I have a question about my workout routine, looking for insight

[john10960]

Hi everyone. So let me first just say, I’m only looking for the direct answer to my question, no additional advice on “this routine would be better etc etc etc”

So currently I’m in the gym 6-7 days a week. I do this for a number of reasons including time constraints , work schedule, structure etc.

I do a push/pull/legs routine.

My question: sometimes I’m literally only able to get 1-2 exercises in. For example, maybe only have time for bench press before I gotta run to work. What I currently do is try and finish my push routine the following day with maybe dips, chest fly, and if possible shoulder press. So essentially, I split up , let’s say push day, between two consecutive days. Would it be better to have the following day doing pull movements and then finish the push the day after that ? For recovery reasons?

basically which is the better option? My thought process is if I do bench press one day, then the following day I do dips, I know I’m working a different part of the chest but still the chest nonetheless. Would this impact recovery? As I know our muscles want 24-48 hours to recover.

thanks in advance guys! (I wish I could spit out my question in a shorter more concise fashion)

 

[sns8778]

Do you mind giving more details of your overall push/pull routine?

I've seen people have different definitions of what push/pull was to them.

Is your push day chest, shoulders, and triceps and your push day back and biceps?

If so, how many sets would you say that you do on average per body-part?

The reason I'm asking isn't go tell you to change anything. I can completely understand what you said above - I hate when I've asked questions about training in the past and instead of them being answered, I just got hit with what all I should do differently, when what I may have been doing at the time was the best I could do at the time. So I'm asking the questions trying to give you the best answers that I can based on what you normally do or like to do.

 

[sns8778]

If your setup is:

• Push Day
• Pull Day
• Leg Day
• Push Day
• Pull Day
• Leg Day
• Rest or start the routine again

That gives you 2 of each type of day per week basically.

What I would do if it were me is that I would emphasize something different each push or pull day.

So, if push day is chest, back, and triceps, I would emphasize chest the first push day and shoulders the second and an equal amount of triceps work each, unless I felt like I needed to focus on triceps especially. Then if pull day was back and biceps, I would emphasize back on the first one and biceps on the second one; still doing each each time.

When I say emphasizing, I mean more sets would be going toward the one I'm emphasizing.

If I only had time to do just a couple sets, I would make it be the focal point of the workout. That way if I missed something, it would be the one that I would be emphasizing the next workout of that type anyway.

I hope I wrote that out in a way that makes sense.

 

[john10960]

Thanks for the feedback.

yes that push /pull is what I do more or less. 8-12 reps x 3 sets with increasing weight. I’ve gained a lot of strength and significant muscle mass over a 2.5 year period. So clearly things are working more or less the way they should.

i guess what I’m looking for clarification on: if one does bench on day 1. Then on day 2 they do dips. In general, is this thought to inhibit pectoral recovery?

*edit: wrote this post before I saw your second. Yeah that makes sense and I appreciate you breaking it down. Still curious though about my above question. If say chest was worked through bench press on day one and on day 2 some dips were done, would it impact recovery of the pectoral muscle overall from the bench press work done on day 1?

 

[sns8778]

Thanks for the feedback.

yes that push /pull is what I do more or less. 8-12 reps x 3 sets with increasing weight. I’ve gained a lot of strength and significant muscle mass over a 2.5 year period. So clearly things are working more or less the way they should.

i guess what I’m looking for clarification on: if one does bench on day 1. Then on day 2 they do dips. In general, is this thought to inhibit pectoral recovery?

*edit: wrote this post before I saw your second. Yeah that makes sense and I appreciate you breaking it down. Still curious though about my above question. If say chest was worked through bench press on day one and on day 2 some dips were done, would it impact recovery of the pectoral muscle overall from the bench press work done on day 1?

It could impede recovery. To what extent may depend on the person and other variables though.

In your scenario question, let's say you did bench on day 1 and then let's say you did decide to do dips on day 2 because you ran of time on day 1 - does that mean you're adding dips to your pull day or are you giving up your pull day to finish up your push day?

