Working out 12 times a week?

[guitarguy]

I'll probably get flamed for this one, because this goes against every article ever written on this website, but I was interested in what other people thought, even if they still think I'm ignorant. Well here it is, to start this school year off to a positive one, I've started a new training split. Here's how it looks:

Monday: Chest/biceps
Tuesday: Shoulders/triceps
Wednesday: Legs/Back
Thursday: Chest/biceps
Friday: Shoulders & traps/triceps
Saturday: Legs/back
Sunday: Rest

In order to allow secondary muscles to recooperate I go twice a day. In the morning I do the first muscle, and in the evening I do the second muscle for that day. One flaw I've found in the routine is working my triceps the same day I do military presses, yet I've still had excellent results with my triceps since beginning. Usually I do abs every other day. Each muscle group consists of 3-4 exercises, and a total of 15-20 sets. Now alot of you might say I'm overtraining. I've also considered this.

I'm 19, so I have alot of natural testosterone in my body, which hopefully means my body is able to recover faster than an older adult. The first day after a workout, my muscles are pretty sore, but by the second day after I feel less sore. By the 3rd day I'm either barely sore or not sore at all. Some might argue that I should be more sore than that, and that it should take a full week to recover. I always walk into the gym with a will to be more intense than the last workout, and to push my strength a step further. Usually when I take in more protein shakes and eat more I can add more reps to my workout the next time I go. If my diet is lacking for a day or two, I usually lose a lb or two, and my strength stays where it was the previous workout. I've tried the common philosophy of working each muscle group only once a week, however my gains haven't been as strong as when I began this regimen.

So before all of you bash my workout because you believe I am overtraining, consider what I've said. I mainly setup this thread to get some opinions. I workout 12 hours a week because I have the time, because I love the sport, and because it works for me. I'm interested in what other people think of it, and what kinds of experiences have they had on similar regimens.

[jlb3191]

Interesting...I've thought about doing this myself. You are actually working each muscle group the same as if you did two diff muscle groups during a single workout.

My first response to this is that if you lifting this much, then you are probably going to be cutting your body as opposed to bulking it.

Are you trying to cut or bulk? If you're trying to get bigger, seems to me you should be lifting heavier weight. Arnold always said that he would be pissed if he couldn't get his workout done in 45 min. He went as heavy as possible and there was nothing left by the end of the workout.

My $.02

[guitarguy]

Originally posted by jlb3191
Interesting...I've thought about doing this myself. You are actually working each muscle group the same as if you did two diff muscle groups during a single workout.

My first response to this is that if you lifting this much, then you are probably going to be cutting your body as opposed to bulking it.

Are you trying to cut or bulk? If you're trying to get bigger, seems to me you should be lifting heavier weight. Arnold always said that he would be pissed if he couldn't get his workout done in 45 min. He went as heavy as possible and there was nothing left by the end of the workout.

My $.02

I don't understand what you mean by I should be lifting heavier weight. I usually do 8-10 reps to failure. I'm trying to bulk, and get stronger, but by no means a powerlifter. I eat like crazy, and I'm still putting on around 2-3 lbs a week. Arnold also did 3 muscle groups in a day using a split day rountine and ended up spending 4 hours a day in the gym. My workouts usually last from 45-75 minutes, depending on if I do my traps or not.

[marjoh]

Yeah but ummm.. Arnold was juiuced, too so his routine is totally irrelevant here.. isn't it?

I would love for this board to pick out like 5 or 6 different successful NATURAL BODYBUILDERS on this board - with different body types - and post pictures of them and let them serve as the experts. Who better to give advice for your body type than someone who has worked their ass off to get shredded.

Thoughts?

I'm sure there are plenty of guys on here who would fit the description.

m

[Flyguy3663]

well heres my pic www.hometown.aol.com/mnm4pres not the greatest but its alrite. and im no expert lol

i dont think that is a good plan. for one ur training shoulders and chest and back day after day. the shoulders are the primary muscle group used in chest and back workouts. eventually u are gonna overtrain the shyt outta urself and worse u might get injured. go with 5 workouts a week max. if ur not juicing ur gonna hurt and overtrain urself to death and eventually start producing CORTISOL and actually losing muscle mass and u dont want that.

a lot of people read about Ah-nold LOL.. and they think that his routines work for everyone else. most pro bodybuilding routines u see in mags are insane. the reason ronnie coleman can train 2 or 3 times a day is simply steroids and he most likely uses PERFECT FORM and doesn't push his max weight all the time.

for amateurs and people who just wanna get that built look i say an individual bodypart every day 5 days a week. train ur shoulders, legs, back, arms, chest.. with some rest in between days.. like go 2 on 1 off , 3 on.. 2 off... that should give muscles enough time to recover. its MANDITORY to wait at least 3-7 days to DIRECTLY HIT A MUSCLE.. ESPECIALLY if you are using HEAVY WEIGHT.

just be careful and train smart. Peace and good luck

[Mark142]

I'm no expert but...that plan depeneds on how many sets your doing.

First I think you should end your whole work out in 1 session just because your not on roids, but if you WANT to do that then whatever.

But the big issue is how many sets you are doing. You are not supposed to do more than 16 - 20 sets per day. Thats why I like to have FULL day for my big muscles so I can give them all my effort.

Here is my split
Mon: Legs
Tuesday: Shoulders
Wed: Biceps/Triceps (Or if I'm having a bad day and don't feel like doing both or if 1 muslce is saggin i do one on wed and one on Thurs)
Thursday: Off
Friday: Chest
Saturday: Back
Sunday: Off

And feel free to tear apart my split if i'm working out retarded.

[irpker]

That's the Ronnie Coleman routine... If you can handle it, then keep on doing it.

