Only three consecutive days a week to lift

[okboy63]

I only have 3 days a week to lift and they are M-t-W for a max of 1 hr per day
How would you design a lifting program?
A full body program on M and W or a push/pull/legs routine on separate days. Some sort of HIT routine is what I was thinking.
I am oh so close to 45 but still in decent shape.
Is it to many consecutive days off to make any decent gains?

 

[CROWLER]

Yes you can definitely still make gains. 1 hour is plenty in my opinion.

I would go with the tried and true.

Day 1 Back and bis

Day 2 Chest and Tris

Day 3 Legs and Abs.


CROWLER

 

[Jim Mills]

I'm no expert here, but you could also try: Full upper body on Monday & Wednesday and legs on Tuesday........ Crowler also has a good idea..... Maybe you can try one workout program for 6-8 weeks then switch to the other one?

 

[b unit]

m - chest & back (bench press, lat pulldown, incline press, seated row etc - alternate between chest & back - push/pull)
t - legs & calves
w- shoulders & arms (alternate between bi's & tri's - push/pull)

 

[RoidRageX10]

Yes you can definitely still make gains. 1 hour is plenty in my opinion.

I would go with the tried and true.

Day 1 Back and bis

Day 2 Chest and Tris

Day 3 Legs and Abs.


CROWLER

I enjoy that routine with shoulders somehwere in the mix.

 

[t-bone2]

I would go with the tried and true.
Day 1 Back and bis
Day 2 Chest and Tris
Day 3 Legs and Abs

In order to grow, you're going to need to progressively add weight over time. Three days in a row of heavy lifting may make recovery difficult and the third may not be best effort for that reason.

I would make two additional suggestions. First, rotate the exercises:

Week 1
Day 1 Back and bis
Day 2 Chest and Tris
Day 3 Legs and Abs

Week 2
Day 1 Chest and Tris
Day 2 Legs and Abs
Day 3 Back and bis

Week 3
Day 1 Legs and Abs
Day 2 Back and bis
Day 3 Chest and Tris

Then repeat the rotation.

Second suggestion would be to alter weight and rep range so you don't lift heavy three days in a row. Maybe always make Days 1 & 3 heavy with less volume and Day 2 lighter with increased volume.

Are you doing any carido on the non-lifting days?

 

[Ribo68]

I only have 3 days a week to lift and they are M-t-W for a max of 1 hr per day
How would you design a lifting program?
A full body program on M and W or a push/pull/legs routine on separate days. Some sort of HIT routine is what I was thinking.
I am oh so close to 45 but still in decent shape.
Is it to many consecutive days off to make any decent gains?

Those are actually my lifting days and have been for the last few years. My favorite is a push/pull where I can superset to keep my gym time to a minimum. I will switch up now and again. Something like this:

M- shoulders & legs
T- Superset chest & biceps
W- SS back & triceps

I do @ twelve sets/body part and seems to work out well for me. If you don't waste time, you can still add a good 20 min cardio and be out in an hr. Ah, the beauty of the superset. :whip:

 

[BIGG DOGG]

Its a little unorthadox but I but i like it. This is simillar to the situation i was in this semester:

Mon: chest/bi's
Tues:Back/tri's
Wed: legs/shoulders
I also would throw a little abbs in each day for good measure for some reason i got better results mixing the chest with bis instead of tris.

 

[FOOFAC]

Mon: chest/tri's
Tues: legs
Wed: back/bi's

With only 3 consecutive training days I would alternate upper and lower body workouts. More important would be to prevent recovering muscles from holding you back on subsequent training days. Sore secondary muscles on compound movements will lower you performance. If bi's were done with chest they wouldn't be fully recovered in 1 or 2 days for your back training. If you trained them hard they would be the weak link on back day. Same goes for tri's 1 or 2 days before chest training. Training chest/tri's & back/bi's would require less warm up sets and save time. I've always found back before legs is a ***** if your back is sore when it's time to do heavy squats. You could also split the delts, posterior on back day, anterior on chest day and lateral on either but that's up to you. It was mentioned earlier but I also believe that rotating the training days and the exercises would be beneficial to you in the long run on this schedule.

 

[ImJ2x]

This thread was brought to my attention by a member here (thanks, bound) who happens to know I workout 3 consecutive days every week, on purpose. And I'm way over 35, lol. (I'm "micro-cycling" Superdrol 3on/4off, so I had to develop some exercise routines that I could accomplish in my 3 consecutive "on" days.)
I also see that you only have an hour/day to workout. I'm a big fan of push/pull, because you can get alot more done alot quicker. (Instead of having to wait/waste a few minutes between each set of "pushes" in a typical chest/tris workout, for example, you can jump immediately back and forth alternating chest presses and back pulls. This also accomplishes a fair amount of cardio training, once you find your pace.)
I'll show you my typical workout schedule, although it might not be best for you because it's obviously designed to get progressively tougher each day (under the assumption that the Superdrol might accumulate, and be most potent on the 3rd "on" day)...

