Recovery

P

Pat Mustard

Subs Bench
What’s the opinion on recovery between gym sessions? At the moment I’m doing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, sat or sun. Do biceps and triceps together, chest on its own, shoulders with back and legs on their own. Usually do 15 min cross trainer once finished with the weights. I’m usually still sore the following day when focusing on the next body part, I’ve read a bit about leaving 48 hours between sessions rather than 24 but that would inevitably leave me with less work outs.
 


Push, Pull, Legs, split gives you recovery between hitting the same areas, recovery is important so it says in everything I've read, same with diet and sleep.

I'm doing PPL at the moment and use the HEVY app for tracking, enjoying it atm, I thought about perhapos doing a GV (german volume) edtion in the future, with 10x10 sets of PPL, might appeal to you if you like the volume.
 
Pat Mustard said:
What’s the opinion on recovery between gym sessions? At the moment I’m doing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, sat or sun. Do biceps and triceps together, chest on its own, shoulders with back and legs on their own. Usually do 15 min cross trainer once finished with the weights. I’m usually still sore the following day when focusing on the next body part, I’ve read a bit about leaving 48 hours between sessions rather than 24 but that would inevitably leave me with less work outs.
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It depends on intensity etc. but I usually weight train on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.

I to do a full body routine though.

Tuesday mainly upper push/pull but focusing on bench.

Friday another bench/upper but I do lunges and split squats after (just because they’re really fun).

Sunday is when I have time to do warmups, stretching for deadlifts and then I do some upper body accessories.

I am an old grumpy bastard though who likes to eat and sleep a lot.

I have done ‘push’ movements on one day followed by ‘pull’ or legs the following day, but I think that there’s always going to be a crossover of muscle groups that are worked.

I’ve tried to run on consecutive days but that didn’t work too well for me.
 
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Try to do an hour weights with 5 sets to failure each time on 4-5 exercises per body part, I’ve tried PPL and it’s not for me, think I need to just leave 48hrs between sessions to recovery properly. Feels like I’m cheating myself by not going every day
 
Pat Mustard said:
Try to do an hour weights with 5 sets to failure each time on 4-5 exercises per body part, I’ve tried PPL and it’s not for me, think I need to just leave 48hrs between sessions to recovery properly. Feels like I’m cheating myself by not going every day
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Try it for a while, if you’re only recently feeling different then there could be other factors E.g. sleep, diet, stress.
 
Just my two pence. I’ve been following the Dorian Yates split and it’s been working tremendously.

Wednesday Chest and Biceps
4 exercises for chest, incline push and also flies.
3 exercises for biceps.

Thursday Legs
3 exercises hamstrings
3 exercises quads
2 exercises calfs

Saturday Shoulders and triceps
2 exercises rear delts
2 exercises front delts
2 exercises side delts
3 exercises triceps

Sunday back
7-8 exercises for the whole back

For each exercise 1-2 sets to warm up, 50% - 75% of max then 1 set of all out hell to failure + rest pause and drop sets, and really try and get failure on the negative part of the rep. Log the set on a bit of paper or your phone notes and then move on.
Intensity and time under tension is the key, massively underestimated imo. Controlling the weight and really focusing on the mechanics. Try and beat it next week.
I’m on a cut atm so my strength is decreasing sadly, but atleast I know why. Everything feels super heavy atm.

45 mins to 1 hour then leave the gym. You don’t grow in the gym, you need to just stimulate growth then rest and recover. Recovery is key.
Can only train like this for 5 weeks I find then take a week off/deload.
 
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billybobmackem2312 said:
Just my two pence. I’ve been following the Dorian Yates split and it’s been working tremendously.

Wednesday Chest and Biceps
4 exercises for chest, incline push and also flies.
3 exercises for biceps.

Thursday Legs
3 exercises hamstrings
3 exercises quads
2 exercises calfs

Saturday Shoulders and triceps
2 exercises rear delts
2 exercises front delts
2 exercises side delts
3 exercises triceps

Sunday back
7-8 exercises for the whole back

For each exercise 1-2 sets to warm up, 50% - 75% of max then 1 set of all out hell to failure + rest pause and drop sets, and really try and get failure on the negative part of the rep. Log the set on a bit of paper or your phone notes and then move on.
Intensity and time under tension is the key, massively underestimated imo. Controlling the weight and really focusing on the mechanics. Try and beat it next week.
I’m on a cut atm so my strength is decreasing sadly, but atleast I know why. Everything feels super heavy atm.

45 mins to 1 hour then leave the gym. You don’t grow in the gym, you need to just stimulate growth then rest and recover. Recovery is key.
Can only train like this for 5 weeks I find then take a week off/deload.
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Sounds similar to the Mike Mentzer style, although I’d be injured within a month if I was lifting that heavy consistently. Made of rivita these days
 
Pat Mustard said:
What’s the opinion on recovery between gym sessions? At the moment I’m doing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, sat or sun. Do biceps and triceps together, chest on its own, shoulders with back and legs on their own. Usually do 15 min cross trainer once finished with the weights. I’m usually still sore the following day when focusing on the next body part, I’ve read a bit about leaving 48 hours between sessions rather than 24 but that would inevitably leave me with less work outs.
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Based on this, you’re likely massively overtraining.

You ideally want at least 72 hours between working the same body part, or doing exercises which utilise muscles you’ve worked in the previous session.

There’s absolutely no point working a muscle if it’s not properly recovered. You’re not achieving anything by doing this. It’s like rubbing your hand with a bit of sand paper until it bleeds, leave the wound to recover and the skin will come back stronger. Rub it again before it’s healed properly and you’ve just delayed your recovery and gained nothing. It’s basically self-harm.

Don’t even concern yourself with ensuring all of your workouts fit within the same week. If you’re training particularly hard, which is to say taking your sets to failure to properly ensure full stimulation of the muscle, as you should, and even if you have a split that goes something like (working largest muscles to smallest):

Legs on Monday.
Back on Wednesday.
Chest on Friday.
Shoulders the following Monday, so on and so forth… so be it.

The recovery of the body isn’t necessarily in sync with the Gregorian calendar.
 
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Think a lot depends on age . I used to be able to train 6 sessions a week . No matter what split i use that tires me generally now at 65 .
At least two of those sessions need to be very very light mobility sessions now.
 
I’m only 37, the last couple of years of extended recovery times and proneness to injury are very frustrating. Rotator cuff and general shoulder mobility have been shocking of late, knocked flat bench on the head years ago, mostly do dips for chest these days and thankfully it’s the exercise I feel chest activation in the most. Still young and I feel f****d 😂
 
Pat Mustard said:
I’m only 37, the last couple of years of extended recovery times and proneness to injury are very frustrating. Rotator cuff and general shoulder mobility have been shocking of late, knocked flat bench on the head years ago, mostly do dips for chest these days and thankfully it’s the exercise I feel chest activation in the most. Still young and I feel f****d 😂
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You’re not missing much, mate. For most people bench press is massively overrated for hypertrophy, anyway. I find I get more out of dips too.

When I started doing HIT, I got more chest growth out of just doing those and the pec dec to failure than I ever did out of benching.
 
Thurston said:
You’re not missing much, mate. For most people bench press is massively overrated for hypertrophy, anyway. I find I get more out of dips too.

When I started doing HIT, I got more chest growth out of just doing those and the pec dec to failure than I ever did out of benching.
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I have found that the bench press is more of an arm (Tricep) exercise and not a chest exercise.
 

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