Well full body workouts make it easier for me to get more intensity and volume in per week since you don't have to do as many sets per workout per muscle group.
True you need less sets, but you also need more exercises to target the entire body in a single workout.
Doesn't it basically cancel itself out time wise due to this? Or are you doing a lot of super sets?
I don't think it saves time. If you properly warm up every exercise it probably takes a little longer (not doing supersets).
It is more about intensity for me. For example I squat three times a week and I never could do as many hard sets per week with a bro split.
Imo I find them to be more productive and resemble the russian style of training. Hits a little bit of everything to gain a "pump" but doesn't completely destroy any particular muscle group. I was an athlete growing up, and that's how I trained, so I just kept going as I got older.
My heavy lifting days have to be broken up into upper and lower if I'm doing legs. Just too damn tired after a good lower body workout to consider much else. Full body for maintenence level workouts or cardio are good however. Swimming is my favorite and it hits full body. Gets me sore if I'm really pushing it too.
Silver era bodybuilders trained full body and got massive, you just have to be smart about it. If you’re doing legs and you’re too damn tired to do anything you’re doing more than necessary for muscle growth. There’s nothing wrong with that, I understand how great it feels to absolutely fucking destroy a muscle but that doesn’t mean you need to. You could do 3 full body workouts where on each of the 3 you focus on a specific third of your body and do less intense stuff for the rest. You’ll make progress easily if you’re just smart about it. Full body 3x a week could look like this:
Monday (legs focused):
Hack squat 4x8
Romanian deadlift 4x10
Chest supported row 3x10
Incline bench press smith machine 3x8
Decline crunches 3x10
Wednesday (arms and shoulders focused):
Seated overhead press in smith machine 3x8
Preacher curl 3x8
Overhead rope triceps extension 3x8
Calf raise 3x10
Lateral raise 3x10
Saturday (chest and back focused):
Weighted dips 3x8
Weighted neutral pull ups 3x8
Dumbbell row 3x8
Front squat 3x8
Preacher dumbbell hammer curls 3x8
Now this is just a simple mock up I threw together in 5 minutes. That being said 90% of gym goers can make good progress on this program. You just need to train with good form and good intensity.
If you want optimal growth, either the sets need to be increased or switch to 4x sessions a week. The issue with the increased sets and full body workouts in general is that they take ages to complete. If you enjoy being in the gym then that’s not a problem ofc
With 3x a week full body workouts you need to manage fatigue really well. Also the amount of volume you need in each session is drastically less than you would need in a ppl or other split because of the frequency
If we look at the amount of sets in his program, most of the muscle groups only have 9 weekly sets. Which is not optimal (10-14 sets is). Also, because you are running a full body split. There is no guaranty that these sets are performed optimally because of fatigue .
This is not accurate. The reason he would do less sets is to mitigate fatigue… 10-14 being optimal is just a number you throw out there are too many confounding variables… you need less total volume on a full body split because you will have more effecient stimulus, the first set of a muscle is getting you 60-80% of the stimulus of that workout no matter how much volume you do.
It’s not just a number…research it. Also where did you come up with the first set gets you 80% of the stimulus. If this were true, everybody would be jacked. Muscle grows optimally by going to failure on a +/- 10-20 sets per week basis. That’s it. You can split it however you want, but full body 3x per week is going to take too long or will be too fatigueing
I've tried full bodied heavy weight work out sessions before and at least the ones I've tried just seemed to take too much time to recover from and whatever I did in the beginning of the session was where most of the effort and results went. I did copy down the routine you wrote about above so maybe when I hit my next plateau I'll consider trying it out again. Variability does seem to help in the long term.
Hey do you think I Can swap dips on day 3 for bench press? I workout at home and don’t have an actual dip bar?
I’m also curious why the first two exercises on day 1 have 4 sets instead of 3. Is this just to get the total weekly volume per muscle group up?
Yeah that’s totally fine. To be fair though, I typed this programme out in less than 5 minutes. Mostly just threw together my favourite exercises in some decent balance. I chose 4 sets to get the volume up for legs. Although looking back I wouldn’t recommend front squats for beginners/more casual lifters to which this programme is aimed since it’s quite technical. You could replace that with leg extensions or some other quad dominant lift.
It varies. I try to do the minimum 15 minutes to count as cardio sometimes up to 25-30 minutes and I'll take little breaks to let my heart rate settle a little in between laps but still keep it elevated. The style is mixed. I like to switch strokes usually between normal overhand, breast and side strokes. I sprinkle in doing no leg over hand and just leg paddling laps. Those legs only laps are tough. I generally don't do back stroke as it's too hard for me to stay in a straight line and not bump into the lane ropes.
Thanks! I swim a lot as well because we have a lake in front of our apartment. But I just do 20 min for relaxing and don’t really treat it as a workout. I think I need to improve my technique for it to count as a workout. :)
Just getting your heart elevated a bit is enough. It's sort of like jogging. You want to not be so out of breath you can't talk but just out of breath enough you can't sing. I just push it into heavier territory when I can't get a heavier weight workout set in the week to make up for missing heavier loads on my muscles.
Each person is different. I think as long as you go to failure you should make progress.
I do full body. Every other day. See lean gains and starting strength. They will have you throw in a little alternation.
I'm always reminded of Tom Platz talking about trying to workout like Arnold and it just didn't work for him. Those two were some of the best bodybuilders out there and their bodies had different methods of training for the best results.
Hypothetically, less effective. The longer the duration your workout is, the more fatigue you have, leading to less possible weight moved.
Even with volume and intensity held equal, doing a full body split means your workout is going to be longer than say a bro split (chest/tris, back/bis, legs/shoulders)
To maximize effectiveness, the shorter your workout is the better (again holding all else equal). However this is not feasible for 99% people since we have other time constraints.
So, in actuality is it less effective? Technically yes, but it is probably a minimal margin, and it it suits your lifestyle better, then go for it.
I've been doing this for some years and it seems to work. There is a trade off due to systemic fatigue within a session so make sure to train your weakest muscle groups first or rotate which groups you start with.
