Weightlifting: 2018 Goals

Remember this stupid commercial?

2018 is the year of hypertrophy, the year to add muscle mass and not worry about how much I squat, bench, or deadlift. Due to the back injury I've written about here, I haven't been able to squat or deadlift without pain for a while, so the focus on bodybuilding is a side effect of that fact. Increasing volume and intensity comes before adding weight to the bar. Here's the program I've been doing lately:

Day One: Chest/Back--I've been using only three exercises, the bench press, cable row, and pulldowns, alternating the two back movements. I don't feel like I need more variation than that, since I've always had big pecs naturally, and the upper back doesn't need anything besides vertical and horizontal pulling. I've never seen the need to do direct trap work.

Bench press: 5 to 6 sets of 8 to 10 reps, starting with at least 50 percent of my max, and going up into the 70 percent range.

Cable row/pulldown: 5 to 6 sets of 10 reps.

Day Two: Shoulders/Arms--Currently, I'm not doing much overhead pressing, since the bench press takes care of the front delts, and my manual labor job is hard on my shoulders.

Side laterals: 3-5 sets of 10 reps.

Dumbbell face pulls: 3-5 sets of 10 reps.

Barbell/DB curls: 5 sets of 10 reps.

Pressdowns: 5 sets of 10-12 reps.

Day Three: Legs. No heavy squats, but split squats (essentially a lunge with one foot on a bench) are a decent replacement. Considering getting a leg press, but I don't think I need one.

Split squats: 5 sets of 10 reps.

Leg extensions: 5 sets of 12 reps.

Leg curls: 5 sets of 10.

Dumbbell calf raises: 5 sets of 12.

And that's it. I do this routine once a week, sometimes switching up exercises. I might do a strength block in a month or two to switch things up.