How well do chest and back go together in the same workout?
For the last 6 months I have been doing a 3 day routine twice per week in the following structure:
Legs and shoulders
Chest and triceps
Back and biceps
I have seen very good results with this routine (I'm fairly certain it is quite a common plan) but lately I haven been reading a lot about doing chest and back on the same day.
I'm considering changing my routine to:
Legs and shoulders
Chest and back
Biceps and triceps
But I am very skeptical of having two large muscle groups (chest and back) on the same day. I have always been under the impression that recovery doesn't yield good results if you hit multiple large areas. I did previously train biceps and triceps on the same day with better results than I am currently experiencing, but my current routine overall is working better.
Would this change have better results than my current routine? What are some pros and cons of what I am doing now vs the proposed routine? I've touched on some material talking about lactic acid moving around in a beneficial way during your workout if you alternate chest and back sets, but I'm not sure what is true and what's not.
My goal is mass.
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Well, I have been lifting for 1 year this week. I started that workout routine and I am loving it. For chest and back, I combine both muscles in super sets. Watch the youtube video of Lazar Angelov's chest and back routine. Thats the one I am doing for triceps and biceps. Watch how Arnold does it. I like the old school kind of routine. If you are cutting, my advice is not to cut a lot of carbs out. You will need them before your w.o. for good energy. For me, 0 carbs or -50 carbs diet is b.s.
Lots of people train with full-body routines. They train legs and shoulders and back and biceps and triceps and all the rest on the same day. It works for many people. It might work for you--or it might not, depending on your specific training level and needs.
I am not convinced that recovery has anything to do with whether one hits multiple muscle groups. I think that recovery is a whole-body affair, whereas stimulus can be either whole-body (e.g. burpees) or highly specific (e.g. using a grip trainer).
Split routines, I think (without much evidence), are more about managing stimulus than managing recovery. It can take a lot of time for a big, strong person to really make their back tired. That person might want to devote almost an entire workout to doing so. Other people might be fine with just a half hour of deadlifts and pull-ups for their back, and see results that way.
I've just started experimenting with chest/back on the same day, and love the intensity. Although because it is time consuming, I've created my routine with chest/back supersets.
I get a crazy good workout in 1 hour's time.
I do 3 supersets that looks like this:
Incline dumbbell chest press / superset with Wide Grip Weighted chinups. (both 3x6)
Cable rows / superset with flat chest flys (3x10)
Weighted chest dips / superset with another form of row. (3x8-12)
And I've just started introducing a second day of chest/back in my week, with other exercises to target areas I may have missed: pin pulls, hyper extensions, flat dumbbell bench press, etc.
As a former competitive bodybuilder, I can tell you that there is no one recipe for gaining mass. My "pros" and "cons" for a routine would not be the same for you. That's because everyone is an individual. It's all about forcing your muscles to overcome their desire to adapt to workload. One sure way to help that is to change up your training routine as you've proposed. That may mean switching the order of body parts, days, etc. In the "old" days, we would switch up the routine every 6 to 8 weeks in order to not become "stale". As there are with diets, there are many "fad" training routines. Pick the one(s) that work for you and make small adjustments. Just be mindful of getting proper nutrition and rest.
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