2 Full body workouts or split on consecutive days?

rubadub

The days that suit me best to lift are tuesdays & wednesdays. Sometimes I have only been getting 1 workout a week. I would like to workout on these days. I workout at home, have a bench, chinning bar, freeweights. The main exercises I do are squats, bench press, military press, upright row, shrugs, tricep extension, bicep curl, pull ups, chin ups, pushups. I do a lot of cycling and my legs are big enough, thats why I only do squats to work them. I am not fond of deadlifts so do none.

Could I do 2 full body workouts 2 days in a row? I presume I would be better doing a split? If so please recommend one using those exercises above.

If I was to do 2 full body workouts (which I would prefer), would I be better doing higher or lower weights on the first day, or should they be the same.

Malteaser!

First off, I've 2 suggestions. The first one's along the lines of what you want to do, the second is one that I think you should consider.

If you can only get in 2 workouts then you really want to knock the crap outta yourself sincce you've loads of time to recover. Obviously you can't kill the same muscle groups 2 days in a row so splitting them up's probably the best way to go. Ideally you don't want day 1's workout to effect day 2.

So here's the spilt I'd go with.... Legs/back/biceps on day 1, Chest/shoulders/ triceps on day 2

For legs, squats are the way to go, think 3x6 with a weight that gets very hard by the 3rd set, and hten one drop back set of 20 reps with seomthign you REALLY struggle with from rep 15 onwards, then maybe some RDL's 3x8-12, pull ups with bodyweight. 50% of your max reps and do as many sets as reps (so ifyou can do 12, then 50%=6 reps, and 6 sets) you'll need to build up to it over the course of 2/3 weeks maybe going 4 sets, 5 sets and finally 6 sets. Then do some bent over rows 3x12 and after that one set of high rep dumbbell rows (think 20reps). Then just some simple bicep work, straight bar curls 3x6 and seated dumbbell or hammer curls 3x10-1.

Now for Day 2: Bench Press 4x6-8, after the last set go straight into some dumbbell flys for 15 reps, then seated dumbbell presses (for youshoulders) 3x12, supersetted with lateral raise 3x12, then bent over rear flys supersetted with some barbell shrugs


Triceps need to be hit hard and heavy so maybe close grip bench press 3x6 then into lying extenstions working up to a top set of 6-8 reps over the course of 4 sets

Then you could just do some pushups to failure to make sure you've given everything you have.

Now.... for part 2, my suggestion (and recommendation).

I assume time's the limiting factor and the reason you can only workout 2x a week?

how would you feel about mini work outs 4-6 times during the week instead...? This is mostly an idea that'l increae strength but it should have some good carryover to building muscle too

take about 75% of your best bench press and do 8 sets of 3 reps with it 3 - 4 times a week, over the course of maybe 2-3 weeks if should get signifcantly easier and once htat happens you can think of adding 5-10% on and repeating the cycle. Once gains stop there you can re-test your max and work something else out.

it should only take about 15-20 minutes at most per day doing that. And if you do decide to go that route then you'd be best served cutting back some of the intensity on your "day 2" of training (ie chest/shouldes/triceps)

Just some food for thought

rubadub

Thanks a lot for all the advice. I have no squat rack so currently I only lift what I can get up on my back myself. I currently do 20 reps at

60kg, only 1 set though so I could up this to 3 sets of 20reps. I will start to do deadlifts but would prefer high reps like the squats, I am

nervous doing an injury with deadlifts. The rest of day 1 and day 2 all seem fine. Pretty different from what I usually do but that should be a

good thing. The mini workouts does interest me. I have been doing some benching & pull ups in the mornings just for 15mins, I also do pushups whenever I get a chance.

Malteaser!

You could always just power clean the weight and do front squats instead of back squats!

If you use the same weight on the 2, the front squats will usually be harder!

Also, you can change the speed of the reps to make it harder, generally the slower you go and the more time under tension, the harder it's gonna be!