Finding the right workout split for myself has been a long, ongoing process for quite a few years. I’ve tried almost everything from high volume to low volume, full body to body part split, isolation to compound. The list goes on and on.
With every man and his dog having a fitness blog and different views it’s hard to know who to trust and believe. One guy says high reps, another one says low. One guy says go to failure, another says don't.
Like I said, I’ve managed to try a lot of different methods with some success from each of them. As a result, I decided to morph them all together into one program. I performed an upper / lower split with a heavy, light and medium set and rep scheme.
This heavy, light, medium scheme was popularized by Pavel in many of his programs, especially the well-known Enter the Kettlebell. However, I put a little ‘bodybuilding thinking’ into the scheme. Here's how it looks.
Training frequency: Personally I recover very quickly and due to the upper / lower split and little volume (more on this in a sec.) I was able to train 6 days a week without getting sick, injured or burned out.
If you think about it logically, the guy who trains 6 days a week gets in 312 sessions a year as opposed to the guy who only trains 3 times a week (156 sessions a year). Who do you think will have better results?
Yes high training frequency can burn you out. However, if you’re smart with your programming and you use some of these tips, overtraining can be avoided.
Exercise selection: Anything goes for heavy and medium day. For example, I use barbell, kettlebell and advanced bodyweight training as long as it fits within the set and rep scheme. On light days I use the sled and bodyweight exercises only.
Bodyweight exercises don’t beat you up as much due to the more natural movement, and the sled takes away the eccentric (lowering of the weight) stress which causes the most muscle damage and muscle soreness.
Sets: Majority of the sets were around 12-18 total per session. Due to the high training frequency I didn’t need any more, otherwise I would have too much DOMS and therefore my training frequency would have to be decreased.
Reps: To me, go is more important that show. Therefore 2/3 of my weekly schedule was kept on the heavier end of the scale to produce more myofibrillar hypertrophy – an enlargement of the muscle fiber, which contracts and generates more tension in the muscle.
The other 1/3 was spent in the higher rep range to produce sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, which is fluid that provides overall swelling to the muscle, but does not provide any muscular strength.
Weekly Set Up: Many would argue that you put your hardest days at the start of the week. In theory and on paper this makes sense, however in real life it just doesn’t work for me. There are 2 reasons why I leave my hardest sessions for the weekend.
I don’t know about you, but I’m happier on the weekend. It’s my time where I can step away from my business and work on myself. Monday’s are a bitch for me and I’m never in the mood to train hard on a Monday.
After the weekend I then take Monday off and my training week starts on Tuesday. This extra recovery day placed after my heavy day leaves me feeling fresh and ready to rock and roll come Tuesday.
With overtraining being the new hot topic these days many would look at the set up and tell me that I’m crazy. However, I can tell you this is how I achieved the best gains I’ve ever had.
Grant Lofthouse is the founder of Cardio Haters Training. He specializes in getting people sexy without cardio and has a current mission to help 100,000 cardio haters set themselves free from the treadmill grind. For more info visit www.CardioHaters.com
