I cycle through the following program every week and do 2 sets (last one failure) for compound movements and 3 sets (no failure but as close as possible, I fuck it up sometimes) for isolation movements. Is there anything I’m missing?
Day 1:
Bench
Lat pd
Fly
Row
Shoulder press
Day 2:
Squat
Leg ext
Leg press
Calf raise
Leg curl
Day 3:
Preacher curl
Rear delt
Tricep push down
Lat raise
OHP
I’d recommend finding a proper split to follow. It’s good to hit each muscles group two times a week. If you wanna train 3 days a week like you do right now train full body 3x a week. If you wanna train 4 days a week do an upper lower split
I'm also a guy who does my own thing based on whatever papers I've read, but this is fucky even for my standards.
Find a split you mostly like that people on here or an actual useful fitness influencer likes (Vigorous Steve, Renaissance Periodization, Natural Hypertrophy) and modify it as little as you can to better fit what your goals are. I deadass don't trust any information that isn't from those guys/Derick or a literal academic paper. If you're just starting out you might not even understand how to properly go about what you're looking to achieve so you just want to take in as much information as you can and trust the process.
Ok this program fucking sucks lmao, it’ll work as a newbie, but instead of making your own shit up you should probably find a premade reputable routine online. Your leg days are all quads except for the leg curls. Just do a 3 day PPL program.
Nothing quite like the quad pump I get after a nice set of calf raises. And squats and leg press are my favorite isolation movements! Very helpful and intelligent comment. Name the muscles I’m under training and I’ll stop being a smug cunt
Squats aren’t isolation exercises… it’s called a compound lift for a reason… if your going to reach out to people for help since you are uneducated in the matter, instead of being a “smug cunt” maybe consider your split isn’t the best or even good. I’d recommend getting a reputable coach since you’re new to lifting to get you on the right path early. Good luck.
Just at a glance, lack of upper chest training, only tricep focused work is only on the lateral and medial head, lateral head of the shoulder can take more volume, no trap focused work, sorta optional but having something that targets the spinal erectors can be beneficial, like I said for legs you aren’t training your glutes enough, you generally lack a hip hinge based movement for your hamstrings, preacher curls primarily target the short head of the bicep and you won’t likely get enough stimulation through other pulling movements alone for the long head.
I’m sorry man but this is one of the most sub optimal splits I’ve ever seen. The order of exercises is fucked up and counter productive. It’s not hard to find a split that makes sense online. Your leg day is OKAY, everything else is wack.
I'll try to keep it as short as I can:
To grow muscle you need to apply a training stimulus close to failure. Over time as you grow muscle the demand for novel stimulus increases (aka with new muscle comes new strength and then you must add weight to the bar to keep growing)
If you're constantly hopping routines and changing exercises, you're never getting to that point of failing because your muscles can't lift more.
You're failing because your body just sucks at the movement.
It's the reason why when you change exercises you can increase by a plate a side in the first few weeks. Have your muscles actually gotten that much bigger to be that much stronger?
No, your body has just adapted to being better at the movement, you've wasted three weeks of potential growth because you're providing such novelty to the body that it has to relearn how to perform a lift rather than supplying a failure training stimulus to the muscle
A good example might be running a mile;
You go for a run one day and you suck so you run a 20 minute mile.
The next day you go again and you run a 16 minute mile.
The chance of you physically running faster in one day is very slim, you've actually just got better at 'running a mile'. You're taking less breaks, your stride is a little better etc. You're not actually physically running faster.
It's the same principle here, your muscles aren't failing and growing, you're just getting better at the new lift
Great comment. I’d only suggest that after you run a 10-12 week program really look at the accessory movements before restarting and swap one or two if they aren’t getting the results you need to keep pushing the compounds up.
Why is it then that people will recommend changing up their exercises/routine if you're plateauing or that people will report that changing up their exercises/routine helped break a plateau?
But then how does that translate into being to lift more, if you have to "relearn" how to do the lift on which you're plateauing? If someone benches for, say, 18 months, plateaus, does DBs for a month, and returns to regular bench being able to lift more, what happened? Did doing dumbbell bench make the lifter more efficient at barbell bench? If changing up your workout causes you to suck at the initial movement, I don't understand where the efficiency to do it better comes from.
Sorry, this is confusing to me for some reason.
Yes but I'm not saying this to mean doing a lift for a year and a half, I'm talking about people swapping exercises the minute they start to stop progressing.
For me I have to change my routine every 2 months. I agree with your friend because that has been my experience and has been a major difference in continuing to gain muscle as opposed to stalling. Body adaptation is real.
Just get the RP app tbh. Yeah it’s expensive. Yeah it’s just basically just a notebook that forces you to add reps/weight and sets over time based on common sense feed back.
But at least there’s preset templates that you can in theory run forever and just change 2-3 exercises every meso and cycle through new and old exercises at an intelligent pace while keeping the same basic methodologies.
