2x10

Speed Box 13” 10x2 1min 55%+25%chain (violent)

2,2,2,2,2, 2,2,2,2,2.

Speed DL 2” deficit 6x2 :30 40%1rm + 25% chain

2,2, L-underhand 2,2, R 2,2.

GM 4x10-20

SS isolateral Calf 2x45+s or 2x10-25 2-1-2 tempo 25lb

SS Tibialis Anterior 2x15-35 double o loop, ecc

Hamstring Curl 3x10-20 tempo/ratcheted

 SS Quad Extension same reps & tempo (very slow eccentric at top; toes out)

  (vary toe positioning on both leg curl & ext)

 Calf treadmill WU

Calf 2x20+ (can SS w/ HLR)

HLR 3x2RIR (never skip; need traction since no Rev Hyper — try Belt SQ after BSS stall)

 Some kettlebell forearm work

GPP/restoration

Neck stretching/WU and 10 rep bw all 4 sides

  *** Full reps only, for neck! For now. ***

Neck Curl 4x25

SS Neck Extension 4x15

*** GS Forearm Curl (thumbless pronated EZ) or PPC 4x20

Neck Side 2x25

SS-last Neck Oblique 1x25

Vacuums 2x60s

Hand Openers 1w 1x150-200, 2w 2-4x50+

1w 150, 2w 76,76,76.

 

 

 

 

  Thur — Off completely (Mon and Sat are light off-day sessions)

 

 

 

 

  Fri — Max (ME) Upper

Rotator WU (BP 45x5, BP band/chain-only 1x5, then Rotator WU 10 lb 1x10, then…) 21 2x16+8ext-only

 SS Band FP-PD-Row WU o-o-r 2x25

Max BP pointer + reverse-green band (every single in ramp: max speed) — alternate 12 BP variations, chin, pull-up, and OHP.

CGBP middle 4x10 Sometimes use 70% bar wt of the max’s (65-70 if chain; 75-80 if band; 75-85 if rev band), keep the AR on, use same grip, go 2-3RIR for set 1, then do 4-5 sets across (ME-day-only) Maybe legs out (can SS with…)

SR Axle 4x10 162.5 max-speed elbow/scap-out OR IR Axle (alt e3w w/ Ring/Bar, and sometimes 3Barbell/Heavy/Cheat Row) 4x2RIR

  ** soon 5 sets CGBP & RowVar, for 24 total ER’s w/ other 3 set exercises, 2RIR, + 1 max ** (of course that’s assuming the first set dictates the RIR, but it very well may be true that for sets across, set 1 at 2RIR & set 4 at 0RIR may yield >12 ER’s… 2/2/1/0 may yield 15 — 6+ quality sets would be plenty)

DB 30° Inc Press 3x10-20 (SS w/ Pull-up)

Pull-up medium-wide bw 3x2RIR or 3x10 wt (3wk alt; before Dip and not SS’d if weighted — prob SS w/ SGHP, and then SS Dip w/ Curl)

Incline Curl 60-90° & Out & emphasis on midrange 4x8-15 30 (can SS w/ Lateral)

Lateral 4x12-20 seated (later 35lb partial, or a little heavier than the curls, prob 4 sets, but for now, starting next week or so, replace with heavy strapped trap builder; SGHP — can do the 3 SGHP SS’d after wt’d Pull-up, or maybe even just after GM on DE Lower

**45° Back Ext 2x25 bw (can SS w/ HLR)

HLR 2-3x2RIR (actually get 2RIR set 1, but only use perfect form, so it‘ll be much simpler than switching to half rep frog style!) (get ankle weights when exceeding 20 reps)

 Some kettlebell forearm work (include wrist curl/flexion and extension)

FP-PD 3x20-35 (later prob 4x25) (wide FP) 2r high to low wrapped (start w/ doubled o’s)

GPP/restoration — for now just 2 sets ea of: ***chaotic SQ 35’s or 45’s+PVC, band rev hyper, maybe band ham curl (moderate), band leg ext (light; tendons; 2x50+).

