P/P/L vs Bro Split

[ShammyHam]

Recently I got back to the gym and it has been going well! But I have a question regarding routines.

Before I took my super long break, I used to do a bro split. Train 5 days a week, hit Chest Monday, back Tuesday, legs Wednesday, shoulders Thursday, arms Friday. And on each day, I did an insane number of exercises and just completely killed my muscle. Now that I re-started, I've been trying to follow an actual routine, so I tried Coolcicada's PPL.

Now I like the fact that I get to hit chest and back n legs 2x a week, but I feel like I don't hit it hard enough? I mean if I compare, I would do an absurd amount of chest exercises and just blow it out on my bro split, and now I just do Flat and Incline and that's it for the day for chest.

So I'm just wondering, which do you guys prefer? What should I do if I'm leaning more towards aesthetics

[Kameronn]

To put it frankly, you blowing out those muscles was doing more harm then good since you couldn't recover quick enough to hit the muscle again. Frequency is key, you want to be in a state of muscle protein synthesis as much as possible and only hitting a muscle once a week isn't cutting it.

Tbh, I'd recommend milking out a novice program such as Greyskull LP, Starting Strength, or ICF 5x5 before doing a PPL.

[Henchmandan]

Constant tension using heavy weight. You really don't need more than 3 exercises to hit a body part effectively. Slow reps with full ROM going to failure each set

[ShammyHam]

To put it frankly, you blowing out those muscles was doing more harm then good since you couldn't recover quick enough to hit the muscle again. Frequency is key, you want to be in a state of muscle protein synthesis as much as possible and only hitting a muscle once a week isn't cutting it.

Tbh, I'd recommend milking out a novice program such as Greyskull LP, Starting Strength, or ICF 5x5 before doing a PPL.

I think I could recover quick enough, in like 2-3 days I would be okay. I mean like if I do chest monday, then my chest will be sore on tuesday and back to being okay on wednesday/thursday. I'm not sure if that's fast enough or not.

Also, how will I know when I'm done "milking" out a novice program? I've been lifting for a year and a half, then took a year off, and now back at it. And I originally started out with BLSS (I think that's what it's called) but changed it into a bro split in a few months.

[ShammyHam]

Constant tension using heavy weight. You really don't need more than 3 exercises to hit a body part effectively. Slow reps with full ROM going to failure each set

I get that, but maybe it's because I'm young or maybe I recover fast, I do the Push day, and the day after, I feel like I can hit Push again. Like I hit bench and incline, and I hit it hard. But it's just like 2 exercises.

[Kameronn]

You'd know as you'd keep stalling at a certain weight. P/P/L will be okay for you if you fully milked out BLSS