Training Styles: Push Pull Methods?

[danieltx]

Daniel, is this 6 sessions per week or is what you outlined above over a longer period of time?

Depends on what part of the year I'm in.

At the peak of growing last year I was training every other day given the strain of tons of food, growing, lifting crazy heavy, etc. Now that I'm dieting and my weight is down, not lifting as crazy, I've been doing 4 or 5 on before taking a day off.

 

[jeroendebleser]

That’s almost exactly what I do, except I can’t recover from 6 days a week so I don

Pull
Push
Legs
Off......this gives my lower back a rest if pull day had rack dead’s or heavy BOR.

And to the OP. QUIT worrying about the most optimal split. Fun fact, there isn’t one. All things will work for a little bit, then they won’t. Then you change it up.

pick a split/style that YOU enjoy most. One you BELIEVE in. That’s the secret. Then, you train with brutality. Push beyond previous efforts than yesterday.

say you had John meadows build you a split perfectly for your lagging body parts and perfect volumes, but you hate the split and exercises. You give 75% in the gym. OR you pick a split that every time you walk in the gym you have a drive, malice in your heart, and on a fucking warpath. Even if the second split is less optimal, it will bring you so much more results.

so as long as your split isn’t fucking stupid, it’s fine. Because even the perfect program will eventually run out of gas, and you will have to change things up. My favorites....

pull, push, legs. Fortitude training, and the old school DC 2-way split EOD.

Very true and what I've always said about training as well: pick something you enjoy since enthusiasm is what will drive up the intensity. Just don't pick something that for whatever reason really doesn't work for you and you're about as good to go as you can be

For me that is a bro-split-deluxe training 7 days a week with even traps and calves having their own day. I like being fresh for every single body part so this is what works for me but I certainly don't expect it to work for everyone else.

 

[aussiebulldog]

I am doing the Dante split for older..
chest, one r/p set triceps
biceps, rear delts
legs
off
shoulders , triceps
back, one set r/p biceps
off

 

[xpoc]

You went from training 3 days to 4, it could be better or not, in the end what matters is the balance between hard training and recovery. More division and training days allows more focus on each individual muscle, but less recovery.



Dedicating the same volume to biceps training as quads seems utterly stupid.

Think about it this way....which is more taxing?

Quads (weekly)

Only listed here are the working sets, not the warm up or prep sets

3 sets of leg press
3 sets of squats
3 sets of hack squats
3 sets of smith machine lunges
*i dont count the warm up sets on leg extensions

that is my typical weekly quad exercises

Biceps (weekly)

3 sets of standing DB curls
3 sets of pinwheel curls
3 sets of incline DB curls
3 sets of rope cable curls
*biceps do not need warm up sets cuz they are trained after back

Although the number of total sets is the same, look at the effort it takes to train quads vs biceps. Then on leg day throw in some type of deadlift (3 sets of RDL and 3 sets of conventional DL) along with 2 different types of hammy curls.

Are you suggesting that it is utterly stupid because there is not enough volume for quads or too much volume for biceps?

 

[xpoc]

You went from training 3 days to 4, it could be better or not, in the end what matters is the balance between hard training and recovery. More division and training days allows more focus on each individual muscle, but less recovery.



Dedicating the same volume to biceps training as quads seems utterly stupid.

BTW since you are counting all volume as being the same... the DC program prescribes MORE weekly "sets" for biceps (if you also include the hammer curls etc. he has listed as forearms) than he does for quads. Do you believe the DC split is also utterly stupid?

 

[m314]

For the guys who do pus/pull/legs 5-6 day routine every week, how many sets do you do per muscle? Also where do you stick your ab workout in there? It seems like you would be in the gym two hours on lifting days.I need time to rest in between sets.

I do 30 sets per day 5 days a week, upper body on M/W/F and lower body on Tuesday/Thursday. I do 4 to 6 sets of abs at the end of every workout, plus they get hit indirectly with compound lifts like squats and deadlifts.

Progressive overload and size can come from adding weight, adding volume, or shortening your rest periods. I do one set every 2 minutes I'm in the gym, so I'm out in 60 minutes. This is great for hypertrophy even if it means not lifting as heavy as I would with longer rest periods.

 

[jaxino]

Low volume High intensity.

I like a lot:
Push (no arms)
Pull (no arms)
Arms (bi-tri)
Legs
-rest-
*repeat*

The arm day is basically almost a rest day.

 

[Dugbet]

Are you suggesting that it is utterly stupid because there is not enough volume for quads or too much volume for biceps?

I think the volume for the quads is fine, for the biceps it is too much. 5-6 sets is enough.

