Which Weight Session Is Better For My Goals?

That's a lot of exercises.

What about trying something like starting strength? Squats, Deadlifts, Power Cleans, Presses, Bench Presses, Pullups.

Lose the body part split -- it's meatheadish and borderline retarded.

Because exercises change as the trainee advances.

A barbell row, for instance, whille generally be all lats and rear deltoids to a new trainee but will eventually be a spinal erector and hip extensor exercise as the weights move up. This is because the new trainee has sufficient strength through everyday activities for their hip extensors and spinal erectors to maintain the required tension for the lats and rear deltoids to pull the weight up. But as the trainee advances, the tension requirement to stabilize the core and hips for the exercise becomes nonlinearly greater than the strength requirement by the lats and rear deltoids to actually pull the weight.

Body part splits are basically the 'shotgun' method of training -- you do legs because it's 'leg day' despite the fact that your legs were used on 'back day' when you did barbell rows, and now your 'leg day' sucks because your hamstrings are fatigued from barbell rows and your squats stagnate and decline. Focusing on individual, functional, compound exercises will improve strength neurally through specificity of practice as well as show you which exercises are lagging behind and how to analyze your program to fix the plateuas. With a body part split there's so much going on (the 'shotgun') that it's difficult to manage fatigue -- which is really what strength training is all about.

Let's look at it from a different angle: does the human body's ability adapt physically depend at all on arbitrary semantics? In other words, why are hamstrings trained on 'leg day' other than because they happen to be partially located on what is deemed the 'leg' by traditional nomenclature? Do they somehow stop adapting when they're stressed on 'back day' with a deadlift or barbell row or on 'cardio day' with an 8-mile run? That's why it's best to get a complete picture of how the body is adapting, what fatigue needs to be managed, and ultimately how to program training effectively.

It seems like you already have an idea of this with your concept of 'core exercises', so just toss the rest of the stuff out and focus on the 'core exercises'. If strength gains stagnate, reduce volume (set + reps) and keep intensity (weight) for a week or two and come back and try again. If you're still stuck, post here and someone will be able to help you out.

Probably as good a response as any I've seen you post.

I love why's gimmick.

I am missing something

Also, a switch from barbell row to DB row would solve the problem.

No kidding. I think I'm slowly falling for him.

lefty (channeling beasty)

I don't know why there is this new wave of thought that full body routines are the be-all-end-all of weight training. The argument that you're working the same muscles with different exercises like deadlift for back also works legs that is done in squatting is pretty much negated by efficient management of your routine, I.E doing back on Monday, legs on Thursday. Splits are equally efficient assuming you incorporate your big three lifts and are able to manage it properly. You may not agree with splits but they aren't borderline retarded. I have always trained low volume splits and I am an accomplished power lifter, and squat over 450 at a bodyweight of 198. Clearly your theory on strength loss is a little shortsighted.

Splits can work and they obviously work for you. I think the problem is that most people getting into splits take it from the latest issue of Muscle and Fitness. They end up dropping the hard stuff (squats and deadlifts) and concentrate their effort into 18 sets each for biceps, triceps, and chest. In other words, most split routines end up being very high volume. Hell, that's the reason for many splits; it would take all day to hit every muscle with that many sets, so they break it up into more manageable bodypart days.

I can only speak for myself, but I like full body routines because I don't have time to spend 1-2 hours per day in the gym. I have a wife and kids and my priorities are different now. Full body workouts allow me to get in and out of the gym without sacrificing much. Sure, I don't get to work on my biceps peak or my medial deltoid, but I don't care about those things. I just want to be strong and fit and squats, deadlifts, cleans, pull-ups and dips give me the best bang for my buck.

Full body routines are nothing new, but it is refreshing to see peolple getting back to basics.

I am in and out of the gym in about 40 minutes... but I guess some of the most extreme splits out there could make someone cringe depending on how far they broke it down; but regardless to say they are meat headed and borderline retarded is just an ignorant statement. I've been doing a variation of this for years, and as you see, it's quite compound intensive, but then again it isn't a very crazy split like you do see in the trash bodybuilding magazines: Monday - Chest/Tri Flat Bench - 3 reps 7 sets Weighted Dips - 6 reps 4 sets Incline Bench - 5 reps 5 sets French Press - 10 reps 3 sets Tuesday - Legs High-bar placement back squats - 4 reps 6 sets Box Squats - 5 reps 2 sets Romanian Deadlift - 8 reps 3 sets *Calf work* Thursday - Shoulders/Core Overhead Press - 5 reps 5 sets Face Pulls - 8 reps 3 sets Upright Row - 8 reps 3 sets Captains Chair/Woodchippers Friday - Back/Bi Deadlift (conventional) - 3 reps 3 sets Deadlift (sumo) - 3 reps 3 sets Bent Over Row (barbell) - 6 reps 3 sets Wide-grip weighted pullups - 8 reps 3 sets Barbell curls - 10 reps 3 sets Saturday - Olympic work Clean+Jerk - 1 rep 8 sets Snatch - 1 rep 10 sets Push Press - 1 rep 10 sets With that being said, I think this would be perfect for the OP, as well as 90% of the population: Day 1 Monday: Push Lower Squat Front Squat Stiff-Legged Deadlift Day 2 Wednesday: Push Upper Bench Press Dips Overhead Press Day 3 Friday: Pull Total Deadlift Bent Over Row Pullups

Your routine is not a body part split, you just labeled it like one. It's compounds with basic assistance exercises (some are unncessary I'd say, but...) which are pretty common routines among powerlifters.