Calf 3 sets standing (on Fri & Mon/[or maybe Tue]; 3-5 sets + 2 sets LP Calf both Lower’s; slow tempo) 25lb

 SS Tibialis Anterior

Neck stretching/WU and 10 rep bw for all neck

Neck Curl 4x25

SS Neck Extension 4x25

***GS Forearm Curl or PPC 4x20

Neck Side 2x25

Neck Oblique 1x25

Some elbows-back curl / slide curl 1-2x8-25

Vacuums 2x45-60sec

Hand Openers (180 is prob max reps of any use if 2-3/s)

 

 

 

 

 

  Sun — Max Lower

WU: SQ, GM, & optional: 45° BE bw 15 reps, and (if cap ham at 3) ham curl 150x15 tempo

Max Back SQ (Rotate 6+ DL and 6+ SQ variations, never maxing more than once every 12wk with any one var)

BSS (split squat) left-front-first (alternate every week which leg goes in front first) 3x10-15 

 SS last w/ 5 GM WU reps at same weight

GM (good morning) 4x10-20 

SS Calf 2x15+,+1-3x, 2-1-2-1 tempo (a good variation of this is a 4-position ratchet) (pause at top not needed; time at least 1 set) 25lb plate in bag in backpack, use both hands to balance

GS SS Tibialis anterior 2x30+,+1-3x, slow eccentric

SR 5x10+ 155lb (don’t increase until past 600 DL) max explosive 10 reps 2min (occasional cable rows instead)

Hamstring Curl 3x10-20 (cap: 4 sets; 3 if did a set as WU) — very slow tempo/ratcheted

 SS Leg Extension (not always, but definitely today since only 3 BSS) (match wt/tempo/rep)

(Extensions with toes out mostly, but use all 3 positions on both leg curl and ext)

*** 45° BE (back extension) 2x15-25+ SS->

*** FP-PD orange 2x50+ (at least 3x/wk)

Calf WU: push treadmill with as much heal contact as possible 100 steps

Incline Curl 60-90° & Out & emphasis on midrange! 4-5x8-15 30 slow/tempo (pref 3 Inc + 2 high cable or elbow-back db or even machine curl — for contracted position max stim inclusion) (SS w/ calf & hlr)

Calf 2x10-20+ slow (2-1-2 tempo; probably same for ham curl; sometimes do ratcheted)

HLR 3x2RIR

 Some kettlebell forearm work

Neck (Fri/Sun/Tue, later MonORTue/Fri) (for now: Wed/Fri/SunOrMon)

*

Neck stretching/WU and 10 rep bw for all neck

Neck Curl 4x25

SS Neck Extension 4x15

***GS Forearm Curl or PPC 4x20

Neck Side 2x25

Neck Oblique 1x25

*

GPP/restoration

 *** o band quad ext if haven’t already — do at end of every session except for the day-prior’s to each main Lower session.

 Also: Knee joint traction with band!

Crushing — use a tennis ball, etc — every Sun; 2-5 sets; make/get a crush grip device soon

*** Chaotic Axle BP! (Protein synthesis elevation valley is mitigated by this as well as chaotic SQ on upper day) (muscles only grow up to 48h pwo so you have to hit them every 48h for optimal progress but most only get hit HARD 2x/wk)

Vacuums 2x45-60sec (4x/wk)

Hand Openers 3-5 sets (4x/wk)

 

 

 

 

Basically, maximum growth requires at least 5 sets, but you can only stimulate max growth every 72h, but unless you’re advanced you can stimulate near-max growth with 3 sets and do it more often like 4x/wk. All muscles should be hit 3x/wk at least but only 2 times should be hard… but neck, biceps, and lats do best with 3 hard sessions (4 direct sets per session each), and forearms, hands, abs, & calves do best with 4x/wk.

 

Need at least 12 sets/wk of horizontal pulling (primarily inverted row and strict row), which leaves up to 8 sets a week of vertical pulling, so as not to exceed 20/wk for rhomboids; lats; etc.

 

Not all sets are created equal though. The strongest training stimulus that can be recovered from is 5x20 on the back squat — both the recovery cost and muscle gain of this will likely eclipse even 10x10 GVT on a low-compressive implement such as the belt squat, and in fact WR holder Matt Wenning uses precisely that (10x10 belt sq) as a mini-deload the week after doing 5x20 back squat.

 

It took me over a decade (of basically doing Starting Strength for 2-4 months, stalling, quitting, and trying again within a year…) to find out what works best. My two best pieces of advice:

Don’t be dogmatic

Modify, don’t miss

 

 

Don’t do Starting Strength as written — it NEEDS more hamstring work (hamstring curls OR GHR, AND Good Morning), and external rotation (i.e. facepulls and db rotations). And when you graduate to intermediate, go to 5/3/1 or most-preferably Conjugate (the method I use and have illustrated here), not the Texas Method.

