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Or the intensity of stimulus per session. Responses to frequency, length of recovery curves, etc can vary person to person
Full Body Workout vs Splits
- Thread starter Haj01
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I attribute it to having to bench and press 3 days a week and dead/squat twice a week. I'm never recovered enough to do max effort.
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Although contrary to OP, I don't think bro splits are optimal for steroids either, since enhanced lifters can recover faster. You could probably still get decent gains but just absolutely destroying each muscle group, but less than if you trained intelligently.
Op's video is pretty decent, and stresses good idea (putting emphasis on recovery for being able to do more total work), but the framing pretty much doomed anything productive happening in the first few pages.
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If I had to put forward an actual opinion... I would say the "body part split" can either be perfectly legitimate, or pretty dubious. You can say "arms and chest day" is bench plus assistance, "back day" is deadlift and extra back work, "shoulders" is overhead press and some extra pulling, and so on. And that's a legitimate way to build strength- the only issue for me is that without tinkering this can end up with you doing the main exercises only once per week each, which for a lot of people isn't enough. But if arms day is 15 minutes of bench and another hour and a half of various isolation exercises then that is obviously going to suck for strength development- I don't know if it's good for BB or not, and probably don't care.
I have been coming round to the view that the split or the template isn't really the main thing. The main thing is how often you do the exercises, the set/rep/intensity when you do them, the amount of time you have to recover, and the balance between the core strength-building exercises and the other stuff you would like to do. E.g. you might decide you want to squat and bench, twice each per week, plus other bits and pieces like rows. Then I don't think it matters exactly if sometimes that's done over three days or four days, and what day you do the rows, as long as all four sessions are done properly and there is recovery between them. Different people will have different needs though- some people have got strong as living fuck doing the "one main lift plus assistance per week" thing and some people have made zero progress.
While I do think the template isn't the main thing, well-known templates do tend to push you in certain directions regarding frequency, recovery time and the balance between main exercises and assistance. E.g. if you do a "full body" (e.g. squat/bench/row one day, DL/press/chins the next) it's quite likely you'll be doing the main lifts a couple of times per week, and you probably won't do that much assistance because the main exercises will take up a lot of time. You can address these things for sure, but the template will push you in a certain direction.
I have been coming round to the view that the split or the template isn't really the main thing. The main thing is how often you do the exercises, the set/rep/intensity when you do them, the amount of time you have to recover, and the balance between the core strength-building exercises and the other stuff you would like to do. E.g. you might decide you want to squat and bench, twice each per week, plus other bits and pieces like rows. Then I don't think it matters exactly if sometimes that's done over three days or four days, and what day you do the rows, as long as all four sessions are done properly and there is recovery between them. Different people will have different needs though- some people have got strong as living fuck doing the "one main lift plus assistance per week" thing and some people have made zero progress.
While I do think the template isn't the main thing, well-known templates do tend to push you in certain directions regarding frequency, recovery time and the balance between main exercises and assistance. E.g. if you do a "full body" (e.g. squat/bench/row one day, DL/press/chins the next) it's quite likely you'll be doing the main lifts a couple of times per week, and you probably won't do that much assistance because the main exercises will take up a lot of time. You can address these things for sure, but the template will push you in a certain direction.
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What are the parameters these routines? Care to detail them?
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3 working sets of
Bench press
Overhead press
Lat pull down
Row variation
Deadlift/squat
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Without any further info, I would suspect it has more to do with the order in which you perform the lifts, than full body vs split routine. If you perform a lift first, you're naturally going to be stronger in it, than if it is 3rd or 4th. But I would need to see a breakdown of the routines to make an informed judgement. Even then genetic variation, etc could explain why a single individual would regress when going from split routine to full body.
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Yes but my bench has declined also. I think the lack of assistance work and set percentages of effort has caused my progress to slump too.
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Don't you weight ~300lbs? I highly doubt it's the lack of assistance.
More likely is a lack of overall volume.
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Yeah I weigh 300lbs. I'll increase volume and post results
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Well one thing I can guarantee, when you look at the classical bodybuilders of the early 20th century, guys like Steve Reeves. You don't get that kind of look today. The slim waist and broad back/shoulders look.
They all used to train with Full body then. And I much prefer the classic physique to what we see today.
Yeah I have noticed this difference too. Most of my workouts aren't exactly physique/aesthetic focused, but I have looked a few times to try and find out what exactly one would wanna do to build this kind of physique. A lot of horseshit being peddled out there with tons of photos of old BB physiques but no idea if they work...
Open question to anyone here, what kind of full body routine would one look to do to pursue this aesthetic a wee bit?
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Well watch the man's YouTube channel. He has a ton of info. The guy from my first post.
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Thanks. Would you say his recommendations are pretty legit, then? That's great - as I said there's a lot of horseshit out there which makes it hard for laymen such as myself to discern the efficacious from the egregious.
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Well just watch him. You have to discern for yourself. Look how great his body was and this was before steroids became available to bodybuilders.
