Full-Split Workout Structure Part 3 of 3. Legs and Shoulders Workout.
To wrap up a full cycle of a full-split workout program, you need to work your remaining muscle groups; legs and shoulders. Since this is third in order, your shoulders should be recovered enough from chest and tris, even if you did a workout each day for the last two days (chest and tris on day one and back and bis on day 2). Two days of recover after a chest day should allow the shoulders, which are secondary during chest, to fully recover. During a full-split program for legs your exercises will be very similar to a semi-split workout, you will simply add a set to each of them. For shoulders, you will do 3-4 exercises and 3-4 sets per exercise. Just like your other split workout days, keep your reps in the 4-12 range per set and work close to failure (or to failure if you have a spot) for maximal strength and muscle gain.
Here is the workout structure for the legs and shoulders workout.
Legs
Squats or Lunges – quad focused, hamstring, gluteus maximus, and low back secondary.
Lateral lunges or abduction – lateral lunges are much like a squat or lunge with outer thigh use added in. Abduction exercises are outer thigh specific exercises and can be done with cables or on the ball (see photos)
Adduction – Inner thigh focused exercises. Cables are a great way to target this muscle group.
Leg Curls – Hamstring focused exercise. Seated, kneeling or prone are the options.
Heel Raises – Calve focused exercise.
Shoulders
Overhead Press – Deltoid and trapezius focused. Triceps are secondary. These can be done with dumb bells, barbell, cables, you name it.
Lateral raise – medial deltoid focused. Traps are secondary.
Reverse fly – Rear deltoid focused. Can be done with dumb bells or cables. I prefer the functional trainer (see photos)
Shrugs – Dumb bell, barbell, or cables the motion is the same. This works the traps up high next to your neck.
Once again abs can be worked in on this day at the end of your workout or they can be done by themselves a couple times per week in between workouts. Another great option for this workout is to compound set your leg exercises with your shoulder exercises. To do this, merely do your first shoulder exercise in between your first leg exercise and progress down the list (second leg exercise has your second shoulder exercise in between sets, etc.). By compounding this workout, you will finish it in about 30 minutes instead of an hour and it will work up a pretty good aerobic sweat. You can’t compound set your other two days of this workout structure because the exercises all require rest in between. For example, you can’t work triceps in between chest because they are active during chest exercises and need to recover.
After completing a full cycle of all three parts of a full split, you have the option to start the cycle over with chest and tris before the week ends or wait until the first of next week to do so. I prefer a forth workout on a full split to get full muscle development progression as you can easily do four workouts per week with this program and not have any issues with recovering provided your eating habits are healthy.
This concludes the full-split workout structure. If you missed my earlier blogs on this workout program, be sure to check them out. Here is a photo link for the exercises.
