Push & Pull

Appetizer
Spend MORE time planning your resistance training workouts. There are many different ways that you can put together a workout "split" which is a term given to how you split up your routine - which days you train various muscles.



Main Course
One of the most popular splits is a 3-day push/pull routine. Pushing involves working muscles that require you to push against the resistance. Pulling is just the opposite - working muscles that require you to pull the weight.

Here is a sample push/pull split:

Mon: Chest & Triceps (Pushing)
Tue: Off
Wed: Back & Biceps (Pulling)
Thur: Off
Fri: Legs (Pushing AND Pulling)

The benefit of this split is that you are working your secondary (smaller) muscles on the same day as the primary (larger) muscles that utilize the secondary muscles.

In plain English...When you work your chest, you also work your triceps (secondarily), so by concentrating on triceps on the same day as chest, you are giving them a powerful work out. Conversely, if you worked chest on Monday and triceps on Tuesday, you would be at risk for OVERTRAINING because your triceps will technically have been worked two days in a row.

Dessert
I'll continue to put example splits and other workouts on this blog so that you can workout effectively with or without a personal trainer, so be sure to check back often.

Women are always asking me about my splits, and sometimes I hesitate to give them specifics. Why? Because I've found that once I tell somebody something, they stick to it like white on rice. It's never good to repeat the same workout over and over and over again.

Every now and then you have to shock your body by surprising it, so please feel free to use the splits and workouts that I provide here, but make sure you change them up at least every 6 weeks.

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The mission of Café Physique is to help clients reach and exceed their personal fitness and nutrition goals. If you’re in need of an a nutritionist in Atlanta or an Atlanta personal trainer – Café Physique is the perfect solution. We offer Atlanta yoga instruction, Atlanta prenatal workouts, and Atlanta personal training. We also have private sessions of pilates that Atlanta residents are raving about. We invite you to let a member of our Atlanta registered dietitian staff or personal training team develop and implement a realistic and healthy lifestyle plan to meet your personal goals.