A Hise Shrug is performed by getting into squat position (bar across your traps) and shrugging your shoulders up.

As for a Glute-Ham Raise, here’s a reasonably good demonstration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0oqLDZ8JcI

Interesting idea, but you undercut recovery for some muscle groups while allowing for other groups to detrain. In other words, it’ll probably allow you to maintain your current state, but make it difficult to make progress.

In the above routine, the single day(s) of isolation exercises really won’t do much to further your lean gains in and of themselves. All you’re really doing is eating into your recovery (albeit not to a huge extent). I’ll post soon about the concept of recovery from exercise and I hope it will provide a deeper understanding as to why doing daily strength training (particularly to failure) is counteractive to progress.

The other problem is that you’d end up performing a single exercise (say, Leg Press) only once every 13 days or so, which would likely impede your progress on that exercise (and, by extension, your overall progress).

The “big exercises” (lower body push/pull and upper body push/pull) are the ones that will really help in terms of providing the benefits of strength training, which are why they are the centerpieces in an abbreviated routine. The above routine is a novel way to exercise everyday, but I’m afraid it falls a little short in the progression department.

Kudos for being creative, however.

anywho, the Mr. Olympia folks are under no threat from me, no matter what routine I follow, methinks!

I’m thinking of something like:

day 1

leg press
lat pull down

day 2

knee extension
chest press

day 3

knee curl
shoulder press

day 4

pec fly
bicep curls

day 5

hip abb
hip add

day 6, 7

skip it!

week 2

same idea, but mix in exercises not included last week, eg. seated row, abs, lower back…

Depends on the goal. For health purposes and lean gain, it’ll work just dandy, but I doubt it’d be optimal for say, a bodybuilder or an NFL lineman.

Something like:

Day 1
Bench Press
Deadlift

Day 2
Pullover
Squat

worked really well for building muscle for old-timers like Peary Rader and John McCollum. But it was in how they worked the routines: progression was key. Precious few exercises, but worked to ponderously heavy weights. And enough calories to build muscle with.

In the modern day, I think Pavel Tsatsouline advocates 2 different two exercise routines, Military Press and Deadlift being one, one-armed pushups and one-legged squats being the other.

Bottom line: If you follow the proper progression principles, two exercise routines are just fine. But don’t expect to win the Mr. Olympia.

What is a Hise Shrug and a Glute ham raise?

Be Well

Dave