I'm taking a week long break from the gym. My left shoulder's got a constant dull ache to it and feels stiff compared to the right. Gonna give it time to settle down, heh.
Also, question: Do y'all follow an exercise plan, or just ad lib it?
I got a plan.
I'm doing an upper/lower split. Two days currently. Which isn't enough but I am not ready to throttle up to 3+ yet.
I know what I want to work on for both days.
I start with some quick banded movements like Shoulder Breakers and Band Pull aparts, just to start getting the blood flowing. I'll do like 40 seconds of Hill Climbers to get my heart up and get blood pumping to my core and legs. Then I hit the gym.
Currently for upper day it's biceps, upper chest (too much straight pressing developed my lower chest more so things look lopsided to me. Also that's where all my remaining chest fat is), side delt, rear delt, back and lats. I finish the actual lifting portion with Farmer's Carries.
So it's:
3x10 Bicep curls.
3x10 Cheat Side Lateral Raises
3x10 Upper Chest Press
3x10 Cable Side Laterals
3x10 Cable uh...Upper Chest Raises? I'm not sure what they call it. But it starts from the hips and you raise up your arms to touch the handles together)
3x10 Cable Face Pulls. (They suck, honestly. They need the right set of grips so I can do face pulls off one cable instead of having each arm on its own cable. I can't get my elbows behind my head with this current config. So my rear delts are getting hit way harder than my rhomboids.)
3x10 Lat Pull Downs.
2x....something Farmer's Carries. As the last set I do, my grip is fucking shot by then anyways. The Farmer's Carries are there to finish my forearms off completely.
(Add an "ish" to the end of the rep count, because my energy levels tend to fluctuate.)
I time myself between each set to stay consistent and set the pace my body should learn to recover at. I was at a minute between sets pre-hiatus. I'm at 1:30 right now and I should probably take it back to 1 minute lest I start getting lazy.
In addition, every working day also gets ab sets:
3x15 Weighted Situps. (I've been doing more weighted crunches lately because I feel like all the sit ups are developing my lower abs ahead of my upper abs.)
3x10 Windshield Wipers.
3x10 Leg Raises. (I'll usually do all my ab work at home since it's where I do most of my grunting and groaning, and I don't need most gym equipment for this stuff.) Sometimes I'll do Leg Raises from the Captain's Chair instead of on my back if I am doing ab work at the gym.
3x40 second Stomach Vacuums. Like Farmer's Carries for my grip, the Stomach Vacuum is there to finish my abs off completely.
Lower Body day, I'm largely focusing on glutes right now. Both for aesthetic and posture reasons (I'm trying to strengthen my glutes to support my lower back, I've had issues I've talked about before.)
So that's:
3x12 Step-Ups with a 15 pound weight in one hand.
3x10 Glute Bridges (still hamstring dominant on these :\)
3x20 Goblet Squats with dat ass going way, way back. (I think the homemade Kettlebell I inherited is like, 25 or 30 pounds.)
3x20 Kettlebell Swings (again with the homemade Kettlebell. It's way under weight for me. I was doing a 70 pound kettlebell in one hand before I took a long hiatus. I should probably start one-handing the homemade one.)
And then the same set of ab exercises for my Lower Body day. (I'll usually swap out the Windshield Wipers for a new ab exercise that is also supposed to help strengthen the lower back. I don't know what it's called off the top of my head. You get on all fours then touch your elbow and opposing knee together beneath you, then fully extend them both out. And it surprisingly does feel good on my lower back, which is not something I can say about most exercises. It's not even really challenging at the rep count I'm doing.)
I keep my rest periods to 2 minutes on Lower Body days. Lower Body movements are compound movements so they tend to be more taxing and should demand slightly longer rest periods. I do fewer sets on Leg Day mostly because it takes all my energy to do that, and as I get more fatigued there's an increased risk to my lower back. So I tend to not completely wear myself out on Lower Body day like I do Upper Body. I've spent many an hour with legs so sore I struggle to stand up or sit down and I'm not a fan. Although that may happen once I get back to squatting. I wonder if I could deadlift on the smith machine.....I should also probably add Bulgarian Split Squats back to my Lower Body day but ugh.....I hate them. Not only are they difficult, they challenge my balance constantly. I hate feeling destabilized while I do exercises, particularly leg ones.
I follow all my workouts up with ~30 second cool shower that I'm slowly progressing to a cold shower. That will only get easier as the temperatures ramp up. Setting aside all the other theorized benefits of cold showers, it really does reinvigorate you after you've just beaten the shit out of yourself in the gym.
And I'll usually do 20 to 25 minutes of stretching on my work out days before I go to bed, targeting the stuff I worked on but also just generic good stretches like some Yoga poses, deep squat, yadda yadda.
I don't journal or document my sets so I can't claim total rigor or progression. But I absolutely approve of having a plan in the gym. I'm not sure I could sustain motivation just walking in there and doing random sets of whatever catches my attention. If you wanna develop a muscle group, you have to work it week to week. If you wanna develop several muscle groups, you have to have a plan because once you start getting fatigued, it is very easy to just say "fuck it" and not do the last few exercises. Having a firm idea of what your workout plan is makes adherence easier. "Just winging it" usually means you will call it a day long before you're actually fully worked. It just helps keep me accountable to what I say I want out of the process.
I acknowledge that 11 to 12 exercises in one workout at high intensity *might* be a bit excessive. I'm still sort of doing a hybrid of weightloss/conditioning/hypertrophy. I just can't abide standing around for 3+ minutes to recover, not unless I'm doing something super serial like Barbells Squats or Deadlifts that absolutely drain me. I got annoyed today in fact because a boyfriend/girlfriend couple came in and monopolized the lat pull down machine for like 15 minutes between them, doing multiple exercises and trading out. As my 2nd to last set, I killed almost 10 minutes just waiting on them. So I don't want to be that guy who has 6 sets to get through and takes 5 minute rest breaks between. That time adds up real, real quick. That's like 30 minutes of *just* rest.
I also never sit down between sets, I recover on my feet. It may make me appear a bit unhinged as I stalk around the gym between sets walking out my recovery. But once you sit your ass down it becomes exponentially harder each time to get up and start working again. Staying on your feet cues your body that it's not done and your intra-set recovery adapts accordingly.
As for my personal gym day moment.....
I went in slightly distracted and didn't check the weights when I went for dumbbell curls. I got through two sets before I realized they were 30s. Doing alternating suppenation, I got through my 2.5x10 sets at 30 without a ton of struggle, and finished the last half of my last set with 25s. I'm pleased. It's not straight suppenated curls at 30 so these are definitely easier, but 30s have historically been where I struggle with dumbbell curls, so I'm rather surprised and pleased that they didn't feel crushingly heavy. Knowing the weight absolutely can impact your mindset during your lifts. There's even documented evidence that as soon as people know what the weight they're lifting is, it seems heavier. That's not a recommendation to just blindly throw weights on, but sometimes obsessing about the number plays tricks on your brain.