Questions about training

[JR Ewing]

JR

Alot of that sounds like what mostly I am doing right now, except, my legs are 1 day. Which at this time, I think will be fine for me, as my legs are ahead of the rest of my body muscularity. I mean they dragged a 320+ pound version of me around for about 20 years before I started lifting.

I don't cycle my poundages yet, but did look into Y3T and other cycling protocols, but again, I have no experience to know if this better than a straight rep/set scheme or not. I was hoping to get information from people who have tried several different things like HIT and volume training in the past. Why do they prefer one over the other? It appears in your answer you have done this and you prefer the traditional volume type workout.

I basically read a lot before I started - I had an older relative who had done some lifting off and on who had some books and old M&F mags. His books were mainly the Darden Nautilus/Jones narratives he wrote that mainly promoted the Nautilus machines and the 3 day a week, one set to failure full body workouts that were usually no more than 12 sets total.

I read several other Darden books that were a little different - they were focused on free weights, compound exercises, and doing a bit more work in each workout. "High Intensity Bodybuidling" and "Super High Intensity Bodybuilding".

I found out not long after I started that I didn't care for most machines - I realized that bench presses and inclines worked my chest harder than pec deck flies. And that squats, pullups, bent rows, and deadlifts built far more size and strength far faster than leg extensions/curls, nautilus pullovers, pulldowns, and and nautilus "hip and thigh" machines.

I had also read some of Mentzer's early stuff. He was more into the free weights, doing a split routine, and a little more volume overall than what the Jones Nautilus programs recommended. And his 4 day a week split doing legs/back 2 days a week and chest/shoulder/tris the other 2 days a week, doing a couple of sets of 1-2 exercises for each bodypart seemed more reasonable than the very long and frequent routines Arnold and Lou (or their ghostwriters) tended to recommend in M&F and Arnold's books. Bob Kennedy was another guy who wrote lots of books that often talked of doing 20-40 sets for each bodypart, training 6 days a week, sometimes 2 workouts a day, etc - I never had the time, and would have never had the energy.

After doing a 3 day a week full body routine my first few months, I eventually evolved over the next dozen or so years doing various splits. From there I went on to a 4 day a week split hitting everything twice a week. I eventually settled on once a week (or slightly less over the years), doing no more than one large bodypart a day, etc.

I learned pretty early on that usually doing at least 3 sets of most exercises was better than 1-2, but that didn't necessarily mean 8-10 sets or even 5-6 sets per exercise would be even better. I also eventually learned that there are limits to what I can do in terms of "intensity". And that usually stopping the set just short of actual failure worked best for me.

My training hasn't changed much in the last 15 years or so. What I do now would have been undertraining for me 20-25 years ago, but I'm actually far stronger and much bigger now than I was at 18-25.