What’s your gym routine?

[Agrande]

I do the classic 3 day split with some modifications (changing from barbell to dumbbells)

It’s been great and I’ve noticed lot of changes to my body 

what’s your routine?

[Jason Actualization]

I rotate between chest/back, legs, and arms, and have recently implemented HIIT on a stationary bike on "off" days.

The #1 thing, if I could go back in time 10 years to when I began lifting, that I would communicate to my younger self, is the importance of training volume. Essentially, the idea of muscle confusion and exposing your muscles to novel stimuli, is misleading, whereas what actually matters is how many sets, taken to or close to (within 1-2 reps of) failure. If you arrive at a point that you are no longer making the intended/desired progress, your total weekly training volume for a particular muscle group must simply increase.

For example, one set of bench press is enough to elicit a growth stimulus for a complete beginner, whereas someone who has been benching for 10 years, may need in excess of 10 sets to elicit a growth stimulus (of course there is nothing wrong with doing far less to simply maintain).

Ultimately, high volume training is the master key to hypertrophy.

[Yimpa]

I’ve been getting into yoga and stretching lately. I’ve retired from weight lifting long ago.

I love being flexible.

[sholomar]

Trap bar deadlifts, dumbbell bench presses, and pull ups (weighted) ... same form, same number of sets, very controlled lifting. Eventually I may integrate more stuff but I do all this at home and want to keep it simple or I will quit. What matters more is progressive overload (more reps or weights over time) logging what you do, and making it repeatable so you can track your progress. That, and focusing on basic compound movements rather than isolation exercises, and then of course your diet. Modest calorie surplus, ample protein intake, and anti-aging compounds to counteract the protein, namely glycine or collagen... 10 grams of glycine per day, or half a bag of aldi brand pork rinds.

Time between sets does not matter by the way. You should rest as long as needed to allow nervous system recovery. Given I do this at home and meditate or stretch between sets, the most important thing is getting the required number of sets done. 

Best advice to young lifters... use proper form, don't push for glory and destroy your joints because you want to show off to gym bros. Your only competition is yourself.  The essentric part of the rep is important.  Jason is right. You don't need "muscle confusion" ... that just complicates things because now it's harder to log your progress to see if you are achieving progressive overload.

Edited November 23, 2023 by sholomar

[The0Self]

7 hours ago, sholomar said:

Trap bar deadlifts, dumbbell bench presses, and pull ups (weighted) ... same form, same number of sets, very controlled lifting. Eventually I may integrate more stuff but I do all this at home and want to keep it simple or I will quit. What matters more is progressive overload (more reps or weights over time) logging what you do, and making it repeatable so you can track your progress.

True but if you don’t want to have a strange looking physique, or if you want an awesome aesthetic physique, you do need to directly hit each muscle. Take it from people with more experience — pull-ups will not build your biceps past the novice phase, deadlifts will not build your forearms or abs past the novice phase, db bp will not build your upper chest or triceps past the novice phase.

Eventually that routine will have your glutes, lower chest, and lats outpacing the rest of your body by quite a bit, unless you’re not going to failure in which case you’ll never get out of the novice phase anyway so you’ll have nothing to worry about but you won’t be very muscular.

[Carl-Richard]

I split it in 4: chest and triceps, back and biceps, shoulders, and legs. I'm a weird boy.

"Only shoulders?". No, it's more like an upper-body workout that focuses on shoulders. The muscles in your body are highly interconnected functionally speaking. Even on so-called "pull days", you're inevitably going to train muscles that you target on "push days". The body is not dichotomous. That said, you should try to work out all your muscles, and splitting it up can be helpful for that.

[Jannes]

Whole body once a week to keep my gains. 

[tranquillus]

On 11/18/2023 at 6:52 AM, Agrande said:

I do the classic 3 day split with some modifications (changing from barbell to dumbbells)

It’s been great and I’ve noticed lot of changes to my body 

what’s your routine?

Yoga (almost) everyday and weight training 3 days/week. Day1: triceps & chest, day2: biceps & back, day3: legs. I start each workout with 15 mins of cardio to warm up.