 

 

And calves take a bit of special work to get them to grow: train them on back to back days, and use very slow tempo to take the stretch reflex out — this is required for calves to grow as they’re the hardest muscle to get stronger (due primarily to their tendency to not be very detrained, since you walk with them all day) other than the spinal erectors (due primarily to their low vascularity). The easiest growing muscles are those of the neck since they’re so detrained in most people. Quads are also relatively easy since almost anything that works the glutes effectively also hits the quads effectively but you have to temper the volume on them because the stronger your hamstrings are relative to quads, the healthier your knees are.

Make sure you have structural balance — e.g. if you’re gripping bars all the time, you need to do some kind of rubber-band hand-opener exercise to train the extensors. This is to mitigate “the governor” — the body shuts off growth somewhat when an opposing muscle group is relatively weak, but also for overall structural integrity and joint and CT health; it’s important.

Edited March 16, 2023 by The0Self

[The0Self]

On 3/11/2023 at 7:31 AM, Nilsi said:

Either you're training way too lightly or you're overtraining with this schedule.

I follow Mike Mentzers HIT protocol, which are short, snappy, super intense workouts every 4-5 days.

Not saying I've got it all figured out, but you're definitely doing too much.

Mike Mentzer took 2g of nandrolone a week. His methods aren’t particularly scientific. I’m not saying don’t use them… but definitely research the science so you can fill in the gaps. Look at standard routines used by intermediate lifters. Conjugate and 5/3/1 are probably the most science-based. You see maximum adaptation (growth) with 10-20 hard sets (“hard” meaning <4RIR; within 3 reps from failure) per week per muscle, or 25 effective reps per session 2x/wk (spaced at least 72h apart) per muscle (the last 5 before hitting failure are effective reps) — and that has been shown in studies over and over.

He’s not even close to doing too much. Of course the 5x5 squat is a TON, at least for connective tissue and the spine, yes — but not necessarily too much… but besides the 5x5 squat? There’s not even that much. (Check out my routine above… if you want — it’s a very typical Conjugate template.) Certainly nothing that would qualify as “too much.” Scientifically, “too much”, in the context of optimized training, pretty much refers to more than 20 sets a week for a muscle, sometimes more than 10, because not all sets are created equal — 10 hard sets (per week) of back squats would probably almost be too much for most trainees, but 10 sets of belt squats, and certainly 10 sets (even 15-20) of reverse hyper, would almost certainly not be, because there’s no axial loading on those (in fact the reverse hyper has a powerful recovery component because it pulls the spine apart and reverses compression stress — which is why even 15-20 hard sets a week might not be too much).

You can stimulate max growth only once every 72 hours, but when you produce growth it only lasts for up to 48 hours post workout (the vast majority of the growth, anyway). But you don’t have to stimulate max growth to grow — for instance, you could stimulate max growth twice a week with 5-6 sets 2x/wk, but the weekly growth would be the same as that provided by 3 sets 4x/wk or 4 sets 3x/wk… stimulating a bit less than max growth but doing it more often… great for beginners since they’ll get nearly the same growth from 3-4 sets as they will from 5-6 in one session… But eventually as one gets more advanced they might need 5+ sets per session to grow at all.

A lot factors into it.

 

TL/DR:

The more work you do, the more you adapt, right up to the point where you can no longer recover from more work, at which point extra work results in less gains (however it’s not necessarily all for nothing, as doing tons of work does increase your work capacity, giving you more headroom in the future) — this point almost always occurs at 5-12 hard sets per session and 12-26 hard sets per week, per muscle… (though it depends on the muscle — delts, glutes, and triceps can handle more towards the top end of that range; biceps and lats more towards the lower end; quads can handle a bit more too, but there’s an issue with that as hamstrings need to be kept in lockstep ahead of quad strength, for knee health) — that’s just the recovery limit; you’re almost maxed out on gains by the time you’re at 10x limit-1RIR sets per week, or 12-16x 2-3RIR sets per week, and you’re past the point of diminishing returns even by 5-6 limit sets, or 10 sets at 2-3 reps in reserve, per week — and technically per muscle fiber, and not all exercises even hit the same exact fibers directly enough to fatigue them, so this complicates things a bit further, yet it’s relatively insignificant unless you’re chasing the last 2% of gains.

