Upper body only

J

Joe.Muscle

Active Member
I am considering doing a cycle of upper body only for 12 weeks.

I desire more upper body mass vs lower body mass. So I am thinking to drop squats for one cycle or if anything maybe I will do just 1 heavy set of squats at best for maintenance.

That being said I am looking to train mainly just my Chest and Back and nothing else.

I feel all the bench work will hit my deltoids enough and between Back and Chest training the arms will get hit very heavily.

I may do 1 set of lateral raises if I have the time for shoulders. But basically my routine will look like this.

Monday

Chest
Back

Wedneday
Back
Chest

Friday
Chest
Back

My question is what kind of sets and volume should I consider when doing just chest and back?

I have discussed this privately with another forum member but I thought I would get everyone input as well.

Thanks,
 
I tried an upper body specialization cycle doing deadlifts instead of squats, and no other leg work. It went pretty well. Depending on how your legs respond to training, deadlifts alone should be enough to maintain them. I was doing them only on Weds and experienced a little bit of leg growth and decent upper body growth.

Alternatively, you could run Lyle's specialization routine. It still follows HST principles more or less and should work great for bringing up specific muscle groups.
 
Thanks Tot. I need to go over to Lyles and signup so I can view the specialization routine.

Tot what did your workout look like for upper body only.

The reason I ask is with standard hst vanilla I average 12 compound sets a week.

3 for chest back shoulders and legs = 12.

So is it safe to say I could keep that amount of work constant just divide it up among chest and back.

My thinking is that its too much and I am overtraining, however you can't overtrain a muscle or can you? You can only overtrain your CNS...so 12 compound sets are 12 compound set regardless if they are among 4 bodyparts or 2?

Opininos needed??? B/c 6 sets of rows 3 times a week is 18 total for the week and that is a hell of a lot more than my average of 9.

Thanks
 
interesting, well, I just came from the madcow2 5x5 camp myself, and he says it's ok to pound away at the same compound lifts...furthermore, he seems to have an arms are optional approach, and if you have to do them just do them on fri for 3 sets of whatever. So I would think you're on track for decent arm growth just doing the high volume chest and bk, even though my experience w/ hst is limited at the time.

Dropping squats altogether....hmmmm...perhaps just toy around w/ 135 once or twice a week to keep your mechanics and flexibility sound? 12 weeks w/ out it and you may have trbl starting bk up when you consider trying to rush bk to where you were could set you up for injury. I would'nt want those tendons/ligaments around the knee,hip,ankle to soften up or atrophy too much. But I could see stepping bk on legs (volume/intensity) for sure.
 
bump...for opinions!
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I'll have to dig up the routine I used. I think I posted about it somewhere actually, but I don't have my files on this computer. I did an alternating routine, during the 5s, it looked something like this:

Mon/Fri

3x5 Incline Bench
3x5 BB Bentover Row
3x5 Military Press
2x5 DB Bench Press
2x5 Pulldowns


Weds

3x5 Deadlifts
3x5 Weighted Chins
3x5 Weighted Dips
3x5 Push Press
2x5 Pullovers


It worked pretty good.
 
Tot did your sets change any for the 10's?

I ask because your total reps are still around 25...but if you put that into 10's you are looking at 50 reps....which I think is still do able if the weight isn't too heavy?
 
Opinions wanted?

OK, My opinion...don't do it.

Squats and deadlifts are anabolic and encourage growth for the whole body.

You should be squatting every workout and deadlifting at least every week.

If you aren't getting enough upper body growth, then consider one of two things.
1>in addition to your lower body work you aren't doing enough for your upper body so increase the weight, frequency, or volume.
or
2>in addition to your lower body work, you are doing too much for the upper body, overtraining it, and holding your growth back.

Try to fix #1 and if that doesn't help after 6-8 weeks, consider trying to fix #2.

Right now, I'm seeing if #2 works out for me because I'm pretty convinced that too much arm and chest work was holding me back. If i'm wrong in doing no direct arm work...I'll add just a bit and see how that goes.

Whatever you do, don't give up legs and back. Stick to squats, deads, and rows for them and you should control their growth but stimulate enough anabolism to make the upper body grow too.
 
Squats aren't going to make your upper body grow. The whole "squat more for bigger arms" thing is a myth and was debunked a long time ago. Specialization isn't bad, just as long as you do enough work to maintain your other bodyparts. Squats or deadlifts once or twice a week should be sufficient to maintain for an 8 week cycle.
 
