is there a reason push/pull is the recommended split?

I was just wondering. I've been working out for about 6 weeks and was looking for some tweaks to my routine.

I've been doing 4-5 days a week and I do back/chest (bench, incline, pulldowns, rows, flys, dips), then arms/legs/shouders (barbell curls, preacher curls, french press, squats, deadlifts, shoulder press, shrugs) each 2x a week. If I do a 5th day I clean up any iso's I may have missed and do cardio. Eventually I'd like day 5 to be a swim day. I go fairly easy on arms because I hit them with the compound exercises on the chest day.

I warm up before each exercise at about 50% of my max for 12 reps, then I do 5 sets of 5 at a difficult weight, if it's too much I will step it down when necessary. If I shoot too low on the initial weight I may do 4 x 8, but I will correct it on the next workout.

I have been seeing decent gains (about 8-10 lbs in total mass). I have a lot of growth in my arms and some decent mass added in the chest. I'd like to see more in the back, but I'm still not strong enough to do sets of pullups (I can only do a few). I also add cardio to days when I feel spry or can get out fast (my gym is packed) my cardio is 80% of max HR for 40 mins, maybe about 2 days a week.

Is this a good plan?

I'll add nutrition here since it will be an asked question: I wake at 8:00, at 9:00 I eat 2 eggs, 2 slices of wheat toast, and 2 chicken sausages. At noon I eat a deli sandwich or large chicken salad. At 5:00 I eat a Cliff/Power bar. Workout is at 5:30. Right after (7:00) I drink 16 oz of fat free milk.
At about 8:00 I eat dinner which is 3 servings of protein (12 oz chicken, steak, or fish) and 3 servings of vegetables.
 
Because the bench press involves your shoulders, in your current routine, your shoulders are being worked 4x a week.

With a push/pull I find everything to be more balanced than an upper/lower and way better than a body-part split. Everything gets worked twice a week with big compound movements and there is enough room for a few isolations.

You gained 8-10 lbs in 6 weeks? What is your age, height, and weight?
 
is there a reason push/pull is the recommended split?

I was just wondering. I've been working out for about 6 weeks and was looking for some tweaks to my routine.

If you have been working out for only 6 weeks then push/pull is not recommended for you. In fact FBW are recommended for noobs not splits. A bit of a shocker but do a bit of reading.
 
evan-

That makes sense with the shoulders. I'm getting back into the gym after 6 months away. I'm 30, 6'1" and at 185 now, 177 when I started so not 10, but 8. I think about 175-180 is a good size for me, but I'd rather have more muscle and less fat. I'm just going to worry about strengthening now and the fat later.

blackbeard-

It's not surprising, I know most people recommend full body for beginners. When I was going last year I did full body, but losing weight despite not doing cardio. I was getting stronger according to the weights, but didn't really feel stronger outside the gym or see much in the way of visual results. By the summertime I was down around 165. I dunno, maybe I'm weird, but it just didn't really seem to work that well for me.

Also, I don't prefer full body this time around because I can't consistently make it in on every other day. Most often I do monday, tuesday, thursday, friday so splits seem kinda logical.

I don't think I'm going to go away from splits because they seem to be working well. If push/pull isn't recommended, what would be a better way? Ideally I'd like to have a harder day including legs/no cardio and a lighter day without legs + cardio.

thanks for the advice!
 
While there are a few rules of thumb regarding what a person should be doing at a particular time, everyone is different. If splits work for you, then do splits. You've tried full-body and it didn't work.

The reason I prefer push/pull over upper/lower is because I have more upper exercises than lower, so I fell as though my workouts are imbalanced. I'd have about 6 exercises one day, but only 3 or 4 the next.

Because you're looking to build muslce now and worry about fat later, I wouldn't place much emphasis on cardio. Focus on the big lifts and zero in your diet. Once you have the muslce you want, you can adjust your diet to burn fat and maybe even through in some cardio to help with the fat burning.
 
rudiger, i would suspect you were not doing a "proper" full body workout. There was another thread where a guy said he was doing a FBW but it had machines in short not a real FBW. Ask someone knowledgeable like a trainer in your gym.

BTW there is no such thing as "push/pull is recommended" or "FBW is not recommended", its all down to your goals, your availability and so on. You may simply be asking people who have been training for years and years in the gym and they will tell you what is good for their situation. Ask a neutral party such as a trainer in your local gym.
 
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