Training without injury or imbalance is a very complicated thing that requires dedicating your life to it to truly understand and apply — check out professionals like Matt Wenning, who has powerlifting world records and has never been injured (except for in a car accident that broke his legs before even starting to lift), and see what they have to say about training and you’ll be all set though, after a few hours.

I’ll assume you perhaps haven’t heard of the importance of keeping external rotators stronger than internal rotators, and hamstrings stronger than quadriceps, to decrease mileage on the knee and shoulder joint — that is a dire thing to fix if you’re not aware of that already. A lot of people neglect the tibialis anterior, hand extensors, and calf soleus too — other dangerous weaknesses… though the most concerning (and common, coincidentally) weaknesses are probably hamstrings, upper back (includes external rotators), and spinal erectors.

Edited March 16, 2023 by The0Self

[The0Self]

On 3/11/2023 at 11:34 AM, Emrie said:

Sounds good, I'll try these. And on these days I can do supersets where I'm doing two exercises at once back to back. What do you think of this?

Monday:
Ab Machine 4x12
Squats 5x5
Deadilft 1x5

Tuesday:
Bench Press 5x5
Barbell Row 5x5

Wednesday:
Leg Press & Calves Superset, 4x12 for each exercise
Hamstring Curl 4x12
Deadlift 1x12

Thursday:
Bench Press 3x12
Lat Pulldown & Bicep Curl Superset, 4x12
Triceps Machine & Lateral Raises Superset, 4x12

If you want to add more work or save time, you can SS the bench press with the rows. I would recommend doing strict (Pendlay) rows though — back still; scapulae apart at bottom (don’t maintain scapula retraction at bottom); as explosive as possible; for 10-15 reps, not 5. You can easily do 5 sets of 10-15 with strict row because of its very good stimulus to fatigue ratio.

The advent of the stimulus to fatigue ratio has revolutionized training. Adaptation is stimulus minus fatigue. Every exercise or training modality provides some amount of stimulus and some amount of fatigue. So it stands to reason you want as much stimulus and as little fatigue as possible. Examples of exercises with bad s/f: deadlifts, wide grip bench press. Examples of exercises with good (high) s/f, which I therefore highly recommend: close-grip bench press, strict row, inverted row, good morning, facepull, reverse hyper, isolateral leg press, Bulgarian split squat, 45° back extension, hamstring curl, glute ham raise.

Until you get very strong, the fatigue doesn’t really matter — certainly not as much as the stimulus. So even though standard barbell back squats have a pretty bad stimulus/fatigue ratio, the stimulus is so high it doesn’t really matter. However, the deadlift has such a poor ratio that even novices should be wary of using it more than once a week. A novice can get away with squats twice or sometimes even thrice a week for a while, but that’s not so for deadlifts.

The supersets you listed all look fine except the lat pull-down and bicep curl — my suggestion for better options: lat pull-down SS w/ lateral, and tricep machine ss w/ bicep curl.

And I would do the hamstring curl on both lower body days.

And you really want to spread each lower and upper 72h from themselves, respectively — which could be accomplished by moving your Wed & Thu, to Thu & Fri, respectively.

And don’t begin a session with abs — do them at the end. You don’t want fatigued abs on squats. That’s the most glaring issue I see.

And you might want to restrict deadlift to 1x/wk, and you might want to do 1-3” deficit deadlifts, as the deadlift is only a partial ROM for all the muscles involved and it has a really…quite bad stimulus to fatigue ratio. I only use deadlifts for max work and speed work, and even then it’s almost always deficit or snatch grip, so as to be less of a partial movement. I would omit the 1x12 deadlift and do both 3 sets of good mornings and 3 sets of hamstring curls that day. And instead of one top set of 1x5 on the DL, I’d do 6x2 (6 doubles) as explosively as possible with 30 seconds rest between sets, with 65%1rm or 50%1rm + 75lb of chains or even band tension if your gym has hooks for bands at the deadlift station. Bands are super cheap and very useful.

Make sure you rotate grip-width, stance, exercise substitutions, etc occasionally on everything, to avoid overuse and increase the range of muscle fibers being trained maximally. Though most pressing should be close grip and most squatting should be wide stance.

