Hi,
First time posting as I couldn’t find the same question on the forum. I’m on the Beginners template and was wondering if adding exercises is a big no-no or perfectly fine. The thing is, my lower body is disproportionately smaller than the upper body (l’d say it’s genetics: narrow hips, long legs, wider shoulders, back and waist) and my upper body looks more muscular and “defined”, likely a result of 10+ years of bouncing kettlebells around.
Would adding some targeted lower body things either on my template training days or another day be OK, or would it mess with the progress? Alternatively, would you rather recommend replacing some upper body isolation exercises, like bicep curl with something similar for the lower body, or reduce pressing to once a week?
I believe there’s a reason you programmed it the way you did, so I’m asking instead of massacring it myself 
.
Thanks in advance!
Patricija
Howdy!
Thanks for joining the forum and for the thoughtful question. Let me give you some insight into my thought process here and then you can make your own informed decision.
You’re right that I developed the program intentionally, with the main goal of delivering the appropriate training load to would-be users. While there are many options regarding exercise selection, the training load itself, i.e. volume, intensity, effort, is roughly the same regardless. Generally speaking, the more training load someone does, the more results they’ll get, provided they can recover from it. Too much or too little training load compromises results, so dosing needs to suit the individual. While total training load relative to the individual’s needs is my primary consideration, how it’s divvied up across different parts of the body also matters. In this view, each body part has its own training load tolerance, and I don’t think we can swap a set of leg extensions for biceps curls, for example.
My concern with adding exercises is that it may be too much training load for the individual. This is especially true if they are a beginner, who have not yet built the training tolerance and recovery capacity of an experienced lifter. That said, you mentioned “bouncing kettlebells around” for 10-years, suggesting that while you may be new (or returning) to the barbell, you aren’t a beginner. In that context, I’d be fine with adding a bit of training load to the lower body, especially isolation and/or machine-based exercises. Adding a set or two for each lower body exercise is another option, provided you tolerated the first ~ 3 weeks of the program just fine.
My 0.02!
-Jordan
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Many thanks, much appreciated! I forgot to mention that 2 years ago I discovered I have osteopenia, as results for the femur (but not the spine) showed, which made me consider hitting the gym to be able to lift something more challenging for the lower body. Indeed, I’m not new to training, my collection of kettlebells have been busy daily, and I have a pretty good feeling when I overshoot it, so I believe I will be able to autoregulate.
Thanks again, I hope my next post will be to brag about my not-so-bad femur dexa scan after all (so it will take a while!).
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That’s great. I’m hopeful you’ll do well. Let us know how it goes 
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