The picture to the left is th workout I did yesterday, 1.31.21. For years, the best workouts that I have ever had were written down and planned out the day before. Some of the worst workouts I’ve ever had are the ones where I show up to the gym and just wing it. I cant stress enough the importance of having a specific plan of
attack. So the plan of what you’re going to do it vital, but equally as vital is the plan of what you’re not going to do. In this I mean, which muscle groups or types of workout are you going to avoid because you’ll be working those area the day AFTER your workout. As you can see from the plan wrote out above, there is almost no exercises planned that target my legs. The only one are the thrusters and for a leg exercise, its pretty light. The reason being is that when I wrote this workout on Saturday night, I knew that Monday was going to be a leg day so I only planned for upper body strengthening movements on Sunday.
Most people know this information to be true and it’s widely known. Let’s take it a step further. Most people work chest one day, back the next, then legs then rest. Do you see a problem with this format? I see a minor problem and it involves the shoulder joint. While this format gives the chest muscles a few days of rest, it doesn’t give the should joint and its supporting structures any rest. Going from chest one day to back the next probably doesn’t allow that should joint area and all of those small muscles and ligaments around it ample time to recover.
Typically, this is not a rule that I live or die by, but another consideration when thinking about program design.
Again, don’t just think about tomorrow’s workout. Also think about the day after tomorrow’s workout.
