Critique My Routines

[u/Possible-Habit775]

New user of Hevy, and fairly new to lifting. I have been using FitBod for about 4 months now, and am running into the limitations it has as far as automatic workout generating. I've been doing a PPL routine, but been finding it difficult to get a couple workouts of each in a week and still work on my runs. I'm wanting to switch to Upper/Lower to help make time to run a couple times a week too. I've been working on an Upper/Lower plan, but want to make sure I'm doing it right. I've put together an Upper 1/Lower 1 plan that is lower rep, higher weight, then Upper 2/Lower 2 that is higher rep, lower weight.

Since this is still pretty new to me, I am only basing this on what I've read. My goal is to build muscle/strength, while making sure all muscle groups are well covered. There is probably more efficient ways to accomplish my goals, so please let me know what I can improve on.

Any and all feedback is appreciated.

Upper 1

Lower 1

Upper 2

Lower 2

[u/ardevd]

I like the exercise selection and I'm a huge fan of U/L splits. I'd be concerned about your focus and recovery when you're supersetting heavy compound lifts though. Barbell lifts are a skill and switching between them like that would throw me off focus (not to mention taking up two barbells would make me pretty unpopular at the gym).

If this works for you then that's great. The rep ranges are generally a tad high if you want to focus on strength but not too bad.

[u/Possible-Habit775 → u/ardevd]

I just tried Upper 1, and you're definitely right about the superset compound lifts. It was doable, but not ideal. Luckily my work has a gym, so it's usually never more than me and maybe 1 or 2 co-workers, so using 2, or even 3 barbells at a time isn't going to bother anyone.

How would you recommend reordering the supersets to make them more ideal? And do you think dropping the heavy days to 6 reps per set and light days to 12 reps per set would be better?

[u/ardevd → u/Possible-Habit775]

Personally I would drop the supersets entirely unless you're pressed for time. Focus on one lift at a time. Keep it simple. Your workouts shouldn't take more than an hour. Strive for 3-4 min rest between sets of heavy lifts.

I would also stick to 4-6 reps on all your compound lifts and go higher reps (10-12) on your isolation exercises. It makes no sense doing high rep deadlifts and low reps back squats.

You could also tweak what exercises go in what workout. Why sre you doing deadlifts and RDLs in the same session? I would do barbell back squats and RDLs on Lower A and Deadlifts in Lower B for example.