WARNING: This is probably a lot longer than it needs to be, so thanks for bearing with me.

First, some background: I'm 24 and have been working out since December or so. I'm 5'8 and had been up to 185lbs. So far I've been concentrating almost completely on losing fat and have been lifting mainly to try to keep what muscle mass I have and burn extra calories (hefting heavy crap around with your big muscle groups takes energy, which people seem to forget about sometimes), but have focused mostly on cardio. I'm now down to around 155lbs, and will probably be shifting to focusing on lifting and building strength within the next few weeks and need to think about how my routine will change.

Right now I'm doing a four day split (MTThF) of Chest/Legs/Back/Arms with a simple 3x10 setup for all lifts, and some ab work each day. I've noticed that even on a calorie deficient diet my legs have been steadily gaining strength in all lifts, although I'm not seeing gains anywhere else. After thinking about it, I think the reason is that while I'm not lifting on off days my legs still get stressed a bit doing cardio due to high resistance levels needed on cardio equipment to keep my heart rate up. Rest is good. A week of rest for a muscle group is simply too much for me even on a low-cal diet.

So I'm planning on shifting to a two day split and doing it twice each week, still on the MTThF schedule. That's pretty much the only hard decision I've made so far - I want a two day split. My other goals are pretty simple, really. I want to feel like I'm training to get better at a sport I enjoy in order to stay motivate, so I'm going to design my program with skiing and hiking in mind. Both are more about muscular endurance than strength, so that's what I'll be looking for most (especially in the legs) although obviously I want to build strength, too.

The Program Design 101 in the sticky has been very helpful in starting a program that meets my goals. I chose the excersises basically based on which ones kick my *** the most during my current workouts, focusing mostly on compound lifts and then adding a bit of targeted stuff for the few muscles that don't usually feel like they've been pushed as hard as they could have been (mostly just shoulders and forearms). So far this is the loose outline I've come up with, and I've got a few questions as well:

Back/Chest Days [MTh]:
Bench Press [5/5/5/5]
Incline Press [5/5/5/5]
Fly [8/8/8]
Deadlifts [8/8/8]
Incline Row [6/6/6/6]
Pullups [5/5/5/5/5]
Core Work:
Incline Crunches [failureX3]
Ab Vacuum [15 seconds x 3 bet. crunches]

Legs/Target Days [TF]:
Squats [5/5/5/burnout]
Calf Raises [5/5/5burnout]
Dips [5/5/5/5/5]
Lateral Raises [6/6/6/6]
Wrist Curls [8/8/8]
Core Work:
Side bends [10/10/10]
Hanging leg raise w/twist [20/20/20]

The first day seems pretty well set to me. I plan on doing shorter rest periods between sets (about a minute) and just trying to build my strength up since my upper body strength in general is pathetic right now. I'm a little worried that I might be doing soemthing wrong on my bench since I feel it more in my upper arms than my chest, so any tips on form there would be welcome. Pullups have a similar problem in that they really seem to work my upper arms more than my back.

The second day seems pretty bad to me, but I'm not sure how to fix it. I need to focus more on my legs but I'm not sure what to add. Deadlifts pound just about every muscle up to your ribcage and might be better suited here, but I'd also like to work my quads a bit more. Lunges maybe? The arm target work also seems out of place. Would it be a better split to do Legs/Back and Chest/Arms to avoid hitting the targeted muscles two days in a row (as secondary targets on the compound lifts the first day and then again the next)? I'm a bit worried that my form will go to hell as my arms get really worn out on the Chest/Arms day if I do that, but it seems to make more sense.

Finally, the set/rep stuff in the 101 guide was a bit confusing to me especially combined with the rest intervals and intensity stuff. I'm planning on lifting hard obviously, and if I can finish all the reps on the last set I'll take the weight up the next time. Does it look like my sets/reps are in the proper range for my goals?

Thanks for reading that novel, any help is appreciated.

You have a pretty good choice in exercises, but I have a couple of things I want to point out. I would do your Leg day before your upper body day. That would occur on Mon and Thurs. I personally wouldn't want my lower back tired out from deadlifts when I try to do my squats.

Also, your Chest/Back day has 5 different compound lifts while your leg day only has 2 (one of which is an upper body movement -dips-). If I were you, I'd put more compound lifts in my Legs day, or at a minimum, do more leg oriented exercises. You put skiing and hiking in as the sports you want to "train for", but they are mainly Leg/Core dominant while your workout doesn't reflect that.

I think part of that would be solved by switching to a Legs/Back split, since it incorporates the deadlift and that works everything from glutes through my core. I am a bit worried about overtiring my back, since I haven't been doing deadlifts since I started lifting again and definitely don't want to hurt my back by trying to do too much at once.

The only other compound lift I could think of for my lower body that I've done in the past are lunges, and I've never been a huge fan of the workout they give for some reason. I guess I could also add some targeted machine work to supplement, like leg curls and extensions. I don't like to rely on them much but in addition to some big lifts the machines aren't that bad as long as you don't try to actually replace the big compound lifts with them.