hey. i saw this show on tv last night where this fitness pro guy was talking about how important it is to keep your lifting schedule random and change it up a lot so your body never plateus. yet he never said how often to switch it up(i guess at least every 4 weeks). im really curious because it makes a lot of sense to me now to change up exercises alot.

but all i know is that i can alternate with dumbells and barbells, alternating exercises. and i can change the set/rep scheme.

but when i think about changing the set/rep scheme it seems tricky because im on a full body. i dont think 5x5 will work for full body because it would take too long. same thing for 4x6. so when using so many more sets, is it more logical to switch to a push/pull routine and do those 3 times a week? 4 times?

can anyone suggest a good way to periodize a workout well?

My Trainer has me on periodization right now. It works really well. Here is the schedule:

Week 1
Monday- Lowerbody
Wednesday- Sprinting/plyos/Upperbody
Friday- Lowerbody

Week 2
Monday- Sprinting/plyos/upperbody
Wednesdsay- Lowerbody
Friday- Sprinting/plyos/Upperbod

The phases are
Phase 1: Fundamentals/Technique/Conditioning (high reps 15-20, low weight)
Phase 2: Hypertrophy Phase (reps 12-15, weight moderate)
Phase 3: Strength Phase (reps 6-12, moderate to heavy weight)
Phase 4: Power Phase (reps 0-6, heavy weight)
Phase 5: Peak phase (which I'm guessing is maxing out and singles/doubles,triples)

Each workout starts off with some dynamic stretching and core work. Core includes 2 circuits of planks, side planks, crunches, side crunches, and back extensions. On the Lowerbody days I do squats, rdls, leg extensions suppersetted with leg curls, lunges, calve raises. At the end we do static stretching.

Each phase is about 4-7 weeks long. Each week you must progress. You can either add more reps, another set, or more weight. (the weight should be 2.5% from last week).

That about covers it; this program is working wanders for me. Good Luck with your goals.

how long do you have in your gym? Ive done 5x5 fullbody and it took less than an hour. If it takes too long, chanses are you have too many exercises or too much rest in your program.

If you do the same 3 days a week, you will plateau quickly and have to change sets/reps of exercises often. However, a better way (imo) to do it is to vary often. I never do the same workout twice in a week. If you have 3 full body lifting days, alternate between exercises and sets/reps, you will be able to keep going longer before you adapt.

Do you need suggestiones for some exercises to alternate with? post up your routine so we can help. Also, what are your goals?

Jman:
Only problem with that perodization is that if you start with endurence work, you have to maintain it, or you will loose it, so as you venture into strenght and power phases, the endurance you worked so hard for will decline. Thats why id rather do different days to train different qualities if you want more than one thing. and when you work on endurance, your strenght will decline, unless you have some maintence work inn there.

k thanks for quick replies; you guys rock.
im going for SIZE and as much strength as possible
i have as long as i want in my room(gym)
my routine is full body; i do 10x3 on squats and sometimes deads once a week. other than that, everything is 3x8. when i can do 3x8 for an exercise, the next time i do it, it is 3x9. then 3x10. then i add weight. i superset with full rest; 1-1.5 minute rest in between.

TEUSDAY
squat
chins
db bench
db rows
db mil press

THURSDAY
deadlifts
chinups(i should switch to pullups, huh?)
barbell mil press
barbell rows
barbell bench

SAT
squat
chins
db bench
db rows
db mil press

i alternate them every time, so i do each workout the same amount. i have been making good progress during the 3 weeks i have been on this. every single one of my lifts has gone up:
bench:increased 5lbs on each dumbell doing bench press
mil press: increased 7lbs on barbell
squat:5lb incriment and i feel more explosive
dead: 10lb incriment
rows:5lb increase on each db
chins: when i started, i could do 9 first set, 7 second and 5 third; now i do 9, 8, 8

so i think its a matter of a couple weeks before i plateu, huh? what to do?

i will do 5x5 for strength if i can fit it into 1 hr. its just for 5 compounds, thats 25 sets which rest will have to be more than a minute. i guess if i superset, i can do it. same with 4x6

yeah id superset if i were you, saves time. Im not saying its only a matter of weeks until you plateau, it could be, but it could not be. If your seeing good gains, stick with it until it stops, then you know its time to change up.

Also, for the workouts that takes too much time, you could cut out either the horizontal or vertical push and pull, i see you got both on all of the 3 days, might be a bit much, but if your making progress, that means its working, but i sure know it dident take long before i ditched doing both vertical and horizontal pull for ONE day a week, because it was too much (however i was doing 4 x FBW a week, which is taxing anyways )
5x5 is pretty taxing, so when you start that, you might find out that its a bit too much.

Here are some variationes:

Squats: Back squats, Front squats, Bulgarian sqauts(short stance, quad dominant), bulgarian split squats (long stance, more hip dominant) lunges

Deadlifts: Conventional deadlift, romanian deadlift, single leg romanian deadlift

Bench: Incline, decline, flat, DB, BB, close grip, wide grip, medium grip.

Rows: DB, BB, vary the trunk angle, reverse grip, pendlay rows.

Chins: chins and pullups, vary grip width or just stick with varying sets and reps.

Putting some single leg stuff in there might be a good idea, spechally if you want to carry your strenght over to sports, as in most sports action happenes on one leg (just think about it for a moment).
But if your goal is to get a huge squat and huge deadlift, single leg stuff isent needed THAT much, since it actually doesnt have sugh a big carry over to your biliteral lifts, but you should still have some.

yes; i will substitute stepups soon as im liking the idea. im also going to substitute mil press with dips soon. i think i will do 5x5 once a week perhaps, then 4x6, then 3x8. im curious as to how i would do 3x3...is it ok to do full body with 3x3? maybe once a week?

if its strength you want then changing exercises often is not a good idea,the more you do an exercise the better you become at it neural learning etc,thats why powerlifters,oly lifters,strongmen, do the same thing regular but they have heavy days and light days so they dont burn out the CNS.

if you want size as well i would start out doing more reps maybe 12, every wk increase the weight and drop the reps untill you get down to 5
so it could look like this 12,10,8,6,5,

side note...military press doesn't substitute out well with dips, they aren't similar exercises, they do use some of the same muscles for the range of motion, but dips are more similar to decline and flat bench

Yeah, i guess the question is if you want strenght in the gym or outside the gym in sports. If you want to get a high back squat, you gotta practice the back squat.

For my shoulders I do shrugs (dumbbells) supersetted with arm circles.