To save time, I superset most things. Usually I start with bizeps/triceps (5 sets) because its my weakness. Then legs which is either deadlifts or leg press/leg curls (6 sets), then bench/some row (5 sets). Then lateral raises / another leg exercise like extensions (5 sets). Then another push and another pull exercise (3 sets). Instead of bench and row I sometimes do weighted pull ups/dips. Instead of a second back exercise, I sometimes do rear delts. This gets me to 40-50 sets per workout (thats quite intense) and about 15 - 25 sets per muscle group per week.
sorry for my lack of understanding but do you mean you're doing this 1x/wk? are you basically bed-ridden the following day or is the work 'maintenance'?
No I definitely train with high intensity. I go within a few reps of failure most sets. It's difficult to objectively judge how hard someone trains. Some markers for me would be:
-I'm visibly more 'strained' than most people around me in the gym.
-If I have to skip for a week or so and do the same workout, I'm sore for days. Even normally I experience soreness.
-My HRV drops a lot the hours after a workout and I feel significant fatigue.
-During my most intense sets (deadlifts), I reach a zone 4 heart rate.
My goals in the gym always were hypertrophy. I've been working out some way or another since I was 14, I'm 25 now. At this point, it's not really a priority and I'm happy to maintain or make small gains here and there. If I would want to make significant progress at this point, I'd run less and add 1 day of lifting and switch to a push/pull. Most of my progress has been with full body workouts though. Currently I'm 180cm, 85kg at around 15% bf.
I think it depends on your experience level. Beginner and intermediate, full body or upper/lower is just fine. Mike Isratel has a video about this exact question
I always trained full body 3 times a week I like it the best. Unless you want to be a body builder. Then splits is better. Plus it all depends on the intensity you train at. 95% of the time I hardly ever see people going hard at the gym... there is many factors that comes In to play... hard to say. Life it's self is a workout. Just remember to take your foot off the gas peddle sometimes. Lol
The “big three”, most of all, use a huge number of muscle groups. They are mentally exhausting - your muscles AND brain are taxed by them - so they exhaust you much more than concentrating muscle groips
There’s no real “frying”, these lifts are just especially demanding. When your muscles are working, your brain is also being taxed. So when you’re doing a very heavy compound lift like a deadlift, particularly if you’re really pushing yourself, it’s going to be exhausting and leave you drained. Let alone all three.
It’s not impossible, you’re not going to hurt yourself (mentally), but it does tax you and I’d much rather be awake and focused and energetic for the rest of my workout, and afterwards.
The big three are completely overrated for hypertrophy. The lifts are designed to lift as much weight as possible, that’s not the same as stimulating the muscle as much as possible.
According to what? That doesn’t argue anything about my CNS comment at all, and the big three work out the MOST groups which is the point - obviously they’re not focusing on one group, which is why their incorporated into a split, on that day, where you target it with other workouts.
Going with the CNS thing, you could do hack squats, Romanian deadlifts and smith or dumbbell incline bench press and get a better stimulus to your chest, glutes, hamstrings and quads without taking nearly as much fatigue to your CNS. Deadlifts and real squats are fun but they take a lot out of you. Don’t get me wrong, I used to train like this too trying to get strong on the big three. That approach did fine for legs, but it did take a long time to complete my squats and deadlifts so I looked for better alternatives. For bench I figured I didn’t need that much triceps isolation because I did it on bench. That did not work. I benched 120 kg (265 lbs) with 35cm (14 inch) arms. Clearly my triceps weren’t doing too well. This powerlifting mindset gave me underdeveloped arms because I considered triceps/biceps work as “accessory”. But to me biceps/triceps are not accessory muscles, they are just as (if not more) important to me as my chest, back and quads.
When doing a full body workout, you don’t do these exercises on one day. Even if you do, it’s not with the same %/rpe/rir or for each on a separate day.
A full body does not mean that you do all the muscles in 1 day.
In principle, a person does not have to do these exercises if he does not want to. Objectively, the result in the worst case will remain the same. Subjectively, it will be better.
The best! Do it every other day or every two days. Work all of them equally or work on the ones you didn’t work hard enough the following session. For naturals it’s the best since you have to time to really recover your cns and your muscles
If you're doing it every other day that's a bit fast to get optimal recovery. That's why the PPL rest split is so pervasive. Solid rest period of 4 days, still get two days per major group.
If you can manage soreness we'll and get good sleep and hit good volume and frequencies, you'll still do just fine with this strat. The running and leg workouts may interfere, but that depends on your goals.
Push day Monday, leg day on Tuesday (one day has passed), pullups on Wednesday (two days has passed), rest day on Thursday (three days has passed), push day on Friday (four 24 hour periods have passed since you last did a push day. That is four days of rest, assuming you lifted at the same time Monday and friday).
By cycling working groups you can rest your push muscles while pulling and doing legs.
I’ve switched to full body workouts and my PRs haven’t been the best (still hitting PRs but not at the same rate), but it fits my schedule better and I enjoy them more.
I do the exact workout you mentioned, 3x full body and rest cardio.
I think they're the best for most people, in theory, if you can make sure not to overdo things. I personally always end up doing too much, but do well on an upper lower split.
PPL is probably better than 3x full body per week as each group gets more trashed and has a longer recovery time. I alternate a 4-day split with elliptical, cycling and running. Also it depends how long you have been training. In the first few years full body works well but as you get more conditioned to it you need to absolutely destroy each individual part in order to get it to respond. For example, my calf day is 300 reps and doing that once a week is enough.
I don’t want to say anything bad, really, but if your calves (or any muscle) need 7 days to recover and you want to get an adequate result, then you have problems.
You say that you need to give your muscles 7 days of rest. If a person’s physical activity consists only of going to the gym, then this is an erroneous conclusion. Because no muscle takes so long to recover in such a context. By training each muscle group once a week, you find yourself in a situation where you simply “throw out the window” part of the training. Of course, it also depends on how many sets you do and how intensely.
I can understand that you have other physical activities, maybe the gym is not your first priority, but this is bad advice for the average person.
No I didn't say that at all. I said that 300 calf raises a week is enough for me considering I also do elliptical, cycling and running. I wasn't giving any advice either, the OP asked how we personally structure our own training. Nobody who saw me on the street would say I don't know how to train LOL
I’m just talking about your words about the calf, as about training the muscle once a week. This may be enough for you, but not enough for the muscle. You give advice because you say one thing is better than another. A muscle should not be trashed in order for it to grow; muscles do not grow because of this, not to mention the fact that you throw part of the training day out the window in this case. A person in good shape will never write the last sentence) If a person has big biceps, this does not mean that he knows how he did it/how someone else can do it. Unfortunately, you are far from understanding how to train. When you step to the ~intermediate level, you will understand where you went wrong. Even if you have great genetics, such misconceptions won’t get you far.
