Fewer Exercises, Less Sets, Less Reps and Hevier Weights?

O.P.H

Showed my old workout to a bodybuilder and he said for trying to increase strength and size I was doing way too much. He said even for conditioning I was doing too much. I always worked 2 muscle groups per session and did 4 different exercises per muscle group. In total I would do 32 sets per session of 10 reps and he said this was just burning my muscle and it would never get bigger etc. He advised fewer exercises, less sets, less reps and hevier weights. So this is what I'm thinkin, also is kinda what he suggested -

Monday (chest/biceps)
Tuesday (legs)
Wednesday - OFF
Thursday (back)
Friday (shoulders/triceps)
Sat - OFF
Sun - OFF

And I am gonna only do 3 exercises per muscle group, only 3 sets, and only 6 reps with heavier weights. And thats for all exercises, how does that sound.

bigstar

that would still be a bit much for me, im not a big fan of high volume.
id say 2 exercises for the big muslces, a compound and isolation exercise and another 1 for the smaller assistance muscles. say for your shoulder day you do 3 sets of military presses, youve already worked your triceps, to do another 9 sets is going to be fairly hard on them. i think thats what your doing anyway.
for me i'd do my chest/shoulders/triceps together and one exercise for each. the most important thing is to lift as heavy as you can, which is harder if you lift a lot of volume.
im sure theres others here who know more than me though, but i think its better to keep it as simple as possible. thats why i like Starting Strength 5 exercises 3x5 nothing to think about.

Brian?

I see you're doing chest and biceps together, but then back on its own and shoulders and triceps together. Surely if you're training chest with biceps, by that logic you want to train back and triceps together.

I have seen a good few programs doing the chest/bi and back/tri days recently, not sure whether its a good idea or not to be honest.

Were you planning on doing squats and deadlifts on the same day for 'legs'?

O.P.H

I am pretty knackered after chest/biceps day so I do legs the next day. After the day off I can go to the back. I leave the back by itself because it quite hard, doing pull ups and deadliftr etc. Then the shoulders and triceps is an easy enough day after this.

Basiclly though the new thing Im doin is heavier weights and less reps(6 to7 always, no 10's or 12's) and exercises. I do everything alot slower do and focus on the negative, this is correct for gaining strength and size ya?

Brian?

O.P.H wrote: »

I am pretty knackered after chest/biceps day so I do legs the next day. After the day off I can go to the back. I leave the back by itself because it quite hard, doing pull ups and deadliftr etc. Then the shoulders and triceps is an easy enough day after this.

Basiclly though the new thing Im doin is heavier weights and less reps(6 to7 always, no 10's or 12's) and exercises. I do everything alot slower do and focus on the negative, this is correct for gaining strength and size ya?

What do you currently squat and deadlift?

O.P.H

Well I use free weights at home so Im somewhat restricted for safety reasons and just the amount of weights I have.

I squat like 90kg 3 sets of 7 reps and I deadlift 110kg 3 by 7

Kev M

O.P.H wrote: »

Monday (chest/biceps)
Tuesday (legs)
Wednesday - OFF
Thursday (back)
Friday (shoulders/triceps)
Sat - OFF
Sun - OFF

And I am gonna only do 3 exercises per muscle group, only 3 sets, and only 6 reps with heavier weights. And thats for all exercises, how does that sound.

That's pretty much exactly what I used to do, only I had an arms day Saturday, Monday only chest and Friday only shoulders. It's a real bodybuilder style split. As regards the amount of sets and reps there's no real answer as to what's better, different bodies respond in different ways, try every method you can and you'll find a system that does what you want. INTENSITY is KEY. With a routine as demanding as that your diet would want to be very solid too. Diet is 95% of the battle, training is the easy part!