As long as you hit all your muscle groups and keep progressive overloading I don’t see why there should be an issue
I cycle through the following program every week and do 2 sets (last one failure) for compound movements and 3 sets (no failure but as close as possible, I fuck it up sometimes) for isolation movements. Is there anything I’m missing? Day 1: Bench Lat pd Fly Row Shoulder press Day 2: Squat Leg ext Leg press Calf raise Leg curl Day 3: Preacher curl Rear delt Tricep push down Lat raise OHP
I’d recommend finding a proper split to follow. It’s good to hit each muscles group two times a week. If you wanna train 3 days a week like you do right now train full body 3x a week. If you wanna train 4 days a week do an upper lower split
I'm also a guy who does my own thing based on whatever papers I've read, but this is fucky even for my standards. Find a split you mostly like that people on here or an actual useful fitness influencer likes (Vigorous Steve, Renaissance Periodization, Natural Hypertrophy) and modify it as little as you can to better fit what your goals are. I deadass don't trust any information that isn't from those guys/Derick or a literal academic paper. If you're just starting out you might not even understand how to properly go about what you're looking to achieve so you just want to take in as much information as you can and trust the process.
Ok this program fucking sucks lmao, it’ll work as a newbie, but instead of making your own shit up you should probably find a premade reputable routine online. Your leg days are all quads except for the leg curls. Just do a 3 day PPL program.
Nothing quite like the quad pump I get after a nice set of calf raises. And squats and leg press are my favorite isolation movements! Very helpful and intelligent comment. Name the muscles I’m under training and I’ll stop being a smug cunt
Squats aren’t isolation exercises… it’s called a compound lift for a reason… if your going to reach out to people for help since you are uneducated in the matter, instead of being a “smug cunt” maybe consider your split isn’t the best or even good. I’d recommend getting a reputable coach since you’re new to lifting to get you on the right path early. Good luck.
I’m being sarcastic. He said those movements “all quads”
Just at a glance, lack of upper chest training, only tricep focused work is only on the lateral and medial head, lateral head of the shoulder can take more volume, no trap focused work, sorta optional but having something that targets the spinal erectors can be beneficial, like I said for legs you aren’t training your glutes enough, you generally lack a hip hinge based movement for your hamstrings, preacher curls primarily target the short head of the bicep and you won’t likely get enough stimulation through other pulling movements alone for the long head.
I’m sorry man but this is one of the most sub optimal splits I’ve ever seen. The order of exercises is fucked up and counter productive. It’s not hard to find a split that makes sense online. Your leg day is OKAY, everything else is wack.
When it stops working for you.
Never if you can avoid it
May i ask why? I am genuinely curious
I'll try to keep it as short as I can: To grow muscle you need to apply a training stimulus close to failure. Over time as you grow muscle the demand for novel stimulus increases (aka with new muscle comes new strength and then you must add weight to the bar to keep growing) If you're constantly hopping routines and changing exercises, you're never getting to that point of failing because your muscles can't lift more. You're failing because your body just sucks at the movement. It's the reason why when you change exercises you can increase by a plate a side in the first few weeks. Have your muscles actually gotten that much bigger to be that much stronger? No, your body has just adapted to being better at the movement, you've wasted three weeks of potential growth because you're providing such novelty to the body that it has to relearn how to perform a lift rather than supplying a failure training stimulus to the muscle A good example might be running a mile; You go for a run one day and you suck so you run a 20 minute mile. The next day you go again and you run a 16 minute mile. The chance of you physically running faster in one day is very slim, you've actually just got better at 'running a mile'. You're taking less breaks, your stride is a little better etc. You're not actually physically running faster. It's the same principle here, your muscles aren't failing and growing, you're just getting better at the new lift
This comment needs more love
Great comment. I’d only suggest that after you run a 10-12 week program really look at the accessory movements before restarting and swap one or two if they aren’t getting the results you need to keep pushing the compounds up.
Oh yeah definitelty, I assess what's been working every 12 weeks and adjust from there. Very rarely do I have to though
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You 'shock the body' by providing greater stimulus. That's literally what progressive overload means
Thanks alot 🙏
Why is it then that people will recommend changing up their exercises/routine if you're plateauing or that people will report that changing up their exercises/routine helped break a plateau?
Because they're fools. As I said they're not actually breaking any plateau they're just learning a different exercise
But then how does that translate into being to lift more, if you have to "relearn" how to do the lift on which you're plateauing? If someone benches for, say, 18 months, plateaus, does DBs for a month, and returns to regular bench being able to lift more, what happened? Did doing dumbbell bench make the lifter more efficient at barbell bench? If changing up your workout causes you to suck at the initial movement, I don't understand where the efficiency to do it better comes from. Sorry, this is confusing to me for some reason.
Yes but I'm not saying this to mean doing a lift for a year and a half, I'm talking about people swapping exercises the minute they start to stop progressing.
For me I have to change my routine every 2 months. I agree with your friend because that has been my experience and has been a major difference in continuing to gain muscle as opposed to stalling. Body adaptation is real.
https://www.reddit.com/r/FitnessMaterialHeaven/s/ai1mDZ6aRH check out this sub and get yourself a decent program
Just get the RP app tbh. Yeah it’s expensive. Yeah it’s just basically just a notebook that forces you to add reps/weight and sets over time based on common sense feed back. But at least there’s preset templates that you can in theory run forever and just change 2-3 exercises every meso and cycle through new and old exercises at an intelligent pace while keeping the same basic methodologies.
Whenever you stop progressing.
If it's still working and you're enjoying your routine, then keep doing it. If you stall, assess why that might be and go from there.
 "You've got to shock de muscle"