Afternoon all,
I have posted a few times on the supplement forums and thought I would fire a quick question about training.

I train 4 to 5 times a week and have recently started to ensure that I get my body parts split into different groups for different days
(ie: tonight its back and triceps - tomorrow biceps and chest etc etc)

I just wondered what peoples thoughts are on the number of exercises per body part per session - on my chest days I have been doing
Incline, flat, decline then maybe some flys as well if I have time.
Alot of people seem to recommend adding on Cable Cross overs etc as well .... is this not over training?

I am doing my back tonight - I will do some seated rows, bent over rows, pull ups.... Is this right or should I be taking the body part to
complete failure with as many different exercises as possible?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

I'd do a bit more than you are at the moment. I also usually try and not stay in the same part of the gym for more than one exercise, eg you said you do bench, incline and decline...i would do flat bench, incline dumbells and decline smith. just something that has worked for me but everyones different!

i'll briefly go through my chest and back routine for you as a guideline to how many exercises i do...may come in handy, may not!

chest :
incline dumbells
flat barbell
decline smith
incline flyes
high pulley cables

back:
2 warm up sets of pull ups
wide grip pulldowns
bent over row
deadlift
seated row
pullovers.

i train with a partner and as soon as one person finishes a set the other jumps on. usually takes about an hour to complete both days.

Thanks for the tips.
I will give your routine a go this week and see how it fits for me.

I will let you know how i get on.

Cheers

Training 4-5 days a week seems a bit much to me, 3 days would encourage better results, try chest and biceps monday, shoulders/legs wednesday, back/triceps friday. I do as an example: 4 sets flat bench, 4 sets incline, 3 flyes,3 pec-dec.
I used to train 5 days a week but I have seen better results doing as above.
  

Yeah I have had many comments on the same lines regarding 4 to 5 times a week been too much etc.

My usual week is made up of:
Mondays (with girlfriend) - Cardio and then Back and Triceps
Tuesdays (with cousin) - Less Cardio but heavy Chest and Bicep work out
Wednesday - REST
Thursdays (with cousin) - Back and Triceps
Friday or Saturday depending on work - Alone and again - heavy set on Chest and Biceps with a bit of all round other stuff (Squats etc)
thrown in.

I also tend to work AB's as much as I can with a mix of crunches / leg raises and pull overs.

So - not dismissing your advise regarding training for optimum result - I tend to train as i do because I have different people to train
with. PLUS - I love lifting weights - WHAT A STRESS BUSTER :)

I do chest-mon,back-tue, tris-wed,legs-thu, shou/bis-fri. Works well, for now. For back i do deadlifts or powercleans, pull ups, seated rows, rear delt raises- 12 sets. Anymore is overtraining for me.

Like you say it all depends on the persons own training, I do a minimum of 20 sets for shoulders and they are still growing and my best bodypart, I do the following routine: seated side lat raises on machine, rear delt flyes, bent over flyes, standing front raises, side raises, bent-over rear delt rows/flyes and finish off with 300kilo shrugs on a bench press machine.
As you can see this would normally be classed as over training, I train them once a week and have made very good gains. so as you can see its down to each individuals capacity for growth and recovery as to how many execises and sets you do

Quoted Text

with a bit of all round other stuff (Squats etc)

well i would change the bit of all round stuff to a straight legs workout as you train 4-5 days but no real legs if you want to progress Squats are one of the basic
compound movements you must perform (if there are no leg injuries stopping you) and not to specifically train legs ??? a lack of knowledge you need to put right to progress.

Depends greatly. If training a muscle group once per week then 3 exercises x 3 sets would be a rough figure.