 

[john10960]

Im usually able to get dips and bench in on same day. If I miss dips, I’ll designate the following day to finishing up my push and do the dips.

usually though, I’ll end up doing chest (dips/bench/fly) on one day, and the next day I’ll do shoulders triceps.

and then every so often, I’ll get enough time to do a full on push day of chest, shoulders, tri

 

[sns8778]

Im usually able to get dips and bench in on same day. If I miss dips, I’ll designate the following day to finishing up my push and do the dips.

usually though, I’ll end up doing chest (dips/bench/fly) on one day, and the next day I’ll do shoulders triceps.

and then every so often, I’ll get enough time to do a full on push day of chest, shoulders, tri

Okay, so the way I'm reading this is that its not always like push one day, pull the next then?

The way I thought you were saying was that Day 1 was push and if you didn't finish push on day 1, you may be adding more push to day 2, but then day 3 would also be a push day - and that would probably be too much and impede recovery.

Are you doing, or have you considered doing:

• Day 1 - Chest (push)
• Day 2 - Shoulders and Triceps
• Day 3 - Back and Biceps
• Day 4 - Legs

and then repeat?

The reason I'm asking is that from the way I'm reading this, you would normally finish chest anyway, but may not get to shoulders and triceps. So my thought was if you planned it out like you probably couldn't get to them, if you had extra time you could always throw them in; but if not, if you didn't plan for them anyway, it wouldn't mess up your rotation.

Sorry for all the questions. Just trying to make the best suggestions I can and wanting to make sure I understand everything correctly in order to be able to.

 

[john10960]

What you laid out is essentially what I’m doing:

push: chest
Push: shoulder triceps
Pull: biceps/back
Legs

rinse/repeat

so my question revolves around hitting same muscle group on weeks where I’m running short on time, for example pecs, two days in a row but with different focuses/exercises ie bench one day, dips, flies, another day.

then sometimes with pull, I’ll split that in consecutive days ie bicep curls and pull downs one day, rows and chin ups the next day (something of the sort)

 

[sns8778]

What you laid out is essentially what I’m doing:

push: chest
Push: shoulder triceps
Pull: biceps/back
Legs

rinse/repeat

so my question revolves around hitting same muscle group on weeks where I’m running short on time, for example pecs, two days in a row but with different focuses/exercises ie bench one day, dips, flies, another day.

then sometimes with pull, I’ll split that in consecutive days ie bicep curls and pull downs one day, rows and chin ups the next day (something of the sort)

Okay, cool.

You'd originally said push, pull so I thought you were doing one day push, one day pull.

To answer your question, I don't think it would necessarily hurt to do dips the next day if you run short on time, but I wouldn't if it were me. What I would do would be to just cut my sets short that day if pushed for time.

I'm big on recovery and I used to have a tendency to over-train a lot and think I cost myself a lot of results by doing it.

For me, if were going to break up the push day, I wouldn't break it up doing both back and biceps both days - I would break it up into back one day and biceps the next day.

I train either at 8 reps or 10 to 12 reps depending on the exercise and do 12 sets per body-part on average.

My layout is:

• Day 1: Legs
• Day 2: Chest & Back
• Day 3: Shoulders
• Day 4: Legs
• Day 5: Arms

There have been times I would do chest and back on different days, but I actually feel stronger on back when doing it with chest. I read a great theory of reasoning on why that is, but its pretty in depth, but I do know it seems to work for me. If pushed for time though, I would just put back off until the next day.

I'm not telling you what I'm doing in an effort to get you to change what you're doing, I'm just laying mine out so you can see how I do it myself.

 

[sammpedd88]

Hi everyone. So let me first just say, I’m only looking for the direct answer to my question, no additional advice on “this routine would be better etc etc etc”

So currently I’m in the gym 6-7 days a week. I do this for a number of reasons including time constraints , work schedule, structure etc.

I do a push/pull/legs routine.

My question: sometimes I’m literally only able to get 1-2 exercises in. For example, maybe only have time for bench press before I gotta run to work. What I currently do is try and finish my push routine the following day with maybe dips, chest fly, and if possible shoulder press. So essentially, I split up , let’s say push day, between two consecutive days. Would it be better to have the following day doing pull movements and then finish the push the day after that ? For recovery reasons?

basically which is the better option? My thought process is if I do bench press one day, then the following day I do dips, I know I’m working a different part of the chest but still the chest nonetheless. Would this impact recovery? As I know our muscles want 24-48 hours to recover.

thanks in advance guys! (I wish I could spit out my question in a shorter more concise fashion)

Not sure how long you’ve been training but here’s my .02 on your question. If you’re new to working out then doing other push exercises the day after chest isn’t going to be too big of a deal but as you start to train more and your intensity increases then you’re going to run into issues working push muscle groups on back to back days. Your triceps and front delts would not be recovered from a hard chest day the day before.