I'm sorry if this sounds rude. I have nothing against you as a person.
No I probaly dont know much about training. I have only been doing it for 20 years and only have one session a week with someone who trains IFBB pros. Regardless, my calfs get trained 4x per week, that is plenty for the muscle and plenty for me. Go and lecture somebody else buddy, I'm not interested in your opinion of my opinion.
If you didn't care, you wouldn't answer)
As I said, if a person has big biceps, this does not mean that he knows how to do it) And some people from IFFB "pro" are a good example.
Yes, you have learned little in 20 years, but you still have everything ahead, don’t be discouraged :)
I find the Dorian Yates idea of 1-3 warm-ups with increasing intensity, then 1 working set to failure works for me.
If you want to try and push it, hit failure on the working set, drop the weight about 10-20% and the hit failure again.
As always though, focus on a good range of motion and controlled negatives
I’d say, depending on how many exercises you do for full body, twice a week will be ample if you’re lifting heavy and going to failure; especially if you’re also running and working.
I like full body but also like push/pull split for upper, so my week looks like this:
Push, Pull, Lower, Rest, Upper, Lower, Rest
I always switch it up man. Keeps your body guessing. The trick is to just do whatever it is that keeps you motivated. If it’s a change in methodology then do it. You can always come back to whatever later.
I have done both a 5 day split as well as a full body 3 times a week, I firmly believe there is more potential for muscle growth during a split regimen because tou are targeting each muscle more heavily and for longer. My full body workouts would be roughly an hour with roughly 2 exercises per workout. My splits are 45 minutes dedicated to one muscle group.
It depends on your goals. You can likely maintain and even grow on a full body 3 times a week if you push hard enough. You can also do the same on your 5 day split and add cardio before or after; I typically run in the mornings and do my strength training at lunch.
Circuit training is by far the most effective workouts you can do. I see virtually no one doing them. One set of weights and then sprint for a minute. Cycle through your entire body. Do that three times a week.
It really depends on what energy system you are targeting: mitochondria, lactic acid, or aerobic. Tuning your work out for your goals is more important than what feels good.
Not only is it equally effective, it’s also more functional. Doing push/pull/legs every week doesn’t translate to a functional human body. Train for life, not the locker room mirror.
As for your final question, prioritizing recovery is the main goal. So depending on how you do your cardio will inform how you build your lifting split. High intensity days (>80% max) should never be back to back, and generally you don’t want to stack them next to high volume days either. If it’s me, I would do high intensity cardio on day 1, and then a lower intensity lifting day. Then a rest day. Then a high intensity lifting day followed by a low intensity cardio day. Then you can finish with either high volume lifting or high volume cardio on day 6. Rest day on day 7. Just remember that intensity and volume need to have an inverse relationship and you’ll be fine.
IME, and people ive observed, all seem to do fine on whole-body *for a while* but gains inevitably slow to a halt. at that point, more focused training tends to be a logical move. YMMV.
It comes down to a few basic things and the reason full body rarely works is because it’s very difficult to maintain frequency and progressive overload with adequate rest unless it’s “enhanced”. That is why splits are so effective.
1) Progressive overload
2) Volume
3) Rest
4) Calorie/ macro intake
Haha, true. But, everything in moderation. I do a few similar full body movement that have excelled my growth. I incorporate kettle bell movements into my upper body, swings, goblet squats to presses, etc. I am on 4 days split, seeing noticeable growth. Also consuming 140 grams of protein per day, creatine supplement.
I’ve been doing full body 3x a week 1.5h for a year and a bit now. Just hit or of hip thrusts 440lbs a couple months ago so I would say it works if your nutrition is dialed in. It’s also great for recovery.
Kinda. Depends on experience level. Advanced lifters will usually get burnt out doing full body
Full body is recommended for beginners, and for at least your first 6 months-1 yr.
Lots of benefits, especially with technique
For intermediate lifters, Daily or Weekly Undulating, PPL, or Upper/Lower is usually best. Has to do with what your connective tissues can handle under load
I would argue that for the majority of people full body 3x a week is the best routine. Thats mostly because people are inconsistent and the penalty for inconsistency is much higher on body part splits. If you miss one of your 3 full body days you still hit everything twice that week.
Some split workouts only hit body parts once a week so a missed day makes you not hit that body part for 14 days. People also tend to use splits to move what they don't like hitting to a specific day and just skipping that day all the time. Like legs.
The downside to full body is when you have to start adding move volume. Workouts get long, and the frequency can impact recovery. A well trained lifter focused on building muscle might do a upper body / lower body 2x a week split instead.
For strength / muscle gains the only thing that matters is total volume measured in total number of working sets. As long as you have equal volume you'll make progress however you organize it.
I spend most of the year doing 3 full body days a week. 4 day when its too hot or cold outside.
I do Jason Brown’s Evolve program on the Train Heroic app. Been doing it about a year and it’s great. It’s a really amazing full-body split.
3 strength sessions a week with a focus big lift each day and then some zone 2 on off days
It seems that you won't be able to do a full body workout in an hour. After an hour of training, you're just cannibalizing the gains you just made, so it seems tough to get a full body training in
I did the bodybuilding split for over a decade. And then the last decade I migrated to full body workouts or upper/lower splits.
One may or may not be better than the other, but you can honestly make either work and you'd be none the wiser.
Not a bodybuilder anymore, but I still stay in great shape and I've decided to fully commit to 3 full body workouts a week for the foreseeable future. Not slowing my gains at all.
Check out John Medows total body routine, it's a 3 day a week routine, you'll find parts 2 and 3 on the channel.
https://youtu.be/j9cWQcy2tU8?si=Agyl11FmJP94kWT1
Plenty of people have gotten big and strong with full body training
Follow a good program, like the ones below, and you'll get bigger and stronger
https://thefitness.wiki/routines/strength-training-muscle-building/
The problem with full body splits is that in order to truly hit the FULL body effectively and rest sufficiently between sets, you will have to be in the gym for 3+ hours. Most people don't have time to do that, and so people that do full body usually don't get in nearly as much volume as people that do more specific splits.