Never believe anyone. Use your own discernment and determine for yourself what is legit or not.
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I think the biggest difference in split vs full body routines is the frequency of the main lifts. When strength training, it seems to be necessary to have a higher frequency of main lifts at varying intensities.
When lifting full body, you should be doing those 3 main lifts (squat/pull/press) or a variation of said lifts each day. So if you have a 3x week split, you might have a moderate weight/high day, a light weight/light rep day, then a heavy weight/light rep day. That's a common cycle that I have found works great for strength training. This allows you to really grease the groove on your lifts and get tons of rep practice in. This is really the best style in my opinion unless your a bodybuilder. I think 99% of the population could use a simple full body routine 3x a week and get themselves to an intermediate strength level in a few years time.
When lifting in a split routine, your frequency basically goes down to once a week for the main lifts unless you change your accessory work to accommodate that, but then you're not really doing a true split routine. Split routines allow for a higher volume of work, which is great for bodybuilders. It allows you to put your muscle group under a ton of total volume and time under tension that day. You'll typically be burning out those muscles and allowing your body a week to recover and build back. I've found that this isn't enough frequency for me to make serious strength gains. I don't know why you would do this unless you're a bodybuilder. I'm sure you could tweak the split routine for strength gains by doing like a 4 day split upper/lower/upper/lower, but I'm not sure how effective that is for most people.
When lifting full body, you should be doing those 3 main lifts (squat/pull/press) or a variation of said lifts each day. So if you have a 3x week split, you might have a moderate weight/high day, a light weight/light rep day, then a heavy weight/light rep day. That's a common cycle that I have found works great for strength training. This allows you to really grease the groove on your lifts and get tons of rep practice in. This is really the best style in my opinion unless your a bodybuilder. I think 99% of the population could use a simple full body routine 3x a week and get themselves to an intermediate strength level in a few years time.
When lifting in a split routine, your frequency basically goes down to once a week for the main lifts unless you change your accessory work to accommodate that, but then you're not really doing a true split routine. Split routines allow for a higher volume of work, which is great for bodybuilders. It allows you to put your muscle group under a ton of total volume and time under tension that day. You'll typically be burning out those muscles and allowing your body a week to recover and build back. I've found that this isn't enough frequency for me to make serious strength gains. I don't know why you would do this unless you're a bodybuilder. I'm sure you could tweak the split routine for strength gains by doing like a 4 day split upper/lower/upper/lower, but I'm not sure how effective that is for most people.
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I'm on a PPLx2 with a 531 hybrid, its okay I guess. I actually did 5x5 for years, and I stalled for awhile. Despite being a bodybuilding routine, the high volume and frequency has helped me break through my plateau so its a plus in my books.
Will the strength gains be as great compared to a real powerlifting routine like Sheiko / Smolov? Probably not.
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PPLx2 with a 531 hybrid? Sounds complicated hahaha
I ran Starting Strength for about 6 months before I moved onto Texas Method. I absolutely love the Texas Method, and in my opinion it's one of the best intermediate strength programs out there.
Now that I'm on a real powerlifting team, my coach has me doing something more complicated. It seems very similar to the Juggernaut method. We cycle 1s, 3s, 5s, 8s&12s, then deload in what looks like 3 week intervals. Each day is a full body routine where we do one or two main lifts with the addition of 3 to 5 different accessory movements at the 8 - 12 rep range. That's been going really well, but he's also an IPF coach and has been running a team for years, so he really knows what he's doing.
I really can't imagine trying to do a real strength program and only lifting once a week. I would constantly be trying to get into the right groove on my lifts.
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It does on paper, but its manageable. Its just the first and main exercise
day1- 531 OHP + Hypertrophy Push
day2- Hypertrophy Pull
day3- 531 Squats + Hypertrophy Legs
day4-531 Bench + Max Effort Push
day5- Max Effort Pull
day6-531 Deads + Max Effort Legs
Deload 3 weeks consecutively? That the first time I've heard of that, but it does make sense if you're on aggressive program.
Yeah I can't see how lifting once a week will be optimal. Not to mention getting time under the bar, to get the technique right
day1- 531 OHP + Hypertrophy Push
day2- Hypertrophy Pull
day3- 531 Squats + Hypertrophy Legs
day4-531 Bench + Max Effort Push
day5- Max Effort Pull
day6-531 Deads + Max Effort Legs
Deload 3 weeks consecutively? That the first time I've heard of that, but it does make sense if you're on aggressive program.
Yeah I can't see how lifting once a week will be optimal. Not to mention getting time under the bar, to get the technique right
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Yeah you basically live in the gym huh? I'm only in there three times a week. The off days I try to do some cardio like swimming, walking, et cetera.
As far as the deload goes, sometimes in the middle of a cycle I wish it was three weeks off. We only take one week off for deload and start back up.
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I'm haven't looked into this that much yet, but, are you sure that this guy was not referring to the a.m. and p.m splits that a lot of bodybuilders did in the 80s?
