Training Routine/Programme Question

[Patrick Keogh]

Hi guys, just have a question about getting the most of out my training.

Lately i have been doing a split type routine, where i do upper body gymnastics strength stuff one day, and my legs another day (weights). The reason for this is that my goals for these two parts of the body are slightly different. For my upper body I am more looking to gain strength whereas with my legs I am looking to gain size.

At the moment I am considering changing my routine to do a whole body workout each time. I read somewhere that for overall gains in strength, doing a whole body workout is more effective than a split type routine like I have been doing. what are your thoughts?

It just seems to me like in order to incude legs in my gymnastics routine I would have to sacrifice one pushing and one pulling exercise to accommodate this due to time - otherwise i would be at the gym for hours! Just want to know what you guys think would be best. Should I stick with my upper body/lower body split like I have been doing? or should I go for more of a whole body routine where I include my legs?

[Rik de Kort]

Pick 4 exercises: vertical push and pull, horizontal push and pull. That's upper body only. Then supplement with squats and deadlifts.

Six exercises won't take that long, especially if you only DL 1-2x a week which really makes it 5.5 exercises.

I've got 6 exercises+skill work and my workout takes just over an hour. I take plenty of rest in between exercises and I don't superset anything. So even if you are coming up short on time, you can always superset the pushes and pulls and if you're coming up short on time then, you can do two supersets of push-pull-legs.

For the 4 exercises, I recommend inverted rows, pushups, pullups and dips, going with the progression you can complete with good form. And by 'good form' I mean 'perfect form'.

Work the FSP-prereqs until you can hold the standard required (check out the sticky). So your focus will be the exercises+squats and DL and the FSP-prereqs.

If you have completed the prereqs, you can move that into maintenance mode (again, check out the sticky) and work L-sit, German Hang and Ring Support.

Handstand is skill work, so put that before the exercises at least. Maybe even before the L-sit GH and RS.

[Patrick Keogh]

Yeah i've been pretty happy with my upper body routine lately. I'm sure I have left out a few things that people are welcome to point out, but my routine is as follows

Handstand work

HLL/L-sit

Weighted pull ups

Ring dips

Ring rows

Ring Push ups

Front or back lever static holds

My problem is knowing whether I should add legs to this. When i train legs i like to do something similar to this:

HLL

Back extension - similar to glute/ham raises

Squats

Deadlifts

Front squats

Calf raises

Seated calf raises

So I am wondering if I should stick to this split like I have been doing, or try to mix the two together so I am doing a full body workout each time, as i read somewhere that working the entire body is much better for overall strength gains than body part specific routines. Let me know what you think

[Rik de Kort]

Your upper body work looks good. Nice and simple.

For legs, however, you're doing a LOT of stuff. Drop it, start with just squats and deadlifts. DL every other workout, perhaps doing GHR other workouts. Maybe alternate squat and front squat if you can't squat 3x a week.

Doing the entire body is much better than body part specific routines because you're getting much more practice.

[Patrick Keogh]

Yeah like I said, I am looking at gaining size for my legs. Do you think this is still too much?

I have been alternating my routines each day. So one day I do upper body and the next I do legs. Lately I have been going 6 days a week. So 3 days of upper body and 3 days of legs.

I have been thinking to add squats and deadlifts to my upper body routine and make it full body, then do the Mon, Tues, Thurs and Fri scheduelling. So training 4 times a week instead of 6. Just not sure if only doing those 2 exercises for legs will be enough to gain size like I am looking for.

I am about due to change things up with my routine anyway. This is why I started this thread. So I could always try this full body routine for 6-8 weeks and see how it goes.