If you have time to actually hit the full body and don't experience too much systemic fatigue doing that, then it might be the right split for you. Most people do not fall into that category.
Both seem to be equally effective. The major factors to consider are volume, rep range, intensity, rest period, and recovery. Volume is thought to be a major factor for hypertrophic adaptations.
Personally I like split routines simply because they allow for maximum recovery. However, a 3 day full body routine can be just as effective if structured properly, as you are allowing for a good amount of rest and recovery which in my opinion is of the upmost importance when trying to build muscle mass. I would prioritize compound lifts like squat(front and back), deadlift, cleans (both power and squat), bench, shoulder press, pull ups, rows, and dips. Compliment these lifts with accessory movements in which you focus on volume and increasing the load. My favorite has always been dumbbell work. As for machines Id keep these to a minimum and save them for end of workouts so you don’t tax yourself before your compound lifts and dumbbell work.
I personally do full body 2x per week. It's more efficient to me as I won't have to go as much. Approved by physical therapist.
Edit:
I keep it at 20-30 min of cardio and 5 exercises with strength. Takes max. 1h30. I alternate a bit between the exercises but get worked through everything.
Takes far less than most think to build muscle/strength as long as you have consistently.
I’d even argue most people who do splits do too many exercises feel fatigued and like they worked hard but is detrimental unless the goal is bodybuilding exclusively and they can devote the time to recovery.
3 x per week, 2 are heavy 1 is unilateral and lighter
Heavy days - squat/hinge upper body push pull 4 exercises minimum add isolation if you have time or feel like it.
Light days are unilateral higher reps. If you went overhead on the heavy day push/pull horizontal or vice versa. Circuits or CrossFit esque style workouts can be on this day.
The only thing that matters is your total volume, enough rest and progressive overload. If you can progressively overload each muscle you improve and build more muscle.
Your split is completely irrelevant.
Push/Pull/Legs = you can overload each muscle twice per week
Upper/lower split = you can overload each muscle 3 times per week
Full body workout = you can overload every muscle 7 times per week
Bro split = you can overload each muscle once per week
You just need to adjust the volume for each muscle accordingly.
More frequency = less volume per muscle and less rest
More volume per muscle = more rest and less frequency
Super simple.
If you train to actual mechanical failure two real sets (most people don't even do 1 set) it will take alot out of you for full body workouts. If I know I can't possibly get my 6 days in I will do full body. But usually it's push pull legs. Shoulders are done on both push and pull days since they require both pushing and pulling motions.
For newbie gains I found full body 3 or 4 times a week to be effective but only one exercise per body part to complete muscle cramping failure. What do I mean by failure? As a example if you work your biceps hard enough to failure, the bicep should cramp up afterwards if you simply try to touch your nose. For legs it should be really difficult to walk up stairs without using your arms to help.
The overwhelming majority of people simply never train hard enough. You should be destroying yourself during your workouts. I'm 47 now and I train harder than I did 30 years ago.
When professional bodybuilders talk about sets, they are referring to real sets and not junk sets. For me, each exercise has two sets to complete failure. It's a pyramid and I do 3 warmup sets to get myself to the really heavy set. The next set is then one notch down but also to failure or i do a long drop set. If you can do the same heavy weight for the same number of reps, you did not train to failure.
If you use anabolic steroids, you can leave reps in the tank but not if you're natty
Science is pretty clear that you don't need to train that hard. It is probably better for most people to not train that hard according to research looking at RIR
I don't know about that and I would say the science is still up for debate on this. I subscribe to the Ryan Humiston method of training. Applying this to my routine has given me muscle growth and size increases in muscle mass and I'm 47. My arms, shoulders, back, quads and chest are all bigger than they were just a few years ago when I left reps in reserveb and I'm not on gear at all.
I guess there are alot of variables for training but the single biggest factor for increased hypertrophy for me, a lifelong trainer in my later 40s has been going to absolute failure and more than one set of failure. People tell me I'm too big at my age now.
This year I'll be attempting to break the sbd state records for my age and weight.
You do you
He's got some pretty good videos actually. I combined my routine with his approach. I limit to two working sets with ample warm-ups. I also found that moderate weight works better for me than super heavy or super light. I try to finish with my heaviest weight in the 20 rep range. It's alot but it gave me hypertrophy, mechanical and also metabolic failure. I don't focus on the reps. I look at what I did last time and try harder. If I can't meet it or exceeded it, I do partials. Ryan demonstrates this technique in one of his most recent videos.
I do on occasion go for personal bests, but it's when everything feels good. At my age heavy low rep ranges put alot of strain on my tendons and tendonitis flares up and I adjust and rehab my body. During work meetings I use bands to exercise my rear delts, rhomboids and rotator cuff muscles.
For the first time in 10 years I can throw a ball with my kids with my right arm without experiencing pain.
It works for me. And I don't mean to disparage the previous comment. Leaving reps in reserve does work for some athletes. It just doesn't work for me
Sounds interesting I will look into it and might try it in the future when I am less trength oriented.
I do whole body 3-6 reps and 2 working sets per exercise. The strength gains are really good right now, but this probably won't work forever (I am 30).
Multiple studies have shown no difference in body part splits when it comes to weight training when volume and intensity is equal.
This. I alternate throughout the year to make it less boring personally.
Yes, and this is exactly why full body makes it harder.
I would argue for the exact opposite.
Feel free.
Well full body workouts make it easier for me to get more intensity and volume in per week since you don't have to do as many sets per workout per muscle group.
True you need less sets, but you also need more exercises to target the entire body in a single workout. Doesn't it basically cancel itself out time wise due to this? Or are you doing a lot of super sets?
I don't think it saves time. If you properly warm up every exercise it probably takes a little longer (not doing supersets). It is more about intensity for me. For example I squat three times a week and I never could do as many hard sets per week with a bro split.
You just argued your own point.
I don't follow. Can you explain what you mean?
Lol no he didn't, he just dunked on you
I’m no professional, but I love full body workouts every other day.. I sleep better and I have more time to do other activities.
If you manage volume and frequency well yes.