[MrB]

Here's my thinking ...

I'm not even going to get into all the science, b/c something like t doesn't even require it.

Here goes ...

[1] Most likely, you're going to spend 2-3 times the amount of time and effort to get the same amount of gains as you if you training 33% as much. You may actually even lose some size and strength since you're spending more time tearing down muscle than you will be building it up. You don't build a mountain by digging a hole.

[2] You got nothing better to do than lift weights twice a day? How bout a job? a girlfriend? a college class? sport? hobby?

If you're gonna train twice a day, why not just join the military and get paid for it, get money for college, and learn some skills that you can use in everyday life.

I don't care if you're overtraining or not, I just can't believe that you don't have anything else you'd rather be doing. BUt, hey, I'm glad you're doing something active instead of sitting at home eating Cheesy-Poofs and getting flabby.

Let us know how it goes. You won't be able to train like that when you're married, a father, have a career, etc ... so do all your "stupid routines" or "crazy training" (not demeaning terms, when you're older you'll call it the same thing) now.

[guitarguy]

Originally posted by MrB
Here's my thinking ...

[2] You got nothing better to do than lift weights twice a day? How bout a job? a girlfriend? a college class? sport? hobby?

Job? I'm a student.
Class? I goto all my classes.
Sport/Hobby? Weightlifting.

If you're gonna train twice a day, why not just join the military and get paid for it, get money for college, and learn some skills that you can use in everyday life.

I almost joined the marines before I came to college, but then I'd have to cut off all my hair, NO WAY!

I don't care if you're overtraining or not, I just can't believe that you don't have anything else you'd rather be doing. BUt, hey, I'm glad you're doing something active instead of sitting at home eating Cheesy-Poofs and getting flabby.

Let us know how it goes. You won't be able to train like that when you're married, a father, have a career, etc ... so do all your "stupid routines" or "crazy training" (not demeaning terms, when you're older you'll call it the same thing) now.

Its going great so far. You do have a valid point about future training, and that is I will not have the time to train like I do now. I actually enjoy working out, so if your question is "Do I have something I would rather do?", the answer would be no, because I like what I'm doing. Occasionally I do feel a bit overtrained, like in the evening; maybe its just because the workout was so intense. When I wake up in the morning I feel refreshed and ready to hit the weights hard again. I don't see it as overtraining, because every workout I manage to make new progress, whether it be an extra rep, or adding 5lbs to the bar. Of course I've only been on this workout for about 6 weeks now, but I haven't plateaued yet, and I say that if it works, don't fix it. I've seen better results this way than only going to the gym 5 times a week.

[MrB]

You make your best progress by training as frequently as you productively can. For different people that will be different days. People always say to me "training your full body 3 times a week will be instant overtraining" ... they've never tried it, they don't know. It could be the thing they've been looking for. People take the "less is more" quote and bastardize it into training every 10 days or something. These pepole don't want to train, so it's a perfect excuse for them.

I'm a teacher so I have summers off, my friends will have 2 weeks of vacation and oinly use one to go out of the country or something, so when they come back we have what we call "stupid training" or "crazy traiing" where we just do some crazy crap that we wouldn't usually do, nor have time for.

You're 19, a college student, this is the most stress-free time of your life (your "grown up" life anyway, it is more stressfull than 1st grade), knock yourself out.

When progress slows or stops, switch to something more abbreviated and your poundages will likely take off like a rocket.

I will say though, in general, training abbreviated (shorter routines), and infrequently (more recovery days per week than trianing days) is the right combo for most people, but a little "kick in the ass" training never hurt anyone.

You're training log will tell you what's going on.

[fitnessdiva]

I can already see what is going on here. You are a gym socializer. Obviously with that kind of volume you can not have any kind of intensity or you wouldn't be able to do it that often. You say you like going to they gym, which isn't bad, I like it as well. But it isn't one of those things that should be done so often just because you like it, if you want to make any kind of progress. The bottom line here is that you are going to get burned out and overtrained, and even if you are making some kind of progress (depending on what you consider progress) it isn't optimal, and will eventually trail off.

Training like this is a bad idea, no matter how you look at it.

[guitarguy]

Originally posted by MrB
You're training log will tell you what's going on.

Exactly, and my training log hasn't looked this good since I first started lifting 4 years ago. When and if plateau, of course I'll switch it up, like I have always been doing, but until then, I will continue with what is successful for me. No fitnessdiva, I am the most antisocial person in the gym. I wear headphones just to dissuade people from talking to me. I'm also the only weight lifter who actually sweats during the workout, as opposed to the guys who go from one machine to the next.

[fitnessdiva]

Mark my words.

[Kane Fan]

lol fitnessdiva do you have a crystal ball or something??
you 'can already see he's a social lifter' or some such
but his workouts are sometimes as short as 45 minutes?

you also have absolutly NO IDEA what kind of volume he's doing
maybe he's only doing 1 set per lift or something


I think lifting 2x a day with some good rest in between seems like a good idea
let us know how it works out

[fitnessdiva]

Like I said, we'll see....

[guitarguy]

Just a quick update as I get back from my triceps workout. I added another lb of mass today. Did 2 more reps/set of my tricep extension, and added 10lbs to my skull crushers. I may or may not start a cycle of creatine on Monday as money is pretty tight right now...we'll see.
Being a college student sucks and is good: you've got all the time in the world, but no money.

[guitarguy]

After I finish this 8 week routine, I'm thinking of trying HIT, since so many people seem to have good results with it. Getting used to only 1 set will be a shock though, that seems kinda crazy. Does anyone know of any good HIT routines on the web that produce results.

[telebyte]

You're not on steroids, you will not get far with this. (I'm not on steroids either!)

Good luck though, and try not to get injured.