You say you’re running out of time before you go to work, try to start getting to the gym earlier or go to a bro split as listed below

Chest
Back
legs
Shoulders
Arms

So the answer to your question is as time goes on and your intensity increases your body needs to recover so find a way to do all of your push exercises in the same day.

 

[Resolve10]

Sorry if I’m a little confused, so couple of questions.

How often does this happen?

You’ve only given an example on a push day, does it happen on other days too?

 

[john10960]

Thanks for all the feedback thus far guys.

resolve, to answer your question, my norm is usually push, push, pull, pull, legs. Every now and then I’m able to get all push or all pull done on one day. But the regular is usually back to back push and back to back pull. Back to the main question tho, when I do back to back days, for instance with chest, I will most of the time alternate muscle groups like chest on first push day then shoulders/triceps the 2nd push day. Then sometimes, which main question was asking, chest would also be split into two days (when time is really an issue) with maybe push day one being only bench, then day 2 being dips/shoulders/triceps.

Let me ask this, if I’m running short on time, and I can’t finish push on one day, would it be ultimately better to have the following day be pull, and then the next day after that, finish out the push exercises? In short, is it always better to alternate push/pull on consecutive days, no matter how short the workout might’ve been?

 

[sns8778]

Let me ask this, if I’m running short on time, and I can’t finish push on one day, would it be ultimately better to have the following day be pull, and then the next day after that, finish out the push exercises? In short, is it always better to alternate push/pull on consecutive days, no matter how short the workout might’ve been?

No, you don't always have to rotate push and pull, but most people wouldn't want to work the same body-part 2 days in a row.

So if day 1 was push and it was chest and you ran out of time, day 2 would be shoulders and triceps instead of incorporating more chest into it.

Push/pull is a concept, but practicality wise, I would look at it more as body-part days than just an overall push or pull day.

 

[Resolve10]

Is there a reason you frequently can't finish your workouts? How far ahead of time do you know you won't finish?

 

[john10960]

In response to sns8778, I gotcha. I’m just curious, sammpedd mentioned above that working push movements two days in a row might not allow front delts and triceps enough time to recover. Thoughts?

In response to resolve, in short it is purely because of time constraints. I’m in the process of trying to free things up for more workout time.

 

[Resolve10]

Idk honestly if I was constantly having to shorten my workout then trying to do the rest of it the next day I'd just adjust the entire thing to something that makes more sense.

It really depends on how much and at what intensity that little bit is you are doing the one day in relation to what you are doing the next, but plenty of people do high frequency fine and recovery can be fine between the two days. Idk if it would be ideal though, as it may make more sense to just structure things based on knowing what time you have.

 

[sns8778]

In response to sns8778, I gotcha. I’m just curious, sammpedd mentioned above that working push movements two days in a row might not allow front delts and triceps enough time to recover. Thoughts?

In response to resolve, in short it is purely because of time constraints. I’m in the process of trying to free things up for more workout time.

Everyone is going to be different and respond differently to different training styles.

I would not suggest working the same body-part 2 days in a row, which is why I suggested if there were 2 push days in a row that I would do chest the first day and shoulders and triceps the second.

I don't classify my workouts in terms of push/pull, I focus on making sure to properly work particular body-parts. But by going with the push/pull type classifications, I would have 2 pull days in a row but they'd be separate body-parts.

This is my layout:

• Day 1: Legs
• Day 2: Chest & Back
• Day 3: Shoulders
• Day 4: Legs
• Day 5: Arms

In the past when I didn't want to, or have time to do chest and back together, it was:

• Day 1: Chest
• Day 2: Back
• Day 3: Shoulders
• Day 4: Legs
• Day 5: Arms
• Then 2 days of rest

For me, I started doing legs twice a week which meant combining chest and back into the same day; the reason for that is because of my accident where I broke my leg and couldn't walk for a long time. I have one leg day now that is more focused on weight training for building and one that is more on functional movement and mobility.

 

[john10960]

thanks for all the in depth replies guys. I gotta think about it for a while and see what changes I’ll make