Overthinking about my split

[VtaperXO]

Well guys I’ve always had some issues creating my split because my gym is not opening on weekend’s , so that I kinda can train at my house on Saturdays but I ONLY GOT MATERIAL FOR A PUSH DAY OR SHOULDERS/ARMS DAY, I can’t do a Leg day or Pull day working out in my house due to the fact that I don’t have enough material or machines. I’ve been doing an Arnold Splitx PPL(doing legs on monday and thursday) since 3 months but I got a couple of issues with this:
-If I fail one day the split is fucked up.
-Doing and Overhead press after a Chest/back day whereas I did some chest presses doesn’t feel good at all,my shoulders and chest are sore asf

Doing chest and back is really demanding.
So I changed it up to a PPL but only going 5 days a week, but I realized that is really hard to make a PPL with Arms and shoulders focused and now I don’t know what split to do.
My choices would be:
-Coming back to the Arnold splitxPPL but being aware that If I don’t go one day the split is completely fucked up, also I don’t know if training 6 days a week is too much.
-Keep doing this PPL of five days a week, knowing that I can’t work every muscle twice a week ( Week 1- PPLPP, Week 2-LPPLP, Week 3 PLPPL and so on)
-Doing a 4xbro split.
-Doing Push-Arms, Back shoulders and Legs
At this point I just need something to keep myself constant and I don’t really know what to do, the problem is that I can’t do too much on weekend because there is no gym in my town opened those days. What would you recommend me to do?
Ik I’m overthinking this but it’s because there’s always a downside, If I could workout on weekend I’d would be much easier to choose.

 

[Smont]

Yep, your overthinking it. If I were you I'd just rotate through the ppl on the days you can train. Or you could very easily combine hamstrings and abs with pull and quads and calves with push. Just make sure you take a day between the 2.

Another thing you could do if your forced to do some workouts at home, simplify the home stuff. Pull day at home, no problem if you got a barbell and a pull up bar. 6 sets of chins, 6 sets of rows, 6 sets of barbell curls.

Sometimes I work out in a bodybuilding gym, sometimes at a PF and sometimes at my boxing gym. You can have a different workout to sub in from time to time. Most important thi g regardless of the program is just making sure your putting max effort into what your doing. Don't over think it or before you know it your spending more time worried about your workout then you spend time doing the workout.

 

[Wobmarvel]

I was doing ppl but found my legs needed more time to recover. I now do push pull legs arms day off. So everything gets 48hrs rest and legs at least 5 days apart. Sometimes because of work I have an extra day off so this week coming will be legs, arms, day off, push, pull, day off, legs. Working really well for me.

 

[Jeremyk1]

Things don’t have to line up with the weeks. I have a 6 day rotation so every Monday is different from the one before and after. Nothing about training demands you follow a 7 day schedule. You can just rotate how you want and take days off as needed.

 

[Smont]

Things don’t have to line up with the weeks. I have a 6 day rotation so every Monday is different from the one before and after. Nothing about training demands you follow a 7 day schedule. You can just rotate how you want and take days off as needed.

This is how my schedule typically works out. Your body doesn't know it's Tuesday or it's been 5 days since you trained legs. It just knows that its recovered or its not recovered

 

[Foxx13]

Definetly don’t need to do the same muscles the same day of the week. That said I do a push/pull 4x a week program. I find it gives me a ton of room to tweak my days and play around with what days I train each week based on schedule. As far as missing a day either just push the missed the day to the next workout or combine two days with less volume. I’ve done both, if it’s only once in a while it’s not a big deal. If it’s a weekly thing than you need a new split.

 

[Smont]

Definetly don’t need to do the same muscles the same day of the week. That said I do a push/pull 4x a week program. I find it gives me a ton of room to tweak my days and play around with what days I train each week based on schedule. As far as missing a day either just push the missed the day to the next workout or combine two days with less volume. I’ve done both, if it’s only once in a while it’s not a big deal. If it’s a weekly thing than you need a new split.

This is a great way to train. I will add 1 this g and it's not directed at you, just a general statement.

I've put a few ppl on a ppl like this where they can train as much as there schedule allows and it usually ends up being the 3 workouts P,PL in a 4 day split

P,P,L,P
P,L,P,P
L,P,P,L

and so on. To op, I found these guys all had very little progress in there leg training and it has nothing to do with the program. They were missing leg day some weeks and instead of putting legs on the next available training day they **** canned it till the following week. They were both training upper body 2-3× a week and training legs 2-3x per month.

Don't be that guy. Unless you care very little about leg development. In that case I'd go back to the hams/glutes with pull and quads and calves with push.

So maybe ham curls and rdl after pull and squat and leg press and calve press after push.


