Routines | Look At My Muscles
Mar 11

Most gym rats have a chest/tricep, back/bicep and shoulder/leg schedule, or something similar. For the past year, I’ve switched to a back/tricep and chest/bicep rotation to change it up. Changing up your rotations and workout schedule keeps your muscles from getting used to a routine that can quickly lead to a plateau. The back/tri & chest/bi routine was not only to change it up, but to get a stronger tricep and bicep workout since the main muscle group wasn’t fatiguing the secondary group. I really liked this schedule, but for now I’m going to switch back to the more typical schedule of chest/tri and back/bi for two reasons. The first is like I mentioned, that is to just change it up, the second is that my workout schedule isn’t as concrete as it used to be. Back when I worked out with my HB buddies, gym was Monday, Wednesday and Friday, no exceptions. There were three of us, so it would be very rare that at least one of my two buddies wouldn’t make it. Now that I’m working out with my buddy Eric who’s pretty busy at work, and with my wife pregnant, our workouts are a little more sporadic and the chest/bicep workout means that i can’t do two workouts in a row or even every other day since the secondary muscle group would be too sore to support the primary of the next workout. The typical chest/tri and back/bi rotation means I could workout Monday and Tuesday if that’s what worked that week, and my Tuesday workout wouldn’t really be affected by Monday’s.

With a baby on the way, I expect that my gym schedule is going to be more random than ever and I’m going to do my best to get in at least two workouts a week. Hopefully this rotation will make it easier for me to stay in shape despite how busy I plan on being.

Sep 23

You need to find a weekly workout routine that fits best with your physical recovery time and schedule. Some people can recover very quickly from a workout and others need 3 or more days per muscle group. Regardless, you need to have a set schedule of workouts to stay focused and on track.

For the longest time, I did a standard Monday: chest/tris, Wednesday: back/bis, and Friday: Shoulders/Abs/Legs (I’ve always neglected legs). For the most part this routine worked fine. Each muscle group had a full 7 days to rest (except for shoulders which gets hit pretty hard on Mondays, but because I did them on Friday had an extra day to rest). I made big gains in my chest and my back, but not proportionately as big in my tris and bis. I realized that by the time i got to my tris after my chest workout, and the same for my bis after a back workout, they were so tired from supporting my chest/back workout, that their own workout was relatively weak.

After being away from the gym for a few months, I’ve changed up my schedule quite a bit. Instead of being on a day-of-the-week routine, I’m on a day-on/day-off schedule, so I hit each muscle group every six days instead of every seven. I’ve also changed the combination of my workouts to hit each muscle group individually. So on a Monday, I’ll workout chest/bis, Wednesday: back/tris, Friday: shoulders/abs/legs, and on Sunday I’ll start the rotation over again with the chest/bis.

Breaking the workout into chest/bis and back/tris means that when I finish my chest workout, my bis are completely fresh to do isolated weight that’s much heavier than I could’ve done if they had just supported a back workout. And while my physiology requires at least 3 days for my chest or back to recover, my bis and tris are usually good to go to play a supporting role the day after they were worked individually. So far I’m seeing good results with this routine.

Another key, and likely reason that I’m seeing good results so quickly with this routine is that it’s important to change it up every now and then. Your muscles can get used to being worked out in a certain way and without shocking the muscle, it will adapt and not need to grow to move the same amount of weight. This type of plateauing can be broken by changing the order of your exercises, and also the type of exercises you do to work out a muscle group.

Thanks Dan, for the suggestion on the topic.