WEIGHT TRAINING SPLIT ROUTINES
by Dan DeFigio

A "split routine" means working different muscles on different days. If you need a change in your training split, here are a few ideas:

Day 1: Chest and Arms
Day 2: Legs and Waist
Day 3: Back and Shoulders

Day 1: Chest and Back
Day 2: Legs and Waist
Day 3: Shoulders and Arms

Day 1: Chest and Biceps
Day 2: Legs and Waist
Day 3: Back and Triceps
Day 4: Shoulders, Calves, Abs

Day 1: Back and Triceps
Day 2: Legs and Abs
Day 3: Chest and Biceps
Day 4: Deadlifts and Calves

Day 1: Pushing movements
Day 2: Pulling movements

Day 1: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Day 2: Squat, Deadlift, Abs
Day 3: Back and Biceps

Day 1: Plyometrics and Chest
Day 2: Legs and Waist
Day 3: Back and Shoulders
Day 4: Plyometrics and Arms

Day 1: Chest and Abs
Day 2: Deadlifts and Back
Day 3: Shoulders and Arms
Day 4: Legs

Remember to give yourself enough recovery time in between workouts! Due to systemic and nervous system fatigue, it's usually not a good idea to have more than 2 intense weight training days in a row.

Some other ideas if you're feeling stale:

• Supersets (two exercises back-to-back for opposing muscle groups)
• Compound sets (back-to-back exercises for the same muscle group)
• Tri-sets (three exercises is a row with no rest in between sets)
• 5 second positive, 5 second negative
• Heavy primary mover/light secondary mover (i.e. rows/bicep curls, chest presses/tricep extensions, deadlifts/hamstring curls)
• Pre-exhaustion (knee extensions before squats, pec deck before bench press)
• 2 minutes cardio between sets
• One set of pushups after every upper body exercise, one set of unweighted squats or lunges after every lower body exercise
• 21's (7 reps at top half of range of motion, 7 reps at bottom half, 7 reps full range)
• 40 reps, rest as needed (i.e. 15 reps, rest a few seconds, 7 more, rest, 5 reps, etc. until you get a total of 40)
• 5 second pause halfway through each rep
• One super-slow rep per set
• 45 second work bout, 1 minute rest (those minutes go by real quick after a few sets!)
• Super light weights -- 50, 60, 100 reps -- whatever you can get!
• Plyometric exercises before training a particular bodypart with weights
• Heavy overhead lifts with odd-shaped and/or unbalanced objects: half-empty beer kegs, rocks, lumber, small furniture, etc. Deadlifts also work well with these kind of objects. If you enjoy this kind of strongman training, you may want to check out MILO, a publication dealing with this type of strength training.

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