If your knocking out 2-3 chest exercises, 2-3 shoulders, 2-3 quads ans 1-2 triceps exercises and racking up decent volume or intensity I'd go the e.o.d approach or 2 on 1 off

 

[MrKleen73]

I am with @Smont here, the body does not now the day of the week. Set your split up in the order you want to do the work them just follow that structure rotating through the workouts in order regardless of what day it is on. Your body only knows A if it is recovered, and B if it got worked, and needs to recover again.

If you really want 5 days a week with specific set up you can do a P-P-L, Full Body Push, Full body Pull, or Full upper, then full lower which I would recommend. Then just do less volume on the upper on the 2nd day where you are doing full upper. ou don't need to beat yourself to death every session, you can do higher volume, more sets on the P-P-L rotation and some pump work and metabolic style hypertrophy work on the 2nd session of the week. Lots of options man.

 

[VtaperXO]

Yep, your overthinking it. If I were you I'd just rotate through the ppl on the days you can train. Or you could very easily combine hamstrings and abs with pull and quads and calves with push. Just make sure you take a day between the 2.

Another thing you could do if your forced to do some workouts at home, simplify the home stuff. Pull day at home, no problem if you got a barbell and a pull up bar. 6 sets of chins, 6 sets of rows, 6 sets of barbell curls.

Sometimes I work out in a bodybuilding gym, sometimes at a PF and sometimes at my boxing gym. You can have a different workout to sub in from time to time. Most important thi g regardless of the program is just making sure your putting max effort into what your doing. Don't over think it or before you know it your spending more time worried about your workout then you spend time doing the workout.

What I'm doing right now is a PPL five days a week rotating from monday to friday , but I see that I need an Arms/Shoulders focused. That option might be, also I could do something like this Pull-Leg-Push-Pull-Legs-Push(On saturday). But at this point ppl also say that 6x a week is too much and that you need a rest day in between.

 

[VtaperXO]

I was doing ppl but found my legs needed more time to recover. I now do push pull legs arms day off. So everything gets 48hrs rest and legs at least 5 days apart. Sometimes because of work I have an extra day off so this week coming will be legs, arms, day off, push, pull, day off, legs. Working really well for me.

That's a good way, but It would not be faster gains If I try to hit everything twice a week? I mean as long as I'm recovering and I don't have a junk volume (I usually do 8-12 sets per muscle weekly, maybe a few more for back and shoulders around 14)

 

[VtaperXO]

Definetly don’t need to do the same muscles the same day of the week. That said I do a push/pull 4x a week program. I find it gives me a ton of room to tweak my days and play around with what days I train each week based on schedule. As far as missing a day either just push the missed the day to the next workout or combine two days with less volume. I’ve done both, if it’s only once in a while it’s not a big deal. If it’s a weekly thing than you need a new split.

I see and It's a good way to handle it, with the Arnold splitxPPL is kind of difficult to do that cause If you fail one day you've messed up the whole week

 

[VtaperXO]

Things don’t have to line up with the weeks. I have a 6 day rotation so every Monday is different from the one before and after. Nothing about training demands you follow a 7 day schedule. You can just rotate how you want and take days off as needed.

Do you mean kind of PPL-REST-PPL? I'd love to that but my gym is not open on weekends

 

[Smont]

That's a good way, but It would not be faster gains If I try to hit everything twice a week? I mean as long as I'm recovering and I don't have a junk volume (I usually do 8-12 sets per muscle weekly, maybe a few more for back and shoulders around 14)

Your still over thinking it

 

[Jeremyk1]

Your still over thinking it

Time to start under thinking it.

 

[VtaperXO]

This is a great way to train. I will add 1 this g and it's not directed at you, just a general statement.

I've put a few ppl on a ppl like this where they can train as much as there schedule allows and it usually ends up being the 3 workouts P,PL in a 4 day split

P,P,L,P
P,L,P,P
L,P,P,L

and so on. To op, I found these guys all had very little progress in there leg training and it has nothing to do with the program. They were missing leg day some weeks and instead of putting legs on the next available training day they **** canned it till the following week. They were both training upper body 2-3× a week and training legs 2-3x per month.

Don't be that guy. Unless you care very little about leg development. In that case I'd go back to the hams/glutes with pull and quads and calves with push.

So maybe ham curls and rdl after pull and squat and leg press and calve press after push.


If your knocking out 2-3 chest exercises, 2-3 shoulders, 2-3 quads ans 1-2 triceps exercises and racking up decent volume or intensity I'd go the e.o.d approach or 2 on 1 off

I'm doing something like that right now but going five days, but I'd need more Shoulder+arms focused , I was thinking in my push b and pull b doing some biceps at the beginning of my push and some triceps at the beginning of my pull but I don't know if they are going to be able to recovered in 48 hours, I mean on monday biceps(one exercise)+push and then on wednesday triceps(one exercise)+pull and the problem is that next day will be push again my triceps would be still sore.

