Morning, afternoon, evening - 

Recently joined and think I'm going to hit http://muscularstrength.com/5-Day-Bodybuilding-Split for the next 11 weeks before I take off on a weeks holiday to Mauritius for a week. I've put on a couple of kg's over the last couple of months as I've been doing quite a bit of traveling and client entertainment, which has meant keeping things consistent / on point a litlte challegning. But not worried, I'll be back on point in a few weeks for sure. My plan is to his this routine and add in some cardio as well 2-3 times a week, long bike ride, boxing or some MMA, whatever takes my fancy and enegry depending. 

Haa few questions before kick 

1. My upper chest seriously lags and within the above structure, wondered what i could do to start to bring it up? 

2. This routine aims to hit each bodypart once a week, but many advocate hitting them at least twice a week, what are your thoughts? 

3. I struggle with the reverse grip bench (hurts my wrists) ok to switch to standard inc? What's the optimal incline to hit the upper 30 or 45 degrees? 

Think this covers the main questions for now, am sure there will be more, I'll ask as those come up 

Nice waaaannnnn braaaa

Mauritius looks like such an amazing place! Will be an awesome trip no doubt, and you'll be looking awesome too I know it 😁 

1. If your upper chest is lagging, I suggest you swap the flat dumbbell press for an incline dumbbell press to start your workout, and then do a flat barbell press second. Either that, or do the reverse grip press first so that you are at least still hitting a bit more upper chest when you are fresh and have the most energy. If you wanted to, you could also add a little bit of incline pressing to start your ab workout so you are hitting it twice a week.

2. If you want to just hit everything twice a week, why not just follow the PPL program instead? And if it's because it's a 6-day a week program and you can only train 5 days, just go PPL, Upper, Lower.

3. Optimal incline is about 45 degrees. You can swap it out, it's just included because it's actually better at targeting your upper chest compared to a standard incline press. I made an entire video about it which I'll link below.

Hope that helps!

I've heard great things about it, so very much looking forward to visiting and hopefully looking the part :-)

1. I've incorp rev bench and then do db flat as my secondary movement. With rev bench I'll need practice it, but as long as I can get the appropriate much activation I'm sure I'll at least be heading in the right direction.

If I was to train upper twice a week as per your suggestion, how many reps / sets would you suggest on the second session and the same exercises as the main day?

2. My goal is muscle gain, so is training twice a week as per your proposed PPL, upper / lower going to give me more than the once a week approach as per my original plan, any guidance here woould be great

Thanks for the video bro, very insightful

You could do as much incline pressing during that second session as you will in your first session. So maybe take 1 or 2 exercises to do before your ab training. I'd pick one incline/upper chest focused, as well as the flat dumbbell press. Remember, the flat dumbbell press is going to build the ENTIRE chest which will obviously include your upper chest.

For the second session, maybe even use the incline press second after you've got some muscle fatigue in there from a flat press first, which will make it easier to achieve muscle breakdown for regrowth. Maybe a flat dumbbell press for 3 burn sets, and then an incline dumbbell press for 2-3 burn sets.

The PPL Upper, Lower split would definitely give you more frequency, which is typically optimal for muscle growth. The anabolic window only lasts about 24-48 hours, so while you can still build muscle following a split where you training everything once a week, it may not be as fast as if you were training things twice a week. It varies person to person.

Best way to find out whether it's a good option for you or not is to try both methods for about 4-6 weeks and see what you think gives you the best results in that time.

Sweet thanks buddy.

I'll add flat barbell and inc db before abs as suggested.

I'm going to stick with the current 5 day routine, as I actually enjoy it and haven't done this kind of training for a long time, and I do usually respond well to it, especaily the burn set additions. I'll switch things in 6 weeks to the PPL leading up to the holiday, for variation and also comparisons. But I think I'll respond well to both programs.

Actually I would stick with dumbbell for both if you're trying to maximize muscle gain. So do flat dumbbell and then incline dumbbell. At the end of the day it's up to you, but if you're not overly worried about strength, you'll get more activation with a greater ROM with dumbbells.

Good idea with the programs. It's always worth trying something new, especially after you hit a plateau! Let us know how the program goes for you man 💪 

Dumbbells it's is legend, thanks

You're welcome @antelope22! Get those gains man!