New Workout Routine

Well, I tired of my total body circuit routine and decided to go with a variation of a workout I used some years ago. My strength gains had slowed quite a bit with the total body circuit routine, and I was also struggling a bit with motivation as I was mentally tired of the same routine even though I varied the specific exercises quite a bit.  This new variation of an older workout regimen is intended to maximize variety and keep my body from getting used to a specific routine. It also works well because I take the weekends off, and can choose to do some cardio or other fun activity to fill in.

Here's the basic rotation...

Week 1

• Mon - stretching/warm-up, abs, chest, shoulders, triceps
• Tue - stretching/warm-up, lower back, legs, upper back, biceps
• Wed - stretching/warm-up, abs, chest, shoulders, triceps
• Thu - stretching/warm-up, lower back, legs, upper back, biceps
• Fri - stretching/warm-up, abs, chest, shoulders, triceps
• Sat - day off, optional cardio activity
• Sun - day off, optional cardio activity

Week 2

• Mon - stretching/warm-up, lower back, legs, upper back, biceps
• Tue - stretching/warm-up, stretching, abs, chest, shoulders, triceps
• Wed - stretching/warm-up, lower back, legs, upper back, biceps
• Thu - stretching/warm-up, abs, chest, shoulders, triceps
• Fri - stretching/warm-up, lower back, legs, upper back, biceps
• Sat - day off, optional cardio activity
• Sun - day off, optional cardio activity

Week 3 is the same as week 1.  So, each week I rotate back and forth between the 3x and 2x strength training activities.

For each muscle group I do a minimum of 3 major exercises, with the exception of legs, where I do 4 in order to include a calf exercise.

The big difference between what I'm doing now and what I did when I used this workout a few years back is the following:

1. I do not use the same specific exercise twice in 1 week for the same muscle group.  In other words, if I do heavy bench press for chest on Mon, I do not do heavy bench press again during that week.  I use a different routine for the same muscle group each time I hit it during the week.
2. I treat some days as heavy days and others as medium, or light days.
3. I'll use some days to really focus on a specific muscle group, usually a muscle group where I think I can build or need more work... say shoulders or biceps.  I'll go through my normal regimen, but maybe add another exercise for the muscle group I want to focus on, and do some 'super-sets.'

At this point I haven't drawn up formal workout plans for each day, mainly because I wanted as much variety as possible, and the flexibility to incorporate new exercises I run across.  Sometimes I waste a few min at the beginning of the session figuring out the exercises and remembering what I did earlier in the week, but I've gotten pretty good at doing this during my stretching/warm-up.

Mostly I use knowledge of exercises I've used in past workouts to fill my routine, however I've also been known to read articles in Men's Health on new exercises (or variations on old themes).  I've found the most useful articles are when they discuss a group of exercises for targeting a specific muscle group.  Here is a good link to many of them:  Men's Health Fitness Lists