There are two main things I look at for a balanced routine.
1. Hips-How well are the lower back, quads, hams, abs and glutes balanced.
2. Shoulders-How well the back/rear delts are balanced to the chest/anterior delts.
Let’s start with hips since they are relatively simple. For ham/quad balance you want to pair quad movements with ham movements at a 1:1 ratio. Same goes for direct ab work and lower back. Glutes generally get enough work, but some people need glute specific lifts(case by case basis.)
Shoulder health is a lot more complex. For starters you want 2xmore pulls than presses or chest work (For simplicity's sake we're going to consider chest isos as a press.) So depending on how many presses you have it dictates how many exercises you have for your back. If you have 3 presses you need 6 back exercises. If you have 4 presses you need 8...etc.
You also need to balance directional pulling to adequately develop all of the muscles attached to your scapula (17 of them.) There are a few exercises that must be in a routine like a press, postural pull like face pull or reverse fly, levator scap exercise, serratus anterior exercise...etc.
I hate to even talk about beginner routines because beginners have no business attempting to write anything. With that said, a lot of you are going to do it anyway so you might as well have a decent template to work with.
Full Body Beginner Template (frequently split between A & B workouts)
2-3 lower body exercises
3-5 chest and back exercises
1 direct ab workout
1-2 optional arm isolations
Lower Body Exercises
1 quad dominant lift (squats, leg press, lunges)
1 ham dominant lift (RDL, SLDL, good morning, leg curl)
1 optional calf iso or glute iso (calf raises, hip thrusts, ABduction)
Upper Body Exercises
1-2 presses (OHP, incline, flat bench, dips)
2-4 pulls being 1 upward pull (DL, shrugs, BOR), 1-2 horizontal pull (face pulls, pendlays, reverse flies), 1 downward pull (lat pulldowns, chin ups, pull ups)
Note: DL counts for both back and legs
1-2 arm isos (curls, any tricep iso, but dips and CGBP don’t count)
Few beginner programs have more than 6-7 exercises per day for good reason and this isn’t the time to go into that. If you want to have 10 then split them into A and B days so that you have 5 each day. Stick to the template outlined above.
Intermediate Upper/Lower Template
Monday-Upper Body
1-2 presses (OHP, incline, flat bench, dips)
2-4 pulls being
1 upward pull (DL, shrugs, BOR)
1-2 horizontal pull (t bar rows, pendlays, wide grip seated row…basically anything with elbows flared 45 degrees or more rowed to chest. One must be a postural pull like face pulls or reverse flies)
1 downward pull (lat pulldowns, chin ups, pull ups)
Note: You can get away with 3 pulls and 2 presses if you have a DL variant on lower day
1-2 isos (curls, any tricep iso, but dips and CGBP don’t count)
Tuesday-Lower Body
1-2 quad dominant lift (squats, leg press, lunges)
1-2 ham dominant lift (RDL, SLDL, good morning, leg curl)
1 calf iso (standing calf raises, seated calf raises)
1 direct ab workout (ab wheel rollouts, crunches, any ab machine)
1 optional glute exercise (hip thrusts, ABduction)
Wednesday-Rest
Thursday-Repeat with same or different exercises, but the template remains the same.
Advanced PPL Template
Monday-Pull (Back/rear shoulders/bis)
2 downward pulls (any lat pulldown or chin up variant)
2 horizontal pulls (t bar rows, pendlays, wide grip seated row) basically anything with elbows flared 45 degrees or more rowed to chest. One must be a postural pull like face pulls or reverse flies)
1 upward pull (BOR, shrugs, upright rows) (the second upward pull will be a DL variant on leg day, which makes it important to separate back and leg day)
1-2 bicep exercises (doesn't matter)
Tuesday-Push (chest/front and lateral shoulders/triceps)
3 presses or chest exercises (flat bench, incline, OHP, dips, chest flies, cable crossovers)
1-2 tricep isos (anything but dips or CGBP)
1-2 direct ab work (ab wheel rollouts, crunches, any ab machine)
1 optional lateral delt iso (lat raises)
Wednesday-Legs
2 quad dominant lifts (squats, leg press, lunges)
2 ham dominant lifts (RDL, SLDL, good morning, leg curl)
1-2 calf isos (standing calf raises, seated calf raises)
1 optional glute exercise (hip thrusts, ABduction)
Thursday-Rest
Friday-Repeat. Doesn't have to be the same exercises, but the same format is important for joint health.
Obviously these are just templates designed to help those less experienced balance their development, avoid postural issues and optimize joint health. The more experienced you are the more you can deviate from the above templates, but it is safe to say that if you didn't already know this stuff you probably shouldn't be deviating at all.
I'd like to note that nowhere in the above post did I address rotational balance (internal vs external rotation,) which is an entirely different can of worms that needs it's own thread.
If you'd like a program critique please start your own thread. Do not post it in this thread; it will be deleted.
Bookmarks