Day 1. Detail work:
Chest flies, followed by reverse flies (back), followed by shoulder flies, repeat 4-6 times.
Alternating, 4-6 sets of bis and tris. (Your arms will pump like a mofo.)

Day 2. Leg work (allows your chest/back/shoulders/arms to rest a day before the serious work on day 3):
Alternating, 4-6 sets of leg presses (we're too old to be doing squats, lol) and calf raises.
Alternating, 4-6 sets of leg extensions and hammy curls.

Day 3. Compound Exercises:
Alternating, 4-6 sets of flat chest presses and flat lat pulls (rowing).
Alternating, 4-6 sets of vertical shoulder presses and vertical lat pulldowns.
Alternating, 4-6 sets of incline chest presses and "angled" lat pulls (try the various machines; you'll see what I mean).
Shower.
Beer. (Unless you're cycling Superdrol. Sad.)

Now if you're not micro-cycling a hormonal, and you wanna distribute the work load a little more evenly, try this...

Day 1:
Alternating, 4-6 sets of flat chest presses and flat lat pulls.
Alternating, 4-6 sets of incline chest presses and angled lat pulls.
Alternating, 4-6 sets of chest flies and reverse flies.

Day 2:
Same as Day 2 above.

Day 3:
Alternating, 4-6 sets of vertical shoulder presses and vertical lat pulldowns.
Bis, followed by tris, followed by shoulder flies. Repeat 4-6 times.

I hope this helps you out. Good luck.

 

[Gamesman]

I'm 41 and have been in the same situation, only 3 consecutive days to lift. I got great results doing 2 different splits. The first one I did was a push / pull split. Push days 1 and 3, pull day 2. The next week I would flip it... push day 2, pull day 1 and 3. this way everything was worked 3x over a 2 week period. This one worked great for hypertrpphy training. The other split I did was total body workouts on days 1 and 3. I would dedicate both days to certain core movement. Day 1 bench press, day 3 squat. I would on BP day do supplemental exercises for the squat and vise versa. This split worked better for strength. Good luck!

 

[stosh517]

This thread was brought to my attention by a member here (thanks, bound) who happens to know I workout 3 consecutive days every week, on purpose. And I'm way over 35, lol. (I'm "micro-cycling" Superdrol 3on/4off, so I had to develop some exercise routines that I could accomplish in my 3 consecutive "on" days.)
I also see that you only have an hour/day to workout. I'm a big fan of push/pull, because you can get alot more done alot quicker. (Instead of having to wait/waste a few minutes between each set of "pushes" in a typical chest/tris workout, for example, you can jump immediately back and forth alternating chest presses and back pulls. This also accomplishes a fair amount of cardio training, once you find your pace.)
I'll show you my typical workout schedule, although it might not be best for you because it's obviously designed to get progressively tougher each day (under the assumption that the Superdrol might accumulate, and be most potent on the 3rd "on" day)...


Day 1. Detail work:
Chest flies, followed by reverse flies (back), followed by shoulder flies, repeat 4-6 times.
Alternating, 4-6 sets of bis and tris. (Your arms will pump like a mofo.)

Day 2. Leg work (allows your chest/back/shoulders/arms to rest a day before the serious work on day 3):
Alternating, 4-6 sets of leg presses (we're too old to be doing squats, lol) and calf raises.
Alternating, 4-6 sets of leg extensions and hammy curls.

Day 3. Compound Exercises:
Alternating, 4-6 sets of flat chest presses and flat lat pulls (rowing).
Alternating, 4-6 sets of vertical shoulder presses and vertical lat pulldowns.
Alternating, 4-6 sets of incline chest presses and "angled" lat pulls (try the various machines; you'll see what I mean).
Shower.
Beer. (Unless you're cycling Superdrol. Sad.)

Now if you're not micro-cycling a hormonal, and you wanna distribute the work load a little more evenly, try this...

Day 1:
Alternating, 4-6 sets of flat chest presses and flat lat pulls.
Alternating, 4-6 sets of incline chest presses and angled lat pulls.
Alternating, 4-6 sets of chest flies and reverse flies.

Day 2:
Same as Day 2 above.

Day 3:
Alternating, 4-6 sets of vertical shoulder presses and vertical lat pulldowns.
Bis, followed by tris, followed by shoulder flies. Repeat 4-6 times.

I hope this helps you out. Good luck.

the micro-cycling is an interesting thought...i'm 47 and am in a similar situation re training days (I can usually slip in a 4th day, but not consecutively with the other 3)...do you feel this kind of cycle protocol is working for you? btw, agree re push/pull...love it...