Training Splits - How Do I fit Shoulders in?

[showstopper83]

I have always done Chest/Bi's, Back/Tri's and Legs... my chest and back days are too brutal and long to add shoulders in

Should i just do a 6 day, 4 w/o split with a Shoulder day thrown in there, or 5 w/o in 7 days, M & Thu Chest/Bi's, Tue & Fri Back, Wed Legs and Sat shoulders?

Am i good to make consistent gains working 1 body part every 6 days?

 

[qbkilla]

I prefer hitting each part 2x per week now days. Your likely limited in how much volume you can do and keeping intensity doing so few days

What I do now

Push, pull, legs, push, pull, legs, off

Add front and Side delts to push, rear to pull. If your doing 12 sets for chest, now you just do 6 on each push day. same volume, more frequency, can probably push more weight each set.

 

[alfresco]

With all due respect, this should be in the beginners forum. (Not a bad thing.)

 

[Capin]

I have always struggled with where to fit shoulders in too..
Normally I train
Monday chest & triceps
Wednesday Back and biceps
Friday Shoulders & triceps
Saturday legs
But lately I'm trying something different
Tuesday Chest, front delta & triceps
Thursday Back, rear & side delts & biceps
Saturday legs
It has always been the case for me the less I train the more I grow!

 

[showstopper83]

With all due respect, this should be in the beginners forum. (Not a bad thing.)

Usually when people start off with, "with all due respect", its followed by a disrespectful comment... which i dont mind, but you didnt even attempt to offer an answer. Just post Nazi'ing.

Im usually the most jacked person in my gym, have been training for 20+ years and forgotten more about this shit than most people.

There is no end all training split and different splits work for different people, me hitting 4x parts in 6 days has worked well in the past, i was trying to get feedback on how others do it to see if theres another way that may be more efficient.

If you have anything helpful to add, would be awesome.

 

[M@NU]

you could play around with something like the oldschool physique splits
Chest/Back - Off - Shoulder/Arms - Legs - Off - Repeat

 

[benchmstr]

Shoulders for me is the easy one to fit in…back is hard for me to fit in though

 

[alfresco]

Usually when people start off with, "with all due respect", its followed by a disrespectful comment... which i dont mind, but you didnt even attempt to offer an answer. Just post Nazi'ing.

Im usually the most jacked person in my gym, have been training for 20+ years and forgotten more about this shit than most people.

There is no end all training split and different splits work for different people, me hitting 4x parts in 6 days has worked well in the past, i was trying to get feedback on how others do it to see if theres another way that may be more efficient.

If you have anything helpful to add, would be awesome.

I did not mean to be a dickhead. I apologize. It was not my attention.
You sound like a stand-up guy just looking for a some suggestions. My bad.

There are so many ways to skin a cat (most useless, meaning you will get
the same results regardless), try using the search engine which is what
prompted my ‘beginner’ comment as we get so many of the same questions
and go round and round chasing our collective tail, most often just repeating
ourselves, rarely injecting anything new except, perhaps, PEDS.

You having worked out for 20 year and being (about) the biggest man in the gym,
I sincerely believe your shoulders are about as good as they are ever going to be,
tough pill to swallow I know and I doubt that finding that magical routine / exercise is
going to transform them to any noticeable degree (if at all), short of injecting oil
in your shoulders. My opinion but I am happy to be proven wrong . . . in anything.

Try 3X total body routine, 1 exercise per body part, ~ 2 sets to total / failure.
Failure like you have never experienced before . . . like a gun was to your head.
If you want / can to do another set, then you did not work hard enough on the
first one. This goes for all variations as well. Weekends off.

Or . . . split things up on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Do upper body one workout;
one isolation movement, one compound movement then take a day off. Do the
same for the lower body. Then take a day off. Weekends off.

Or . . . split things another way. Do legs on Monday, Chest and back on Wednesday,
shoulders and arms on Friday. Or, do all three on back to back days and take a day
off. (6 days a week does not sound like fun.)

Not saying this is what I currently do , just some examples from what little
experience I have.

Every 60 days take a week off. (Important.) Rest is as important as exercise.
And don’t get fat.

I could go on and on but to what value. You are a smart guy, you know the drill.

I hope you find what you are looking for.

 

[juggy38]

Why can you not do chest+ shoulders? JM trains tons of high level guys and his splits are almost always

chest/shoulders
Back
Arms
Legs Lifting 4-6x per week and recently he’s put out 2-3

chest/shoulders/reiceps
Legs
Back/biceps+rear delts

i can’t imagine why you’d need a whole day to shoulders, 2-3 sets incline work (incline bench on chest day solves this) and 6 sets of cable/dumbell/machine laterals) and 2/3rds of your delt is done for the day

 

[machomadness22]

I’m kinda weird on shoulders so I do it like this and I know you said you’re to fatigued on your back and chest days but I’ll do this:
Monday: chest and biceps front delts and presses really fatiguing the delts more
Tuesday: back, traps rear delts again really fatiguing the rear delts
Wednesday: legs and hammies calves
Thursday: arms
Friday:chest again
Do this for 2 weeks then I’ll do a schedule like this.

