workout advice

[fuller]

I need some advice,

For a long time I have being doing split workouts - basically lower body work, squats, stiff-legged deadlifts, leg extensions, curls and calve raises and then upper body- doing bicep curls, hammer curls, tricep extension, upright row, side and front lateral raises, etc..

I would like to change my routine to hitting different body parts for 5 days, what is the best way to do this? I started with only doing back exercises last night. Could someone help break this down for me? The only thing over the years I have avoided is much chest work - sometimes doing chest work causes me to have that "separated" look that a female does not usually want. Should I incorporate this back in?

If it helps, I workout at home - this is the best way for me to fit in my exercises without having to leave my family to go to a gym, etc. The equipment I have is: an Olympic bar and plates, 15 and 20 pound dumbbells and a bench.

Advice would be appreciated! Thanks all!

[Tom]

I've done a 4-day split as follows

Monday -- heavy squats
Wednesday -- heavy bench
Friday -- speed squat
Sunday -- speed bench

(with appropriate assistance exercises afterward).

It was pretty taxing. I made a lot of progress when I was gaining weight, but when I stopped gaining weight, I hit a plateau in my lifting as well. In the future, I'll probably save this split for "bulking up" periods.

It's been a while since I read Marty's book on Ed Coan, but I think that Mr. Coan does something similar, something like

Monday -- squats
Wednesday -- bench
Friday -- deadlift
Saturday -- press behind neck

Hope this helps. The basic theme seems to be to break the work into 2 upper body and 2 lower body days, and put as much space as possible between working the same body parts.

Tom

[vinay]

You could try this:

legs

chest

back

shoulders

arms abs

[Marty]

I always ask myself these two questions when setting up a new routine:

1. how many days per week?
2. how long per session?


If, for example, you had 45-minutes four days a week you could do this:

1. back 2. arms (biceps/triceps) 3. off 4. legs 5. chest/shoulders 6.&7. off

how about -

day 1. quads/shoulders; day 2. chest/triceps; day 3. off; day 4. back/biceps; day 5. pick a bodypart that needs extra work plus hamstrings and calves

[fuller]

Thanks all!