Imo I find them to be more productive and resemble the russian style of training. Hits a little bit of everything to gain a "pump" but doesn't completely destroy any particular muscle group. I was an athlete growing up, and that's how I trained, so I just kept going as I got older.
My heavy lifting days have to be broken up into upper and lower if I'm doing legs. Just too damn tired after a good lower body workout to consider much else. Full body for maintenence level workouts or cardio are good however. Swimming is my favorite and it hits full body. Gets me sore if I'm really pushing it too.
Silver era bodybuilders trained full body and got massive, you just have to be smart about it. If you’re doing legs and you’re too damn tired to do anything you’re doing more than necessary for muscle growth. There’s nothing wrong with that, I understand how great it feels to absolutely fucking destroy a muscle but that doesn’t mean you need to. You could do 3 full body workouts where on each of the 3 you focus on a specific third of your body and do less intense stuff for the rest. You’ll make progress easily if you’re just smart about it. Full body 3x a week could look like this: Monday (legs focused): Hack squat 4x8 Romanian deadlift 4x10 Chest supported row 3x10 Incline bench press smith machine 3x8 Decline crunches 3x10 Wednesday (arms and shoulders focused): Seated overhead press in smith machine 3x8 Preacher curl 3x8 Overhead rope triceps extension 3x8 Calf raise 3x10 Lateral raise 3x10 Saturday (chest and back focused): Weighted dips 3x8 Weighted neutral pull ups 3x8 Dumbbell row 3x8 Front squat 3x8 Preacher dumbbell hammer curls 3x8 Now this is just a simple mock up I threw together in 5 minutes. That being said 90% of gym goers can make good progress on this program. You just need to train with good form and good intensity.
If you want optimal growth, either the sets need to be increased or switch to 4x sessions a week. The issue with the increased sets and full body workouts in general is that they take ages to complete. If you enjoy being in the gym then that’s not a problem ofc
No the volume would not need to be increased at all
Why is that?
With 3x a week full body workouts you need to manage fatigue really well. Also the amount of volume you need in each session is drastically less than you would need in a ppl or other split because of the frequency
If we look at the amount of sets in his program, most of the muscle groups only have 9 weekly sets. Which is not optimal (10-14 sets is). Also, because you are running a full body split. There is no guaranty that these sets are performed optimally because of fatigue .
This is not accurate. The reason he would do less sets is to mitigate fatigue… 10-14 being optimal is just a number you throw out there are too many confounding variables… you need less total volume on a full body split because you will have more effecient stimulus, the first set of a muscle is getting you 60-80% of the stimulus of that workout no matter how much volume you do.
It’s not just a number…research it. Also where did you come up with the first set gets you 80% of the stimulus. If this were true, everybody would be jacked. Muscle grows optimally by going to failure on a +/- 10-20 sets per week basis. That’s it. You can split it however you want, but full body 3x per week is going to take too long or will be too fatigueing
https://www.ageingmuscle.be/sites/bams/files/publications/Dose%20response%20relationship%20between%20weekly%20resistance%20training%20volume%20and%20increases.pdf
This guy fucking gets it. You start moving decent weight in these, you'll be the best body at the pool party assuming everyone is natural.
I've tried full bodied heavy weight work out sessions before and at least the ones I've tried just seemed to take too much time to recover from and whatever I did in the beginning of the session was where most of the effort and results went. I did copy down the routine you wrote about above so maybe when I hit my next plateau I'll consider trying it out again. Variability does seem to help in the long term.
Hey do you think I Can swap dips on day 3 for bench press? I workout at home and don’t have an actual dip bar? I’m also curious why the first two exercises on day 1 have 4 sets instead of 3. Is this just to get the total weekly volume per muscle group up?
Yeah that’s totally fine. To be fair though, I typed this programme out in less than 5 minutes. Mostly just threw together my favourite exercises in some decent balance. I chose 4 sets to get the volume up for legs. Although looking back I wouldn’t recommend front squats for beginners/more casual lifters to which this programme is aimed since it’s quite technical. You could replace that with leg extensions or some other quad dominant lift.
i couldn't imagine trying to add more on top of legs :p
Can I ask how long you swim and in what swimming style?
It varies. I try to do the minimum 15 minutes to count as cardio sometimes up to 25-30 minutes and I'll take little breaks to let my heart rate settle a little in between laps but still keep it elevated. The style is mixed. I like to switch strokes usually between normal overhand, breast and side strokes. I sprinkle in doing no leg over hand and just leg paddling laps. Those legs only laps are tough. I generally don't do back stroke as it's too hard for me to stay in a straight line and not bump into the lane ropes.
Thanks! I swim a lot as well because we have a lake in front of our apartment. But I just do 20 min for relaxing and don’t really treat it as a workout. I think I need to improve my technique for it to count as a workout. :)
Just getting your heart elevated a bit is enough. It's sort of like jogging. You want to not be so out of breath you can't talk but just out of breath enough you can't sing. I just push it into heavier territory when I can't get a heavier weight workout set in the week to make up for missing heavier loads on my muscles.
Each person is different. I think as long as you go to failure you should make progress. I do full body. Every other day. See lean gains and starting strength. They will have you throw in a little alternation.
I'm always reminded of Tom Platz talking about trying to workout like Arnold and it just didn't work for him. Those two were some of the best bodybuilders out there and their bodies had different methods of training for the best results.
Hypothetically, less effective. The longer the duration your workout is, the more fatigue you have, leading to less possible weight moved. Even with volume and intensity held equal, doing a full body split means your workout is going to be longer than say a bro split (chest/tris, back/bis, legs/shoulders) To maximize effectiveness, the shorter your workout is the better (again holding all else equal). However this is not feasible for 99% people since we have other time constraints. So, in actuality is it less effective? Technically yes, but it is probably a minimal margin, and it it suits your lifestyle better, then go for it.
I've been doing this for some years and it seems to work. There is a trade off due to systemic fatigue within a session so make sure to train your weakest muscle groups first or rotate which groups you start with. To save time, I superset most things. Usually I start with bizeps/triceps (5 sets) because its my weakness. Then legs which is either deadlifts or leg press/leg curls (6 sets), then bench/some row (5 sets). Then lateral raises / another leg exercise like extensions (5 sets). Then another push and another pull exercise (3 sets). Instead of bench and row I sometimes do weighted pull ups/dips. Instead of a second back exercise, I sometimes do rear delts. This gets me to 40-50 sets per workout (thats quite intense) and about 15 - 25 sets per muscle group per week.
sorry for my lack of understanding but do you mean you're doing this 1x/wk? are you basically bed-ridden the following day or is the work 'maintenance'?