 

[VtaperXO]

Your still over thinking it

Sorry bro I'm lit insane

 

[VtaperXO]

Time to start under thinking it.

Bruh....

 

[VtaperXO]

It won't happen again guys

 

[Jeremyk1]

Time to start under thinking it.

I said this as a joke, but like actually. There’s a point where it really doesn’t matter, and you crossed that a while back. If you’re a professional athlete, it makes sense to sweat minutiae like this, but for everyone else, it’s just not worth the stress.

Years ago, in Muscular Development, someone wrote in to ask Branch Warren a question. This has been like 13 years probably, but it stuck with me. The guy was asking about tempo and how slowly to lower the weight and stuff and Branch was just like “dude, just lift the damn weight”. He elaborated a little more, but basically, analyzing little details like this doesn’t get you big. Working hard and eating hard is what gets you big. It’s fine to think about how to maximize your split, but at the end of the day, just get in the fucking gym and just lift the damn weight.

 

[VtaperXO]

I said this as a joke, but like actually. There’s a point where it really doesn’t matter, and you crossed that a while back. If you’re a professional athlete, it makes sense to sweat minutiae like this, but for everyone else, it’s just not worth the stress.

Years ago, in Muscular Development, someone wrote in to ask Branch Warren a question. This has been like 13 years probably, but it stuck with me. The guy was asking about tempo and how slowly to lower the weight and stuff and Branch was just like “dude, just lift the damn weight”. He elaborated a little more, but basically, analyzing little details like this doesn’t get you big. Working hard and eating hard is what gets you big. It’s fine to think about how to maximize your split, but at the end of the day, just get in the fucking gym and just lift the damn weight.

I know bro no problem, that made me laugh tho! but it's true I'm paranoic about every single detail, I'm not a profesional athlete or bodybuilder though I want to do things right and try to make faster gains as much as I can cause I don't really know If I'm going to be this dedicated for ever ( work or life issues). Thank you so much for your time dude

 

[Resolve10]

It is fine to think about small details, but you have to only move to that when big details are ironed out. You are focusing on the wrong things.

Stop trying to shove 6 day per week programs into a 5 day per week time frame. Just do a 5 day split and focus on working hard on that.

I am honestly kind of confused what the issue even is beyond that.

 

[VtaperXO]

It is fine to think about small details, but you have to only move to that when big details are ironed out. You are focusing on the wrong things.

Stop trying to shove 6 day per week programs into a 5 day per week time frame. Just do a 5 day split and focus on working hard on that.

I am honestly kind of confused what the issue even is beyond that.

The only five days split is a bro split as far as I know. Or doing what I'm doing a PPL of five days

 

[MrKleen73]

The only five days split is a bro split as far as I know. Or doing what I'm doing a PPL of five days

Dude, you create your own split. That is the point. You just need to train everything with enough volume and intensity to grow Train, recover, train again. I also gave you a 5 day non bro split that is not strictly PPL.

There are so many options just make it up. You don't need things to be as concrete as you are trying to make them. That is the point of saying don't overthink it. Start with a little less work than you think you need, then add more as you go until you need a deload, then deload rinse and repeat. Doesn't matter if you do EOD, Mon-Wed-Fri, Mon-Tues-Thurs-Fri, Mon-Fri, or Mon-Sat just decide how many times you want to hit a muscle a week, and how many sets per session, then split them up in a way that allow you to hit those. That is honestly all that is needed.

 

[Foxx13]

Dude, you create your own split. That is the point. You just need to train everything with enough volume and intensity to grow Train, recover, train again. I also gave you a 5 day non bro split that is not strictly PPL.

There are so many options just make it up. You don't need things to be as concrete as you are trying to make them. That is the point of saying don't overthink it. Start with a little less work than you think you need, then add more as you go until you need a deload, then deload rinse and repeat. Doesn't matter if you do EOD, Mon-Wed-Fri, Mon-Tues-Thurs-Fri, Mon-Fri, or Mon-Sat just decide how many times you want to hit a muscle a week, and how many sets per session, then split them up in a way that allow you to hit those. That is honestly all that is needed.

this is good advice, no split is set in stone and you can make your own up. I would suggest as well something that is more attainable. It seems the biggest issue is fitting everything into a week while also accounting for a missed day??? Do 4x/week for the next 3-4 months. It allows more room to play with while still hitting everything 2x a week.

 

[lamarclark09]

Yeah exactly, I would say don't stress too much. Start with little things then gradually increase your level up by not stressing too much. Make a routine that suits your body type, try weightlifting workouts in order to maintain your health and fitness. Start from lower weights than gradually increase the number of weights. It is beneficial for the conditioning of your body and muscles.