Upper body only

O&G I wish I knew the answer.

I was hung up on 3 to 4 sets per muscle group for a while and I just decided the hell with it and I am sticking to 3 b/c its easier
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and I don't have all day to bodybuild.

The reason I was hung up on 3 or 4 is b/c before HST I did 12 sets for large muscle groups (chest,back,shoulders,legs) but I did 12 sets only once per week.

Example Monday was Chest and tricpes and chest got 3 exercises at 4 sets a piece.

So naturally when I converted to HST I divided those 12 sets over 3 days to equal 4 sets per day.

But on full body that drains you too much I believe. I can do 4 sets with no problem 3 times a week...but I find myself shying away from increasesing the weight.

I am at the point in my life were I think getting HUGE...is just not going to happen running your own business and working 12+ hours a day 6 days a week and eating 3 meals a day.
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(Joe.Muscle @ Dec. 06 2006,14:32)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">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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My opinion is...........

You won't know until you try. Removing the leg work out very well may reduce the amount of CNS activity but unless it was hampering your ability to frequently load with sufficient weight then why even worry about it. I thought your issue was lacking upper body compared to lower, this has nothing to do with CNS activity.

If your concern is truely the lacking upper body development then simply concentrate on doing more. If the only way you can do this without feeling overly fatigued is to drop the legs, then sure drop the legs or reduce the frequency down to 1X week for legs or reduce the load to 70% and just aim for maintaining your leg size, all of which you already knew
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Just wanted to say thank you Dan for clearing that up with me, now maybe i can go back to fitting in my jeans.  
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 It is crazy how different clothing fits when your thighs start making things uncomfortable.

I think you should always at least work on slow twitch stimulation. I think if you have a very nice set of tear drops you won't look out of proportion. Having big legs just tends to get in the way for some of us.  
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You can always SD with just the legs and some HIIT bike riding or sprinting should maintain them, for the most part.
 
kind of a refreshing thread. As I said b4, I'm fresh out of the 5x5 camp where squats are mandatory every workout. My thighs blew up (they were out of proportion to everything else in the first place) to the point I was embarrased to wear shorts to the gym. Looking back in hindsight on my 2 cycles of 5x5 I think I can say w/ confidence that all that squatting did little for my upper body. My arms did'nt grow at all. I did put 40# on my bench in that time though. Perhaps I could've put on more (bench) in that 6mos w/out the draining squats. Over at bodybuilding.com if you don't squat (or deadlift) get out of the gym.
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as far as pure leg movements are considered, I still feel that one good set of even light self supported squats is far superior to any variety of leg movements out there.
 
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(Cova @ Dec. 07 2006,00:24)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I think you should always at least work on slow twitch stimulation.</div>
Not sure why but you'll do this anyway just by standing and walking.

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">You can always SD with just the legs and some HIIT bike riding or sprinting should maintain them, for the most part.</div>
Now that wouldn't exactly be an SD would it?
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Well I mean work on increasing endurance in the legs rather than continue to build them up in mass.

Hah, I meant to say SD or&quot;.....&quot;

Anyways...whichever way you choose to do it, I do not think any harm can be done, especially if you are eating above maintenance.
 
Hi,

I've also been wanting to focus on upper body only. Here are a couple of threads on the topic which you might find interesting:

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I've yet to change much to my routine because of all the travelling I've had to do recently.
 
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