Adding a 4th day to PPL

Ive been doing PPL for about 12 months now and I've been loving it. Gotten results and the nature of PPL which allows me to vary it up and rotate in some exercises feels excellent for avoiding stagnation.

However increasingly I feel like some exercises should not be done on the same day. For example bench press and OHP. I want to train both, but doing them on the same day means I can't do the latter one 100% and my shoulder joints don't enjoy it either. Second is deadlift which I absolutely want to do even if it's not that popular with a PPL. The problem is the only place in a PPL for it is legs day and that means squatting and DL'ing on the same day. Not nice. Neither do I want to alternate and only do something as crucial as bench or OHP only every 6th time I went to the gym. I've tried both.

So I was thinking of adding a 4th day. A kind of "whatever's left over" day. I could bench press, deadlift, maybe do some abs, pull-ups etc. add in anything that felt neglected during that week's training. This way my "push" day would be closer to a pure shoulders and triceps day and legs day would actually be just legs. Is this a terrible idea? Is including a "kinda everything, not really anything" day just me inviting to have the same problems these DYELs who train for years without any progress have?

I figured I could at least give it a shot which lead me to the bigger problem: scheduling. Initially I thought PLPVx (V for variety day) but then I got thinking and doing bench the day after shoulders/tris doesn't sound good. Neither does pull-ups the day after back and bi's. Or deadlift after leg day for that matter. A second rest day could fix it, go PLPxVx or PPLxVx but that would mean I would only be hitting back (my favourite day in terms of both training and result) only every 6th day and even that is assuming the perfect scenario and me never missing a day at the gym due to busy schedule or just need for extra rest. In practice it'd be once a week.

(cont.)

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=5X1lGf3tgpU
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Eventually I got the idea of adding a second back day. Go something like:

1. Back/bi's
2. Shoulders/tri's
3. Legs
rest
5. Back/bi's
6. Variety day
rest

How does that sound? Scheduling the rest days is not really something I do, I go to the gym if my body feels like I'm able to do whatever workout is next on the rotation but that would probably be what it ends up looking like.

I'm not asking anyone to make any decisions for me, I know that only I know my body and only I have to try this stuff out and adjust accordingly but at this point does anyone have any thoughts or advice to give? Maybe ideas for exercises on Variety Day™ that usually get neglected in a traditional PPL? Thanks if you read this far.

should be going 6 days a week with a PPL routine so you hit each muscle group twice a week.

I don't have the weekday autism. If it takes me 4 days or 8 days to complete a "rotation" I'm fine with it. Never understood the reason to force your schedule into 7 days.

Personally I've found that 1 rest day per 1 "rotation" suits me well. I'm natty though.

ok its just you have 123 rest 56 rest which is 7 days and that 2nd "rotation" is only 2 gym days

I don't much like the idea of 'variety day' because, as you say, you will end up hitting the same muscles twice in a row and I don't see how fixes that problem. Plus, it seems kind of messy and, well, my autism.
I would just go for Shoulders, Back, Chest, Legs. With a 4 day split you don't really need too much triceps/biceps isolation work, so keep them as the secondary focus on Shoulders/Chest and Back days. And bear in mind that the triceps should be twice the size of the biceps, so doing twice as much volume is not necessarily a bad thing.

True. I included the rest days in the count because that's how I see other people do it, in my mind there's 5 "steps".
>2nd "rotation" is only 2 gym days
It is. First off since I train real heavy in my experience a rest day after 2 days is totally justified. Secondly and more importantly it's just to avoid consecutive days of doing the same muscle group, as that would inevitably happen otherwise with this addition.

I agree with you on some of the points you made but I really don't see the necessity for a separate chest day. Not only would I have trouble with coming up with 6-8 exercises that only hit chest but I haven't felt like my chest has been lagging behind even without one. Nor do I really care that much about my chest to be honest.

Alternating is your only realistic option. Believe me, because I do the same.

What about PPL/upper/lower? Is it a meme?