Monday: chest/delts/tris/abs
Tuesday: back/bis/forearms
Wednesday: legs
Thursday: chest/delts/tris/abs
Friday: back/his/forearms
Saturday: legs
Sunday: off
For chest I do 3 sets of flat or incline bench (alternating). Not including warm ups and 3 sets of cable flyes or crossovers. For delts 3 sets of overhead press (either with barbell or with my trap bar, occasionally i’ll use my multi grip bar) and 3 sets of lateral raises (90% of the time with dumbbells, occasionally I will change it up and do cable lateral raises). For triceps I keep it simple 3-4 sets of either tricep extensions with the EZ curl bar, overhead extensions with the dumbbell (for some reason I really feel these) or dips ( narrow, to focus on triceps). I usually go 3 sets of tris, my triceps grow easy, it may even be unnecessary to train them directly. Abs it is either sits up on the GHD, ab roller or cable crunches.
Back day I start with 3 sets of deadlifts (occasional block pulls with wagon wheels, not often), 4 sets of either T-bar rows or overhand barbell rows, then 4 sets of either chin ups or lat pulldowns, 3 sets of barbell or dumbbell curls followed by 2 sets of hammer curls (or reverse curls), 3 sets of hyperextensions (ROM on a GHD isn’t that great here) and finally 2 drop sets on my captains or crush grippers.
Leg day is simple, I start on my bowflex M5 max trainer to warm my legs up doing their version of HIIT, 6 sets of box squats with the safety squat bar (my left knee likely has a partial patella tear, so I don’t go so heavy anymore, but I concentrate on time under tension and high reps), 4 sets of glute raises on the GHD & 4 sets of standing calf raises with the safety squat bar and calf block (I don’t even dink around with seated calf raises anymore).
I’m 36 years old, I over trained a ton when I was younger and I’m in this for the long haul, so I try to keep that in mind. I have my own garage gym so I work within those constraints. My biggest enemy is my appetite, I eat like a horse but if I get that under control I have no doubt I can look incredible again. I am 6’0” 240lbs, and while I carry it very well (very obvious I lift) I’d look best at 205lbs 9-10% body fat. When I was 30 I was 188lbs 6.5% bodyfat (measured with calipers) and I had “carb cycled” to get down to that but IMO I sacrificed too much muscle & strength to get there (looked good on the beach though). Probably this routine doesn’t work for everyone, I used to do the so called “bro split” and pound 1 body part into oblivion for 16-20 sets, since I am not a juicer I have no doubt this stunted gains and certainly caused tendinitis and over use issues. I was doing a push/pull split working each muscle every other day for less sets, that is most likely ideal, however it was a total PITA to be constantly setting up exercises in my garage gym (and I’d imagine it could be a PITA in a commercial gym that is crowded). So this twice a week split works for me, I generally keep my reps between 6-10, of course there is always exceptions, I rarely go with weight I can’t handle for at least 6 reps (risk of injury goes too high). I also spend a good 15 minutes every morning warming up and stretching out, I think this is time we’ll spent.