No this is 3x/wk, I run on 3 other days. I experience some soreness but usually it's gone after 2 days when I lift again.
I imagine you're doing kinda 'medium exertion' then? what are your goals with this, and what kind of progess are you seeing?
No I definitely train with high intensity. I go within a few reps of failure most sets. It's difficult to objectively judge how hard someone trains. Some markers for me would be: -I'm visibly more 'strained' than most people around me in the gym. -If I have to skip for a week or so and do the same workout, I'm sore for days. Even normally I experience soreness. -My HRV drops a lot the hours after a workout and I feel significant fatigue. -During my most intense sets (deadlifts), I reach a zone 4 heart rate. My goals in the gym always were hypertrophy. I've been working out some way or another since I was 14, I'm 25 now. At this point, it's not really a priority and I'm happy to maintain or make small gains here and there. If I would want to make significant progress at this point, I'd run less and add 1 day of lifting and switch to a push/pull. Most of my progress has been with full body workouts though. Currently I'm 180cm, 85kg at around 15% bf.
I think it depends on your experience level. Beginner and intermediate, full body or upper/lower is just fine. Mike Isratel has a video about this exact question
I always trained full body 3 times a week I like it the best. Unless you want to be a body builder. Then splits is better. Plus it all depends on the intensity you train at. 95% of the time I hardly ever see people going hard at the gym... there is many factors that comes In to play... hard to say. Life it's self is a workout. Just remember to take your foot off the gas peddle sometimes. Lol
Your CNS would probably be fried trying to do squats, deadlifts, and bench press same day. You’d need to split the big three up at least.
How is it different than any other set of exercises? You control the intensity of it.
The “big three”, most of all, use a huge number of muscle groups. They are mentally exhausting - your muscles AND brain are taxed by them - so they exhaust you much more than concentrating muscle groips
I've done that exact workout plenty of times. It's not that bad.
What does frying your CNS even mean? People keep saying it but I haven't seen any research on it
There’s no real “frying”, these lifts are just especially demanding. When your muscles are working, your brain is also being taxed. So when you’re doing a very heavy compound lift like a deadlift, particularly if you’re really pushing yourself, it’s going to be exhausting and leave you drained. Let alone all three. It’s not impossible, you’re not going to hurt yourself (mentally), but it does tax you and I’d much rather be awake and focused and energetic for the rest of my workout, and afterwards.
The big three are completely overrated for hypertrophy. The lifts are designed to lift as much weight as possible, that’s not the same as stimulating the muscle as much as possible.
According to what? That doesn’t argue anything about my CNS comment at all, and the big three work out the MOST groups which is the point - obviously they’re not focusing on one group, which is why their incorporated into a split, on that day, where you target it with other workouts.
Going with the CNS thing, you could do hack squats, Romanian deadlifts and smith or dumbbell incline bench press and get a better stimulus to your chest, glutes, hamstrings and quads without taking nearly as much fatigue to your CNS. Deadlifts and real squats are fun but they take a lot out of you. Don’t get me wrong, I used to train like this too trying to get strong on the big three. That approach did fine for legs, but it did take a long time to complete my squats and deadlifts so I looked for better alternatives. For bench I figured I didn’t need that much triceps isolation because I did it on bench. That did not work. I benched 120 kg (265 lbs) with 35cm (14 inch) arms. Clearly my triceps weren’t doing too well. This powerlifting mindset gave me underdeveloped arms because I considered triceps/biceps work as “accessory”. But to me biceps/triceps are not accessory muscles, they are just as (if not more) important to me as my chest, back and quads.
When doing a full body workout, you don’t do these exercises on one day. Even if you do, it’s not with the same %/rpe/rir or for each on a separate day. A full body does not mean that you do all the muscles in 1 day. In principle, a person does not have to do these exercises if he does not want to. Objectively, the result in the worst case will remain the same. Subjectively, it will be better.
The best! Do it every other day or every two days. Work all of them equally or work on the ones you didn’t work hard enough the following session. For naturals it’s the best since you have to time to really recover your cns and your muscles
If you're doing it every other day that's a bit fast to get optimal recovery. That's why the PPL rest split is so pervasive. Solid rest period of 4 days, still get two days per major group. If you can manage soreness we'll and get good sleep and hit good volume and frequencies, you'll still do just fine with this strat. The running and leg workouts may interfere, but that depends on your goals.
How does that give you 4 days of rest and 2 days per major group? Please elaborate on this
Push day Monday, leg day on Tuesday (one day has passed), pullups on Wednesday (two days has passed), rest day on Thursday (three days has passed), push day on Friday (four 24 hour periods have passed since you last did a push day. That is four days of rest, assuming you lifted at the same time Monday and friday). By cycling working groups you can rest your push muscles while pulling and doing legs.
I’ve switched to full body workouts and my PRs haven’t been the best (still hitting PRs but not at the same rate), but it fits my schedule better and I enjoy them more. I do the exact workout you mentioned, 3x full body and rest cardio.
I think they're the best for most people, in theory, if you can make sure not to overdo things. I personally always end up doing too much, but do well on an upper lower split.
PPL is probably better than 3x full body per week as each group gets more trashed and has a longer recovery time. I alternate a 4-day split with elliptical, cycling and running. Also it depends how long you have been training. In the first few years full body works well but as you get more conditioned to it you need to absolutely destroy each individual part in order to get it to respond. For example, my calf day is 300 reps and doing that once a week is enough.
I don’t want to say anything bad, really, but if your calves (or any muscle) need 7 days to recover and you want to get an adequate result, then you have problems.
Couldnt agree more, not sure how this is relevant to my comment tho.
You say that you need to give your muscles 7 days of rest. If a person’s physical activity consists only of going to the gym, then this is an erroneous conclusion. Because no muscle takes so long to recover in such a context. By training each muscle group once a week, you find yourself in a situation where you simply “throw out the window” part of the training. Of course, it also depends on how many sets you do and how intensely. I can understand that you have other physical activities, maybe the gym is not your first priority, but this is bad advice for the average person.
