Recommendations for a "Push" (Chest/Shoulders/Tris) Workout?

[The Dynasty]

Whatsup world?

I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for a chest/shoulders/tri workout?

Long story short, I'm an accountant, and hours are unpredictable. So I set a realistic goal of lifting 3 days a week. Optimally:

Mon: Back/Bis/Traps
Wed: Chest/Tris/Abs
Fri: Legs/Lower abs

With a clean diet during the workout week, cheat days on the weekends, and the use of Glucorell, Sesapure (I chose to lay off of TRex and Levorex for a while), and Red Blast/BA, I can honestly say that I've gained some significant mass.

However, as you can see, shoulders are completely left out of my workout. About a year ago, I read literature from these boards that shoulder workouts were not necessary if you had a solid chest and back workout. What I've discovered is that the lack of a shoulder workout has really inhibited my progress in my chest workouts (my weakest part of my body).

As a result, a couple of weeks ago, I had some time during the week, so I added a fourth workout--shoulders. The next week, my bench shot up. Coincidence? Maybe, but I think its worth testing a bit more. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to devote a separate day to a shoulder workout.

Can I incorporate shoulders into my chest workout and simultaneously help my chest development (along with my shoulders)? If so, does anyone have a suggested workout?

Damn that was long. Sorry.

Thanks in advance.

[JoeD]

Yeah you can incorporate delts into a "chest" workout... IMO that's the preferred way due to the front delts getting hit hard by pressing movements anyway.

I would hit a heavy pressing movement first -- db bench, flatb ench, incline, etc...

then the second exercise is where I would throw in 1-2 delt movements.

I would be very cautious of the amount of volume you do for delts bc imo, the to 3 muscles power builders/body builders tend to overtrain is delts.

[Haltered]

Legs once per week? Since you can manage 3x per week how about:

Legs/push/pull
Legs/push/pull
Legs/push/pull


Sorry, I am a partial to full body workouts. But to answer your OP I would do a push day as follows:

Bench
OHP or incline
Direct Tri work
direct shoulder work (incline fly, standing front raises, whatever)

[The Dynasty]

JoeD and Haltered,

Good looking out with the quick replies. Obviously, a key goal of mine is strength and size (which are inter-related when you have the proper diet/supplementation). So I want to complement the workouts, without overtraining. I was thinking of something like this:

Chest
Incline DB Bench

Tris
Skullcrushers/CG Bench

Shoulders
Front DB raises
Lateral DB raises

Abs
Rope crunches

What do you guys think? Is that enough of a chest workout? What should my set/rep scheme look like?

Thanks again?

[Haltered]

Looks good to me, just keep the volume under 25 reps total for each exercise and go heavy. So a 3x8 or 5x5.

I can't make progress doing 1x per week, I need 2x per week or more to get anywhere. Not necessarily heavy either, one of the workouts can be light work to "grease the groove" so to speak.


If I were to workout 2x per week, I would make the push day as follows

day 1
Bench
DB raises

Day 2
Incline bench
OHP
lateral raises


Same total volume for the week, just spread out more.

[Cynical Simian]

Haltered beat me to it: if you're looking to make the most efficient use of your relatively limited time/days in the gym, a 3x/week full-body routine is a very good way to go. I think you'd get a lot more out of, say, benching twice per week (and doing overhead work as your press on the third day) than from trying to "complement" the workouts by adding more exercises (even overhead work) to your current chest day.

But if you stick with the current general layout, you might consider doing an overhead press variant ("shoulders", if you're categorizing lifts by the primary muscle groups involved) on a different day from your other presses. There's only so much work you can throw at a muscle in a given day without having to use trivial weights, so doing it on a day when your shoulders/tris are relatively fresh (e.g., on your leg day) would allow you to put more into the lift.

As for reps/sets, I again agree with Haltered that something that gets you ~25 total reps is a good general training range for your main compound lifts (5x5, 4x6, 6x4, 3x8).