Upper/Lower Programming
Hey everyone, need some help with my UL split that I'm doing as I'm finding some conflicting info online. So some backstory, I am a detrained individual that hasn't trained properly in 10 years and recently just got back into taking it seriously and all my compound lifts are going by 2.5kg from week to week so ofc the split is working but being an overthinker, I worry about optimising everything 😅. Alright so there are two Upper Lower splits that I have thought about, I've tried other splits including 3-Day Full Body, 3-Day FB-Upper-Lower, 4-Day Push-Pull, 5-Day PPLUL, PPLR repeat on a rolling split, etc and I keep coming back to the 4-Day UL. Now here are the two UL splits, one is a well-balanced split with volumes in the 8-12 sets range and it works decently and as I said, is well balanced. The other one focuses on one muscle group for that particular day and allows more recovery and focus and easier strength progression as there aren't that many compounds to do, allowing more volume for other compounds and isolations. So which would be better?
ROUTINE 1
Upper A
Superset: Bench Press - 3x5-8, Lat Pulldown - 3x6-10, rest: 3 mins after 1 set of bench and 1 set of lat pulldown.
Superset: Incline Dumbbell Press - 2x6-10, Cable Row - 3x6-10, rest: 2.5 mins
Superset: Seated DB Lateral Raise, Cable Rear Delt Fly - 3x10-15, rest: 2 mins
Superset: Incline DB Curl, Cable Pushdown - 3x8-12, rest: 1.5 mins
Lower
Barbell Squats - 3x5-8, rest: 3-4 mins
DB RDL - 3x6-10, rest: 3-4 mins
Superset: Leg Extension, Leg Curl - 2x10-15, rest: 2 mins
Smith Machine Calf Raises - 3x10-15, rest: 1.5 mins
Upper B
Superset: Incline Bench Press - 3x5-8, Underhand Narrow-Grip Lat Pulldown - 3x6-10, rest: 3 mins
Superset: Seated Cable Fly - 2x10-15, Machine Cable Row - 3x6-10, rest: 2.5 mins
Superset: Cable Lateral Raises, Cable Face Pulls - 3x10-15, rest: 2 mins
Superset: Preacher Curls, Cable Overhead Extensions - 3x8-12, rest: 2 mins
Thoughts on this program above is that it's like I said before very well balanced, very easy to follow and easy to progress on. However because there is so much to do on one day, I find myself not being able to fully push on every single lift that I have that day. For example, on cable rows my back is already pre-fatigued. On Incline press, for my fourth set I am barely able to do it with much less weight and I have already done 3 warmup and 3 working sets with Bench Press which is great as I know it's working. And so this is where I started making adjustments and having a chest-focused Upper Day and a back-focused Upper day where the total weekly volume for both routines are the same but the per session volume is lower/higher depending on the day.
Upper A (chest-focused)
Superset: Bench Press - 4x5-8, Lat Pulldown - 4x6-10, rest: 3 mins
Seated Cable Fly - 2x10-15
Superset: Seated DB Lateral Raise, Cable Rear Delt Fly - 4x10-15, rest: 2 mins
Superset: Incline DB Curl, Cable Pushdown - 4x8-12, rest: 1.5 mins
Lower
Barbell Squats - 3x5-8, rest: 3-4 mins
DB RDL - 3x6-10, rest: 3-4 mins
Superset: Leg Extension, Leg Curl - 2x10-15, rest: 2 mins
Smith Machine Calf Raises - 3x10-15, rest: 1.5 mins
Upper B (Back-focused)
Superset: Barbell Row - 4x5-8, Incline DB press - 4x6-10, rest: 3 mins
Underhand Narrow-Grip Lat Pulldown - 3x6-10, rest: 3 mins
Superset: Cable Lateral Raises, Cable Face Pulls - 4x10-15, rest: 2 mins
Superset: Preacher Curls, Cable Overhead Extensions - 4x8-12, rest: 2 mins
With this split, my recovery is much better & my focus is much better since there are technically fewer exercises to do which makes every exercise that much more potent if that makes sense and I am able to push that muscle to the max. And because there is less to do, I am able to do my isolations with slightly more volume without feeling as drained. So which one would you guys prefer or suggest to do in your honest opinion? I'm open to suggestions!