No I didn't say that at all. I said that 300 calf raises a week is enough for me considering I also do elliptical, cycling and running. I wasn't giving any advice either, the OP asked how we personally structure our own training. Nobody who saw me on the street would say I don't know how to train LOL
I’m just talking about your words about the calf, as about training the muscle once a week. This may be enough for you, but not enough for the muscle. You give advice because you say one thing is better than another. A muscle should not be trashed in order for it to grow; muscles do not grow because of this, not to mention the fact that you throw part of the training day out the window in this case. A person in good shape will never write the last sentence) If a person has big biceps, this does not mean that he knows how he did it/how someone else can do it. Unfortunately, you are far from understanding how to train. When you step to the ~intermediate level, you will understand where you went wrong. Even if you have great genetics, such misconceptions won’t get you far. I'm sorry if this sounds rude. I have nothing against you as a person.
No I probaly dont know much about training. I have only been doing it for 20 years and only have one session a week with someone who trains IFBB pros. Regardless, my calfs get trained 4x per week, that is plenty for the muscle and plenty for me. Go and lecture somebody else buddy, I'm not interested in your opinion of my opinion.
If you didn't care, you wouldn't answer) As I said, if a person has big biceps, this does not mean that he knows how to do it) And some people from IFFB "pro" are a good example. Yes, you have learned little in 20 years, but you still have everything ahead, don’t be discouraged :)
Again, I dont care about your opinion. Go and patronise someone else.
I find the Dorian Yates idea of 1-3 warm-ups with increasing intensity, then 1 working set to failure works for me. If you want to try and push it, hit failure on the working set, drop the weight about 10-20% and the hit failure again. As always though, focus on a good range of motion and controlled negatives
I’d say, depending on how many exercises you do for full body, twice a week will be ample if you’re lifting heavy and going to failure; especially if you’re also running and working. I like full body but also like push/pull split for upper, so my week looks like this: Push, Pull, Lower, Rest, Upper, Lower, Rest
I always switch it up man. Keeps your body guessing. The trick is to just do whatever it is that keeps you motivated. If it’s a change in methodology then do it. You can always come back to whatever later.
I have done both a 5 day split as well as a full body 3 times a week, I firmly believe there is more potential for muscle growth during a split regimen because tou are targeting each muscle more heavily and for longer. My full body workouts would be roughly an hour with roughly 2 exercises per workout. My splits are 45 minutes dedicated to one muscle group. It depends on your goals. You can likely maintain and even grow on a full body 3 times a week if you push hard enough. You can also do the same on your 5 day split and add cardio before or after; I typically run in the mornings and do my strength training at lunch.
Circuit training is by far the most effective workouts you can do. I see virtually no one doing them. One set of weights and then sprint for a minute. Cycle through your entire body. Do that three times a week. It really depends on what energy system you are targeting: mitochondria, lactic acid, or aerobic. Tuning your work out for your goals is more important than what feels good.
Not only is it equally effective, it’s also more functional. Doing push/pull/legs every week doesn’t translate to a functional human body. Train for life, not the locker room mirror. As for your final question, prioritizing recovery is the main goal. So depending on how you do your cardio will inform how you build your lifting split. High intensity days (>80% max) should never be back to back, and generally you don’t want to stack them next to high volume days either. If it’s me, I would do high intensity cardio on day 1, and then a lower intensity lifting day. Then a rest day. Then a high intensity lifting day followed by a low intensity cardio day. Then you can finish with either high volume lifting or high volume cardio on day 6. Rest day on day 7. Just remember that intensity and volume need to have an inverse relationship and you’ll be fine.
IME, and people ive observed, all seem to do fine on whole-body *for a while* but gains inevitably slow to a halt. at that point, more focused training tends to be a logical move. YMMV.
It comes down to a few basic things and the reason full body rarely works is because it’s very difficult to maintain frequency and progressive overload with adequate rest unless it’s “enhanced”. That is why splits are so effective. 1) Progressive overload 2) Volume 3) Rest 4) Calorie/ macro intake
Even seen CrossFit bodies? Yes.
I’ve seen them. They are injured.
Haha, true. But, everything in moderation. I do a few similar full body movement that have excelled my growth. I incorporate kettle bell movements into my upper body, swings, goblet squats to presses, etc. I am on 4 days split, seeing noticeable growth. Also consuming 140 grams of protein per day, creatine supplement.
For sure, goblet squats and kettle bell swings for life. I wish I could take creatine but makes my hair fall out.
I’ve been doing full body 3x a week 1.5h for a year and a bit now. Just hit or of hip thrusts 440lbs a couple months ago so I would say it works if your nutrition is dialed in. It’s also great for recovery.
Kinda. Depends on experience level. Advanced lifters will usually get burnt out doing full body Full body is recommended for beginners, and for at least your first 6 months-1 yr. Lots of benefits, especially with technique For intermediate lifters, Daily or Weekly Undulating, PPL, or Upper/Lower is usually best. Has to do with what your connective tissues can handle under load
I would argue that for the majority of people full body 3x a week is the best routine. Thats mostly because people are inconsistent and the penalty for inconsistency is much higher on body part splits. If you miss one of your 3 full body days you still hit everything twice that week. Some split workouts only hit body parts once a week so a missed day makes you not hit that body part for 14 days. People also tend to use splits to move what they don't like hitting to a specific day and just skipping that day all the time. Like legs. The downside to full body is when you have to start adding move volume. Workouts get long, and the frequency can impact recovery. A well trained lifter focused on building muscle might do a upper body / lower body 2x a week split instead. For strength / muscle gains the only thing that matters is total volume measured in total number of working sets. As long as you have equal volume you'll make progress however you organize it. I spend most of the year doing 3 full body days a week. 4 day when its too hot or cold outside.
Dont ask here, go check renaissance periodization on youtube.
