Marchello’s BodyBlog

Its time for me to change my training program. I would love to hear any suggestions or criticisms of the below. I have come up with two programs and I need to choose which one to follow.

For the past 6 months or so i have been training with a Mike Menzter styled HIT routine, and whilst i have seen some good results from this program, its time to change.

This time I wanted to design my own routine rather than follow someone else’s. After a bit of research I and a lot of pondering I have come up with two different routines. Both are based around big compound exercises with only minimal isolation exercises. I will be performing only one set to absolute failure on each exercise (not including warm-ups). And I will be training every 3-4 day (usually Thursdays and Sundays).

A note on Intensity: My previous training program used a lot of High-Intensity training techniques, particularly pre-exhausts and super-sets. For this next training program I will not be super-setting any of my exercises. Rather I want focus on each exercise one at a time to ensure I get every thing i can from each movement. So in order to keep the intensity up I intend to use a double rest pause technique on all exercises (except those few that don’t lend themselves to rest-pause very well). I also intend to incorporate some extreme stretching after most exercises.

Moving on: Routine 1 consists of 2 workouts as Follows.

Workout 1:

• DeadLifts                 x 6-10 reps
• 45o Leg Press          x 12-20 reps
• Under Grip Chins      x 6-10 reps
• Dips                        x 6-10 reps
• Military Press            x 6-10 reps
• Seated Calve Raises  x 6-10 reps
• Machine Crunches     x 6-10 reps

Workout 2:

• Squats                     x 12-20
• BB Rows                   x 6-10
• Incline DB Press         x 6-10
• BB Upright Rows       x 6-10
• Standing Calve raises x 6-10
• Hanging Leg raises     x 6-10

 As you can see this is a very basic program with loads of big movements targeting the whole body every workout.

Routine 2 is similar in that it uses maily large compound exercises to attack the whole body each workout. The main differences are that, there is 3 workouts in the cycle each targeting the whole body but the order of the exercises has been changed to slightly shift focus between upper body and legs, and I have one day where i use machines for every exercise.

Workout 1 - Focus Legs, Lower back

• Dead Lifts
• Leg Press
• Dips
• Chins
• DB Side Laterals
• Hanging Leg Raises

Workout 2 - Upper Body

• BB Rows
• Incline DB Press
• Wide Grip Chins
• Upright Rows
• Squats
• Standing Calve Raises
• Weighted Prone Braces

Workout 3 - Upper Body

• Seated Cable Row
• Machine Chest Press
• Lat Pull Downs
• Machine Shoulder Press
• Smith Machine Squats / Leg press
• Seated Calve Raises
• Machine Ab Crunches

Remember that each set will utilize a double rest pause technique to take every set beyond failure

So there you have it! I have about 10 days until I have to decide which Program to run with. Any feed back or Comments would be greatly appreciated.