With the typical training splits that have been popular for the last ten years or so, I have found that most people are overtraining delts and arms just as I was. Most tend to add more work when they feel the frustration of a body part not growing but when it comes to secondary muscle groups like delts and arms, more is not the answer most of the time, less is.
With all of the heavy pressing for chest, the delts and triceps are getting fried with a lot of indirect work. And with all of the heavy pulling movements for back, the biceps and posterior delts are getting hammered, as well. Example: If you are doing a chest workout and then two days later a shoulder workout followed two more days later by another chest workout, it is almost impossible for your shoulders to recover. The never-ending cycle of overtraining perpetuates itself.
To combat the overtraining of the delts and arms, the structure of the training protocol that I use, looks like this:
Workout 1
Back/chest/traps
Workout 2
Calves/quads/hams/abs
Workout 3
Chest/Back/lowerback
Workout 4
Delts, tris, bis
Your workout sequence will look like this:
M – workout 1
W – workout 2
F – workout 3
M – workout 4
W – workout 2
F – workout 1
M – workout 3
W – workout 2
F – workout 4
REPEAT the cycle.
An additional issue that I have not ever truly wrapped my brain around is: How much volume is best? We know that Arnold did high volume work and guys like John Defendis were successful at using upwards of thirty sets for quads. And then on the other hand you have the Dorian Yates’ style of training or the Mentzer style or the DC Training style that are very low volume and every bit as successful as any of the higher volume protocols. So, which one style is right and how much volume is the best for growth? All of them.
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