I do Jason Brown’s Evolve program on the Train Heroic app. Been doing it about a year and it’s great. It’s a really amazing full-body split. 3 strength sessions a week with a focus big lift each day and then some zone 2 on off days
It seems that you won't be able to do a full body workout in an hour. After an hour of training, you're just cannibalizing the gains you just made, so it seems tough to get a full body training in
I did the bodybuilding split for over a decade. And then the last decade I migrated to full body workouts or upper/lower splits. One may or may not be better than the other, but you can honestly make either work and you'd be none the wiser. Not a bodybuilder anymore, but I still stay in great shape and I've decided to fully commit to 3 full body workouts a week for the foreseeable future. Not slowing my gains at all.
Check out John Medows total body routine, it's a 3 day a week routine, you'll find parts 2 and 3 on the channel. https://youtu.be/j9cWQcy2tU8?si=Agyl11FmJP94kWT1
Plenty of people have gotten big and strong with full body training Follow a good program, like the ones below, and you'll get bigger and stronger https://thefitness.wiki/routines/strength-training-muscle-building/
The problem with full body splits is that in order to truly hit the FULL body effectively and rest sufficiently between sets, you will have to be in the gym for 3+ hours. Most people don't have time to do that, and so people that do full body usually don't get in nearly as much volume as people that do more specific splits. If you have time to actually hit the full body and don't experience too much systemic fatigue doing that, then it might be the right split for you. Most people do not fall into that category.
I just do upper body/lower body splits. 2 on, 1 off to get 4 lifting days a week. I love this split because it’s so flexible.
Both seem to be equally effective. The major factors to consider are volume, rep range, intensity, rest period, and recovery. Volume is thought to be a major factor for hypertrophic adaptations. Personally I like split routines simply because they allow for maximum recovery. However, a 3 day full body routine can be just as effective if structured properly, as you are allowing for a good amount of rest and recovery which in my opinion is of the upmost importance when trying to build muscle mass. I would prioritize compound lifts like squat(front and back), deadlift, cleans (both power and squat), bench, shoulder press, pull ups, rows, and dips. Compliment these lifts with accessory movements in which you focus on volume and increasing the load. My favorite has always been dumbbell work. As for machines Id keep these to a minimum and save them for end of workouts so you don’t tax yourself before your compound lifts and dumbbell work.
I personally do full body 2x per week. It's more efficient to me as I won't have to go as much. Approved by physical therapist. Edit: I keep it at 20-30 min of cardio and 5 exercises with strength. Takes max. 1h30. I alternate a bit between the exercises but get worked through everything.
Takes far less than most think to build muscle/strength as long as you have consistently. I’d even argue most people who do splits do too many exercises feel fatigued and like they worked hard but is detrimental unless the goal is bodybuilding exclusively and they can devote the time to recovery. 3 x per week, 2 are heavy 1 is unilateral and lighter Heavy days - squat/hinge upper body push pull 4 exercises minimum add isolation if you have time or feel like it. Light days are unilateral higher reps. If you went overhead on the heavy day push/pull horizontal or vice versa. Circuits or CrossFit esque style workouts can be on this day.
The only thing that matters is your total volume, enough rest and progressive overload. If you can progressively overload each muscle you improve and build more muscle. Your split is completely irrelevant. Push/Pull/Legs = you can overload each muscle twice per week Upper/lower split = you can overload each muscle 3 times per week Full body workout = you can overload every muscle 7 times per week Bro split = you can overload each muscle once per week You just need to adjust the volume for each muscle accordingly. More frequency = less volume per muscle and less rest More volume per muscle = more rest and less frequency Super simple.
If you train to actual mechanical failure two real sets (most people don't even do 1 set) it will take alot out of you for full body workouts. If I know I can't possibly get my 6 days in I will do full body. But usually it's push pull legs. Shoulders are done on both push and pull days since they require both pushing and pulling motions. For newbie gains I found full body 3 or 4 times a week to be effective but only one exercise per body part to complete muscle cramping failure. What do I mean by failure? As a example if you work your biceps hard enough to failure, the bicep should cramp up afterwards if you simply try to touch your nose. For legs it should be really difficult to walk up stairs without using your arms to help. The overwhelming majority of people simply never train hard enough. You should be destroying yourself during your workouts. I'm 47 now and I train harder than I did 30 years ago. When professional bodybuilders talk about sets, they are referring to real sets and not junk sets. For me, each exercise has two sets to complete failure. It's a pyramid and I do 3 warmup sets to get myself to the really heavy set. The next set is then one notch down but also to failure or i do a long drop set. If you can do the same heavy weight for the same number of reps, you did not train to failure. If you use anabolic steroids, you can leave reps in the tank but not if you're natty
Science is pretty clear that you don't need to train that hard. It is probably better for most people to not train that hard according to research looking at RIR
I don't know about that and I would say the science is still up for debate on this. I subscribe to the Ryan Humiston method of training. Applying this to my routine has given me muscle growth and size increases in muscle mass and I'm 47. My arms, shoulders, back, quads and chest are all bigger than they were just a few years ago when I left reps in reserveb and I'm not on gear at all. I guess there are alot of variables for training but the single biggest factor for increased hypertrophy for me, a lifelong trainer in my later 40s has been going to absolute failure and more than one set of failure. People tell me I'm too big at my age now. This year I'll be attempting to break the sbd state records for my age and weight. You do you
Sounds like you know what you are doing. How do you achieve this kind of failure?
He's got some pretty good videos actually. I combined my routine with his approach. I limit to two working sets with ample warm-ups. I also found that moderate weight works better for me than super heavy or super light. I try to finish with my heaviest weight in the 20 rep range. It's alot but it gave me hypertrophy, mechanical and also metabolic failure. I don't focus on the reps. I look at what I did last time and try harder. If I can't meet it or exceeded it, I do partials. Ryan demonstrates this technique in one of his most recent videos. I do on occasion go for personal bests, but it's when everything feels good. At my age heavy low rep ranges put alot of strain on my tendons and tendonitis flares up and I adjust and rehab my body. During work meetings I use bands to exercise my rear delts, rhomboids and rotator cuff muscles. For the first time in 10 years I can throw a ball with my kids with my right arm without experiencing pain. It works for me. And I don't mean to disparage the previous comment. Leaving reps in reserve does work for some athletes. It just doesn't work for me
Sounds interesting I will look into it and might try it in the future when I am less trength oriented. I do whole body 3-6 reps and 2 working sets per exercise. The strength gains are really good right now, but this probably won't work forever (I am 30).