While I may sound mostly insane, there IS a method to my madness. Minus a burp here and there, I stick mostly to the "inch my way up" plan. When I DO lift too much, I'll lay off. My lifting is set up that way mostly anyway. My two biggest concerns are legs and lower back, because of the joints, not the muscles. If I hit one or both particularly hard one day, I'll do pullups the next day. If I trash out my shoulders, I'll do something like front squats, squats or dust up on some deadlifts and some curls next day.

I don't separate by upper/lower body per se; rather, by what muscles are being worked directly on a given day vs which ones are not. I won't do back squats or deadlifts more than once a week, nor will I do both exercises in the same week.

I got all crazy a couple of years ago and power cleaned and pressed 205 for the first time in years and it kept my hip jacked up from that point until I was hospitalized. Silver lining, I guess. I couldn't walk, but the hip pain was gone I've tended to err toward the side of caution.

Let's be real. One workout isn't going to make or break me for anyone or thing but me. My social event of the day is a 7-11 run and my work out audience is a stray cat and some crows