I switched up my gym schedule this week, and now I’m very sore. I was hobbling around the last two days doing a fairly impressive imitation of an octogenarian with osteoporosis. This of course is a direct result of my mixed up routine and the hard leg workout on Tuesday; I guess my body just got used to the old one, even though I haven’t changed that many exercises.

In case anyone is interested, I’ve listed my workout below. Not particularly exciting and it still needs a lot of work. At the moment I’m just testing it for the first couple of weeks to see if my body can handle this routine without too many problems.

I’ve listed my max rep ranges to failure. Usually I do 6-8 reps per exercise; if I manage to do all my sets at max rep range I’ll generally increase the weight the following week. This works fairly well if you can remember the weights and number of sets you managed to do the previous week.

Tuesday — Legs (quad dominant & calves)

• 3×8 full squats
• 3×8 45° leg press
• 3×8 45° calf press
• 2×8 seated calf raise
• 1×8 donkey calf raise

Wednesday — Shoulders & Forearms

• 3×8 seated military barbell press
• 2×8 standing side lateral dumbell raise
• 1×8 seated dumbell press
• 3×8 seated bent over rear lateral raise
• 2×8 dumbell shrug
• 1×8 barbell shrug
• 2×8 reverse barbell curl
• 2×8 EZ barbell wrist curl
• 2×8 EZ barbell reverse wrist curl

Thursday — Legs (ham dominant) & Back

• 3×8 Romanian deadlift
• 2×8 walking lunges (long)
• 1×8 lying leg curl
• 2×8 wide bar lat pulldown
• 3×8 wide grip overhand pullup (full range)
• 2×8 bent over barbell row
• 2×8 low row
• 1×8 weight horizontal hyperextension

Friday — Arms (biceps & triceps)

(alternating)
• 3×8 seated alternating dumbell curl
• 3×8 seated dumbbell overhead extension

(alternating)

• 3×8 EZ bar skullcrusher
• 3×8 hammer curl

(alternating)

• 3×8 flat cable curl
• 3×8 tricep cable pulldown (alternating between bar and rope)

Saturday — Chest & Abs

• 3×8 flat barbell bench press
• 3×8 incline dumbbell bench press
• 2×8 wide grip chest dip
• 2×8 pec dec
• 2×8 weighted leg raise
• 2×12 incline crunch
• 2×8 incline crunch (different bench from above)
• 3×10 swiss ball crunch (single leg)

This is a 5-day split that I made. Most of the exercises are taken from my old routine, and were just moved around a bit so everything is on a different day. I’ll start substituting exercises after I’ve trialed it for a few weeks to see how the split works out. Next time I think I’ll put together a 4-day full body workout.

The order isn’t ideal and will probably require a bit of rearranging. For instance having my back and biceps on consecutive days could be a bit difficult. Previously I had my leg workout all on one day, but it was taking me too long to properly work out such a huge muscle group, so I decided to split it as above. The only problem is that the DOMS from the Tuesday workout is hampering my Thursday workout, so I’ll have to see if that improves a bit over the next few weeks. I could put hams and quads on Tuesday and then split calves with something else, but I quite like the ham/back split I have because the two muscle groups complement each other very well.

And… yes, my bicep workout is a bit funny because I’ve been having problems with my forearm and wrist on certain exercises.

As for my cardio, I do 45 minutes fasted LISS on my bicycle (with indoor trainer) on Tuesday and Thursday as soon as I wake up. Add to this whatever I do on the weekends for cycling; currently I’m doing about 4 hours a weekend.

I’ll probably continue to post my routines in the future; now it’s time to go and get my routine evaluated and switch everthing up. Currently my routines are taking a bit long — about an hour including warmups, so I’ll probably axe a few sets here and there, and move some around so I can get all my workouts down to about 50 minutes.