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(Totentanz @ Dec. 05 2006,19:59)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Squats aren't going to make your upper body grow.  The whole &quot;squat more for bigger arms&quot; thing is a myth and was debunked a long time ago.  Specialization isn't bad, just as long as you do enough work to maintain your other bodyparts.  Squats or deadlifts once or twice a week should be sufficient to maintain for an 8 week cycle.</div>
I agree with Totentanz, no need to do these lifts if all you want is big upper body. I already gave my advice to Joe in a private message...My dad has a huge chest and arms, but skinny chicken legs, all he does is bench and curls and stuff like that, never trains legs. I personaly don't like that look, but obviously it works. My dad has 18&quot; arms and a 50&quot; chest! Totally unproportioned to his legs though!
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<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Good point Joe, 50 inch chest is impressive, but my dad isn't exactly 'cut' either....probably 40&quot; waist!
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That figure, 50-40 = 10 is called a man's differentiable. I learned this in my brother's first wedding when we were tailored for suits. Apparently, I have a 14 differentiable (48-34)!
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Albeit the measurements of chest are for the suit and not the body... same with the waist.
 
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(Totentanz @ Dec. 05 2006,19:59)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"> The whole &quot;squat more for bigger arms&quot; thing is a myth and was debunked a long time ago.  </div>
And reinforced very recently

Eur J Appl Physiol. 2006 Dec;98(6):546-55. Epub 2006 Sep 14.

Hypertrophy with unilateral resistance exercise occurs without increases in endogenous anabolic hormone concentration.

Wilkinson SB, Tarnopolsky MA, Grant EJ, Correia CE, Phillips SM.

We aimed to gain insight into the role that the transitory increases in anabolic hormones play in muscle hypertrophy with unilateral resistance training. Ten
healthy young male subjects (21.8 +/- 0.4 years, 1.78 +/- 0.04 m, 75.6 +/- 2.9 kg; mean +/- SE) engaged in unilateral resistance training for 8 week (3 days/week). Exercises were knee extension and leg press performed at 80-90% of the subject's single repetition maximum (1RM). Blood samples were collected in the acute period before and after the first training bout and following the last training bout and analyzed for total testosterone, free-testosterone, luteinizing hormone, sex hormone binding globulin, growth hormone, cortisol, and insulin-like growth factor-1. Thigh muscle cross sectional area (CSA) and muscle fibre CSA by biopsy (vastus lateralis) were measured pre- and post-training. Acutely, no changes in systemic hormone concentrations were observed in the 90 min period following exercise and there was no influence of training on these results. Training-induced increases were observed in type IIx and IIa muscle fibre CSA of 22 +/- 3 and 13 +/- 2% (both P &lt; 0.001). No changes were observed in fibre CSA in the untrained leg (all P &gt; 0.5). Whole muscle CSA increased by 5.4 +/- 0.9% in the trained leg (P &lt; 0.001) and remained unchanged in the untrained leg (P = 0.76). Isotonic 1RM increased in the trained leg for leg
press and for knee extension (P &lt; 0.001). No changes were seen in the untrained leg. In conclusion, unilateral training induced local muscle hypertrophy only in the exercised limb, which occurred in the absence of changes in systemic hormones that ostensibly play a role in muscle hypertrophy.
 
Well some studies have been done that doing just leg workouts can stimulate growth over time in other areas. Maybe these studies were done with guys taking steroids but wouldn't that mean you will not gain as much in the upper body as you would if you did fullbody workouts.

There is also a theory that since your leg muscle make up around 50% of your mass, working them out will increase test producution. Can anybody confirm this?
 
I started training legs about 2 years after I started lifting weights. Didn't make any difference in my upperbody when I started training them.
 
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(Cova @ Dec. 06 2006,14:04)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Well some studies have been done that doing just leg workouts can stimulate growth over time in other areas. Maybe these studies were done with guys taking steroids but wouldn't that mean you will not gain as much in the upper body as you would if you did fullbody workouts.

There is also a theory that since your leg muscle make up around 50% of your mass, working them out will increase test producution. Can anybody confirm this?</div>
Nope, there are the ones that have looked at GH and therefore they assume it will cause growth in other areas but no, no matter how we wish it to be true it isn't.

Did you read the study I just posted, this is exactly what it shows, working legs only. Not only did they not increase systemic hormones but they did not cause the untrained to grow or gain strength.

Fleck and Kraemer have been for years now trying to prove this crap and haven't come up with anything yet and never will.

Sorry guys and gals but no matter how you slice it, dice it, or shred it, it comes out the same......hypertrophy is a local adaptation.

What deads and squats do is load several muscles at a time and therfore all those experiencing the tension adapt, it's a no brainer.
 
So Dan...if you take legs out of the equation and I am debating on whether to do this or not. I may just stick with regular HST.

But back to my question....how does this effect CNS. Like I said above 12 sets on averabe with 10's for HST vanilla with compound movements.

Does this mean you could still do close to that amount and split it among 2 bodyparts? i.e. Chest and back.

I would think not???....b/c I would think it would lead to overtraining?

But overtraining is not the muscle its your CNS?

Whats your opinion......and by the way NO I am not still stuck on asking how many sets...like in the past....this is a seperate issue.
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(Joe.Muscle @ Dec. 06 2006,14:32)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">......and by the way NO I am not still stuck on asking how many sets...</div>
Now that you have figgered that out Joe, enlighten us!
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