Upper/Lower split

[TALO]

Can someone recomend a great program for a upper / lower spit.

I have looked at the sticky, but for some reason some of the programs will not open up (ie: the DC).

thanks

[Darkhorse]

DC isn't an upper/lower split..

My favorite is to model mine after Westside, but instead of two DE (speed) days, I use two RE (repetition) days.. And of course the two ME days stays the same. The only change to ME is instead of hitting a 1 RM, you'd do either a 5x5, 1x5, 3x3, or a 1-5 RM with a heavy drop set or two (5-7 reps).

Look at the DFT sticky's page one on some ideas of how to set it up.

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Aside from that, Kelley Baggett has a good one as well. I'll post that when I find it.

[Darkhorse]

When I'm looking for mass, I always use 2 workouts that are max effort days (ME), and 2 that are repetition days (RE). This way you get a good balance of strength and mass. I never really cared for doing all high reps or all low reps. I think undulation beats out linnear periodization (speaking for myself only )

Using chest and back as an example:

Upper 1: RE day

- Incline Barbell: 4 x 10 (only last set is difficult, NOT to failure)
- Barbell Rows: 4 x 6-8 or 5 x 5 (heavy as you can handle)
- Decline DB Press: 3 x 10-12 (nothing to failure, but still heavy)
- move on to shoulders, arms

Upper 2: ME day

- Flat Bench: 5 x 5 or (occationally work up to a 1-5 RM followed by a drop set)
- Board or Floor Press: 5 RM (start where you left off in weight for flat bench)
- Standing Military Press (3x5) or Push Presses (1-5 RM)
- Weighted Pullups: 2 x failure
- Pulldowns: 2-3 x 10 (NOT to failure)
- move on....

* This is basically DFHT (dual factor hypertrophy training). The difference is that I personally like to do one chest exercise, then a back exercise, then another chest. Reason being: Antagonistic muscle pairings will allow for more rest time between exercises. What I mean is that after a pressing exercise, you do a pulling while your pressing muscles recover, then ect...

* You also won't need much shoulder pressing work since your anterior delts already get worked hard with all the chest pressing.

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There are lots of ways to do this, but the above is what got me to where I'm currently at. My outlook for building muscles has always been to combine strength workouts with higher rep hypertrophy ones, especially since strength and mass IMO are correlated to some extent.

Here's another example of a program (upper/lower) written by Kelley Baggett (he's a guy). Just an example of another way to do it:


QUOTE


38. A Sample Split

One approach that works well for a lot of people is a variation of the heavy/light format. With this approach you train a muscle twice per week. On the first day you really focus on upping the poundages with a take no prisoners attitude when it comes to putting more weight on the bar each week. You’d simply take a body-part and knock out several heavy sets of a basic movement for that bodypart, with the basic idea being to generate progressive tension increases in that exercise on a weekly basis. Then you might do a couple of “pump”sets to get some fatigue in. You would then hit the muscle group later on in the week but with less intensity and intensiveness. On this lighter workout, the idea is to stimulate the muscle to keep growth signaling elevated, but not to totally annihilate the muscle. You could even hit it indirectly (eg. Shoulder press one workout, Incline Barbell press the next) A sample routine is as follows:


Mon: Lower (Quadricep focused)

Squat: 4-5 x 6-8 with full rests
SLDL: 3 x 6-8 with full rests
Leg press: 2 x 15-20 with full rests
Leg curl: 3 x 5-8 with short rests
Calf raise: 4 x 5 (5 seconds down, 5 seconds pause at bottom)

Tue: Upper (Chest and back focused)

Flat bench: 4-5 x 6-8 with full rests
Row: 4-5 x 6-8 with full rests
Pec Deck- 2 x 12-15 Lateral DB raise- 2 x 10-12 with full rests
Pulldown/chin: 3 x 5-8 with short rests Triceps (your choice - preferably something compound like lying decline ez bar extensions): 2 x 8-10 with full rests
Biceps (your choice): 2 x 8-10 with full rests

Thurs: Lower (glute/ham focused)

Deadlift- 4-5 x 6
Front Squat- 3 x 8
leg curl - 3-5 x 6-12 with short rests
leg ext- 2 x 15
Calf raise - 3 x 10-10-10 (triple drop)

Friday or Saturday: Upper (Shoulder and arm focused)

Incline Dumbell press 3-4 x 6-8
wide grip chin 3-4 x 6-8
Lateral- 3-5 x 8-12 with short rests
One arm DB Row- 2 x 12-15
Triceps (your choice): 2 x 10-12 with full rests 3 x 8-12 with short rests
Biceps (your choice): 2 x 10-12 with full rests 3 x 8-12 with short rests

You can see we basically hit a muscle group directly hard and heavy once per week with one exercise and then hit it a little lighter that same week, often indirectly, with a different exercise.

39. Borrowing Something From Powerlifters - Increasing the Weights While Decreasing the Reps

To fully maximize strength gains, ideally on your tension driven compound movements (typically the first exercise in a workout for a given bodypart), the reps should decrease over the course of a mesocycle. An example of how you might jack with the reps on compound movements is this:

Week 1 and 2 – Sets of 8-10 (ex: 3 x 8-10)
Week 3 and 4 – Sets of 6-8 (ex: 4 x 6-8)
Week 5 and 6 – Sets of 4-6 (ex: 5 x 5)
Week 7 and 8 – Reduce training to just twice a week and take it easy, recuperate, reduce training frequency and volume.
Week 9 – Start over with week 1.

When strength increases enough to perform 2 to 3 reps above the predetermined absolute RM in the last set, the load should be increased to match absolute RM strength.

The above is just an example. In reality you might continue on and go another couple of weeks of 3 reps on your compound movements. Or you could simply drop the reps each week instead of every 2 weeks. Or you could stick with a given rep range for a month or more. As long as you're making continual strength improvements it doesn’t matter really. The idea is the bar weight is gonna be consistently increasing over time on your “tension” generated movements. On your fatigue movements, bar weight increases are not quite as important yet should still be sought after.

[Kane]

I would take a look at DFHT. I've seen amazing hypertrophy and strength gains with it.

[TALO]

wow man , thanks. I know what a pain in the ass it is to type all that out. I appriciate it.
I know you know what your talking about and have made some great gains, so I'm thinking I'll give it a shot. I'll just take awhile and write something out that will suit me

Thanks again.

[Darkhorse]

^^ No problem. Whenever you find something that you like, just per her up in THIS thread so other's can critique if need be.

[TALO]

I've been reading the DFT sticky like you said, and the DFHT program and article by Matt Reynolds looks very interesting. Thanks again.

I just need to shake this damn chest cold ( right in the lungs ) RRRRRR!!!