Also, all benching and no OHP has long been thought to be a bit of a no-no… but really the reason why that often causes problems is the fact that benching works internal rotators while OHP works external rotators… You don’t want internal rotators to overpower external rotators — it’s very bad for the shoulders. However, the OHP doesn’t even work the external rotators that well anyway, so you don’t need them, but you DO need to find a way to work the external rotators somehow! I recommend both facepulls (necessary; 3-5 sets of 20+ reps, preferably twice a week), and also lying dumbell internal-external rotations (optional; with about 10%1rm BP, for 2-3 sets of 8-16 reps, perhaps with some external-only reps tacked on at the end).

Otherwise, not bad at all. Good job! ? 

Edited March 16, 2023 by The0Self

[Michal__]

Try Bulgarian lite for a month. 

 

[The0Self]

8 hours ago, Michal__ said:

Try Bulgarian lite for a month. 

 

From what I understand it’s just like the opening set of ME day on Conjugate (<5% of the Conjugate program’s total volume), but that’s all you do, and you do it every day (or almost every day) instead of twice a week. Not super balanced, but it definitely works very well in phases brief enough (7 days to 14 days max) to circumvent the immense detraining that will ensue after 3-5 weeks or so.

It can break plateaus, but on conjugate that’s a moot point because plateaus technically aren’t possible on that program, since any time a stall happens, you swap that exercise for a detrained exercise so that the focus becomes the low hanging fruit of detrained muscle fibers, while the overworked fibers recover. That is, unless you’re cutting fat so quickly that a plateau/stall is guaranteed — though even then you can still make progress or maintain on exercises, since they’re never allowed to get too far from detrained status, but if cutting quickly enough, the best you can hope for on any program is controlled reversal of progressive overload on exercises positively affected mechanically by bodyfat itself (mainly pressing), and maintenance on exercises that aren’t negatively affected by bodyfat loss itself (particularly hip hinges). But a calorie deficit wouldn’t be the time to do Bulgarian lite anyway.

So I would strongly recommend against doing Bulgarian lite for more than 14 days.

Edited March 17, 2023 by The0Self

[Michal__]

3 hours ago, The0Self said:

From what I understand it’s just like the opening set of ME day on Conjugate (<5% of the Conjugate program’s total volume), but that’s all you do, and you do it every day (or almost every day) instead of twice a week. Not super balanced, but it definitely works very well in phases brief enough (7 days to 14 days max) to circumvent the immense detraining that will ensue after 3-5 weeks or so.

It can break plateaus, but on conjugate that’s a moot point because plateaus technically aren’t possible on that program, since any time a stall happens, you swap that exercise for a detrained exercise so that the focus becomes the low hanging fruit of detrained muscle fibers, while the overworked fibers recover. That is, unless you’re cutting fat so quickly that a plateau/stall is guaranteed — though even then you can still make progress or maintain on exercises, since they’re never allowed to get too far from detrained status, but if cutting quickly enough, the best you can hope for on any program is controlled reversal of progressive overload on exercises positively affected mechanically by bodyfat itself (mainly pressing), and maintenance on exercises that aren’t negatively affected by bodyfat loss itself (particularly hip hinges). But a calorie deficit wouldn’t be the time to do Bulgarian lite anyway.

So I would strongly recommend against doing Bulgarian lite for more than 14 days.

I am not that familiar with Conjugate but Bulgarian lite is basically:

choose an exercise that is does not put too much strain on the lower back (eg. RDL instead of DL) -> do a few warmup sets, one all out set (does not matter if its 1 RM or 10 RM) -> increase weight or reps the next day -> do that until you plateau, which typically takes 1 - 2 weeks -> either do a slightly different variation of the exercise you have done before (like RDLs with bands+weight after normal RDLs) or a different exercise altogether -> repeat.

No, you wont overtrain if you are in not calorie deficit and listen to your body. And yes, you can do it year round without risking injury.

I have done it for a year straight with zero side effects.  And more gains on all my pulls, pushes and leg work that on any other program ever in my life. Size gains were pretty impressive too.

But deciding what exercise you are going to do next definitely requires a lot of planning compared to more conventional programs.

The key to making it work is

a) dont be in a deficit

b) listen to your body

c) switch up slight variations

d) dont forget to target all muscles year round.

Changing the exercise every time you get stuck. Typically 1 - 2 weeks for me. 

During that year I experienced close to zero plateaus despite already being past intermediate.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Michal__