 

[Dugbet]

BTW since you are counting all volume as being the same... the DC program prescribes MORE weekly "sets" for biceps (if you also include the hammer curls etc. he has listed as forearms) than he does for quads. Do you believe the DC split is also utterly stupid?

You said the following:

I think God made our bodies this way to handle 2 exercises per muscle group LOL

I'm assuming you're talking about doing 2 exercises per muscle with the same number of sets. It doesn't make sense to me, exhausting small muscles requires less time, work and energy than exhausting larger muscles.

Also big muscles such as back and quads have more divisions or muscle areas (and therefore, you can do more machines, angles and different movements) than small muscles such as biceps, calves or deltoids

 

[Tank4411]

I found when I stuck to like 35 lb dumbells and below for bicep work but focusing on a slow negative and explosive positive my arms got much bigger with much less tendinitis than they ever did trying to train them heavier. I do however still train triceps quite heavy and with some lower reps

I could not agree more... every time I start lifting heavy on bicep movements boom tendonitis!!!

 

[comedycentral]

Day 1
Chest shoulders arms

Day 3
Back legs

Day 5
Shoulder chest tri

Day 7
Back traps biceps and sled pull.

 

[benchmstr]

For the guys who do pus/pull/legs 5-6 day routine every week, how many sets do you do per muscle? Also where do you stick your ab workout in there? It seems like you would be in the gym two hours on lifting days.I need time to rest in between sets.

I’m actually doing PPL right now.

stop counting sets...period..stop when your done! I don’t know how people haven’t figured that out..there is no magic number. Also, no magic number of exercises!

I do my lifting in the morning, and assault bike and abs when I get home from work..

 

[inoverdrive]

I do abs and calves every workout

HH what does your sets and reps look like for abs and calves. Also it is weird but I used to have some good solid decent calves then it seems like within a year they disappeared lol

 

[heavyhitter]

HH what does your sets and reps look like for abs and calves. Also it is weird but I used to have some good solid decent calves then it seems like within a year they disappeared lol

I do my first set of calves dc style. I then do 1 more straight set after that and I superset both sets with banded tib raises or leg press tib presses. Abs I just pick one exercise and do 2 sets to failure. And sounds like maybe you have an injury or spinal compression that’s causing some nerve impingement that could be leading to your calves shrinking. I believe this is what happened to Dennis wolf

 

[beans]

Due to time constraints I do ppl. Movements in this order
Push is 3 chest, 3 delt, 2 tricep
Pull is 2-3 bicep(3 if straight sets, 2 if dropsets implemented) 4-5 back
Legs are 3 quad, 2 hams, 2 calves.
Sets are usually top set back off so 2 sets. though I do have rp and cluster on some movements.
After prep, I'm going to really evaluate my training and weak points.

Any guys doing ppl 2x a week? When doing that did you guys decrease volume of each session?

 

[N.L....M.....]

If a person is consistent and can recover then I don’t think any program or routine is best. I believe it comes down to personal preference. They all work. Everything becomes popular is phases. There’s no best routine as long as the programming is intelligent.

 

[N.L....M.....]

Due to time constraints I do ppl. Movements in this order
Push is 3 chest, 3 delt, 2 tricep
Pull is 2-3 bicep(3 if straight sets, 2 if dropsets implemented) 4-5 back
Legs are 3 quad, 2 hams, 2 calves.
Sets are usually top set back off so 2 sets. though I do have rp and cluster on some movements.
After prep, I'm going to really evaluate my training and weak points.

Any guys doing ppl 2x a week? When doing that did you guys decrease volume of each session?

I did PPL in the past 7 days a week.
It was an 3 different exercise rotations. A top end set and 2 back off sets.
Push was 1 exercise for chest, shoulders and tris.
Pull was 1 exercise for back width, 1 for thickness and 1 for bis.
Legs was 1 for quads and 1 for hams, 1 for calves.
All sets were to failure. First set 5-9 reps, set 2 10-12, set 3 12-15 reps.
Took time off as needed.

 

[Dens228]

I did PPL in the past 7 days a week.
It was an 3 different exercise rotations. A top end set and 2 back off sets.
Push was 1 exercise for chest, shoulders and tris.
Pull was 1 exercise for back width, 1 for thickness and 1 for bis.
Legs was 1 for quads and 1 for hams, 1 for calves.
All sets were to failure. First set 5-9 reps, set 2 10-12, set 3 12-15 reps.
Took time off as needed.

Well that looks very familiar.........

 

[N.L....M.....]

Well that looks very familiar.........

It should lol.

 

[Virtuous]

I’m super boring:

Push
Heavy legs
Pull
High rep legs/core

...repeat. No planned days off, typically get busy one or twice every couple of weeks and miss a day or two. 30-45 minutes of daily cardio.