Monday chest
Tuesday back traps
Wed all legs
Thursday heavy shoulder training
Friday rest
Saturday chest

I rotate this schedule like I said I personally feel that this helps me build size and strength and helps prevent injury by adding a rest day in between chest and shoulders again.

 

[OuchThatHurts]

Usually when people start off with, "with all due respect", its followed by a disrespectful comment... which i dont mind, but you didnt even attempt to offer an answer. Just post Nazi'ing.

Im usually the most jacked person in my gym, have been training for 20+ years and forgotten more about this shit than most people.

There is no end all training split and different splits work for different people, me hitting 4x parts in 6 days has worked well in the past, i was trying to get feedback on how others do it to see if theres another way that may be more efficient.

If you have anything helpful to add, would be awesome.

This may be the most de-escalating response I've ever seen on this board! Measured, non-combative, respectful. Alfresco is an intelligent guy, I'm sure he meant no disrespect to you personally but you are correct 99% of the time about the, "with all due respect" and, "don't take this the wrong way but..." type comments. Moving on... shoulders.

You could split the shoulders. Chest days you're probably hitting front delts pretty hard, back days you're probably hitting rear delts fairly hard. If it were me, I would throw in just a couple sets on those days and add a pressing exercise or two to your leg days.

Chest day add upright dumbell rows with underhanded grip and overhand (or similar exercise that works for you)
Back day add seated bent over flys squeezing your real delts (or similar)
Leg day, add standing clean and press and standing lateral raises (or similar)

For me, that would kick the crap out of my shoulders while only adding 10-15 total sets per week to my existing routine.

 

[showstopper83]

I did not mean to be a dickhead. I apologize. It was not my attention.
You sound like a stand-up guy just looking for a some suggestions. My bad.

There are so many ways to skin a cat (most useless, meaning you will get
the same results regardless), try using the search engine which is what
prompted my ‘beginner’ comment as we get so many of the same questions
and go round and round chasing our collective tail, most often just repeating
ourselves, rarely injecting anything new except, perhaps, PEDS.

You having worked out for 20 year and being (about) the biggest man in the gym,
I sincerely believe your shoulders are about as good as they are ever going to be,
tough pill to swallow I know and I doubt that finding that magical routine / exercise is
going to transform them to any noticeable degree (if at all), short of injecting oil
in your shoulders. My opinion but I am happy to be proven wrong . . . in anything.

Try 3X total body routine, 1 exercise per body part, ~ 2 sets to total / failure.
Failure like you have never experienced before . . . like a gun was to your head.
If you want / can to do another set, then you did not work hard enough on the
first one. This goes for all variations as well. Weekends off.

Or . . . split things up on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Do upper body one workout;
one isolation movement, one compound movement then take a day off. Do the
same for the lower body. Then take a day off. Weekends off.

Or . . . split things another way. Do legs on Monday, Chest and back on Wednesday,
shoulders and arms on Friday. Or, do all three on back to back days and take a day
off. (6 days a week does not sound like fun.)

Not saying this is what I currently do , just some examples from what little
experience I have.

Every 60 days take a week off. (Important.) Rest is as important as exercise.
And don’t get fat.

I could go on and on but to what value. You are a smart guy, you know the drill.

I hope you find what you are looking for.

Appreciate the response, bro. Im not on the level of many even in here, just saying my question had more to do with curiousity of how others fit it in.

My shoulders arent special, but they look good enough for me to get away neglecting them, but i hate that i do that because we all know how much better we can all look when our shoulders are at their best!

What i am trying to do is find out IF there is a magic way to do shoulders AND get chest/back/arms 2x in a week... i still make progress on 4 parts in 6 days, like i said just seeing if there is a way to do more.

I even toyed with the idea of M/Thu Chest, Tue/Fri Back, Wed Legs and Sat Shoulders so I at least give shoulders 1 day a week... but 6 days in the gym is physically tough for me to recover from.

 

[alfresco]

Appreciate the response, bro. Im not on the level of many even in here, just saying my question had more to do with curiousity of how others fit it in.

My shoulders arent special, but they look good enough for me to get away neglecting them, but i hate that i do that because we all know how much better we can all look when our shoulders are at their best!

What i am trying to do is find out IF there is a magic way to do shoulders AND get chest/back/arms 2x in a week... i still make progress on 4 parts in 6 days, like i said just seeing if there is a way to do more.

I even toyed with the idea of M/Thu Chest, Tue/Fri Back, Wed Legs and Sat Shoulders so I at least give shoulders 1 day a week... but 6 days in the gym is physically tough for me to recover from.

Driving to gym this morning I got to thinking more about your shoulders.

One person, who being a mature bodybuilder, brought up his shoulders
was Hawkmoon and he even provided visual proof. He did not go into great
detail but I think he alluded to intensity of effort (my words). The is a before
and after foto on this forum somewhere. Remarkable.

If he sees this I hope he responds with some more detail. Or you might
want to PM him with your question. He is one of the nicest guy you could
ever meet, a great guy with loads of knowledge who has been in the game
a long time.

Hope this helps.

PS. Working out 6 days a week is a bunch. I don't know how you do it.
Most, if not all would make better progress on less. This being my opinion.
1 day a week per body part, dedicated to shoulders, especially as you
get older seems to me too little as some atrophy may be at play but I
don't know.

 

[thethinker48]

My Current Split:

Push (some type of heavy shoulder press+ high rep rear delt work)
Off
Pull
Off
Legs
Arms pump+Extra Delt pump (rear delt/side delt)
Off

 

[buck]

Shoulders get hit hard on back and chest days. And to have a day of there own could add to wearing them out of injuring them. Chest usually doesn't need as many sets as back as it is a much smaller body part. So incorporating shoulders into the chest day may be a good option. As the chest could get a few less sets as it will be hit some doing shoulders.

 

[TheOtherOne55]

these answers should be 1 sentence for this thread.

Depending on weaknesses, pair shoulders with chest or triceps.

 

[alfresco]

My Current Split:

Push (some type of heavy shoulder press+ high rep rear delt work)
Off
Pull
Off
Legs
Arms pump+Extra Delt pump (rear delt/side delt)
Off

Currently, I am doing a Mon, Wed, Fri routine . . . alternating upper
and lower body. I need a separate day just for my legs, they are bad
as I have not trained them hard in a long time because of covid and
a 6 weeks traveling in our van. Hiking everyday can only do so much.
I did lose 15 lbs while on the road (mostly all fat ) so that was a
good thing.

Back to the subject at hand:

So working shoulders in for showstopper83 3x per week could be doable
but not with a lot of exercises and sets but digging deep like Hawkmoon said
on a select few exercises might, and I say might cautiously because as you
know after training so many years of training, if it hasn't grown by now odds
are the growth won't be significant unless you had it before and lost it,
(this is where muscle memory is nothing short of a miracle, better than PEDS)
or you never had it and it will be a tough nut to crack, if 'crackable'. Would love
to see how all this plays out for him.

 

[Fa Seeshus]

I know this breaks all gym bro-science laws, but when I am doing a split with chest and shoulders on the same day, around half the time I do the shoulder Press stuff first. This way you aren't constantly dogging them.

I'll also often do rear delt stuff before back. Always putting shoulders last makes it harder to train them effectively IMHO.

 

[qbkilla]

I know this breaks all gym bro-science laws, but when I am doing a split with chest and shoulders on the same day, around half the time I do the shoulder Press stuff first. This way you aren't constantly dogging them.

I'll also often do rear delt stuff before back. Always putting shoulders last makes it harder to train them effectively IMHO.

I agree with this. The most common look I see in gyms is big chest and back with no delts. Not an attractive look. Good shoulders make any physique look good. A wide back and big pecs are a dime a dozen.

 

[showstopper83]

This may be the most de-escalating response I've ever seen on this board! Measured, non-combative, respectful. Alfresco is an intelligent guy, I'm sure he meant no disrespect to you personally but you are correct 99% of the time about the, "with all due respect" and, "don't take this the wrong way but..." type comments. Moving on... shoulders.

You could split the shoulders. Chest days you're probably hitting front delts pretty hard, back days you're probably hitting rear delts fairly hard. If it were me, I would throw in just a couple sets on those days and add a pressing exercise or two to your leg days.

Chest day add upright dumbell rows with underhanded grip and overhand (or similar exercise that works for you)
Back day add seated bent over flys squeezing your real delts (or similar)
Leg day, add standing clean and press and standing lateral raises (or similar)

For me, that would kick the crap out of my shoulders while only adding 10-15 total sets per week to my existing routine.

Thank you

Why can you not do chest+ shoulders? JM trains tons of high level guys and his splits are almost always

chest/shoulders
Back
Arms
Legs Lifting 4-6x per week and recently he’s put out 2-3

chest/shoulders/reiceps
Legs
Back/biceps+rear delts

i can’t imagine why you’d need a whole day to shoulders, 2-3 sets incline work (incline bench on chest day solves this) and 6 sets of cable/dumbell/machine laterals) and 2/3rds of your delt is done for the day

Its not that i CANT... its that i blast chest pretty hard, then finish with biceps and either my grip is gone or ive been in the gym for 3 hours, am out of time and need to go into work.