Hey, does anyone think that training only one bodypart per day and taking the weekends off (Monday/legs Tuesday/chest Wed./back thurs/bi and tri Fri/shoulders) is a bad idea? I haven’t tried this type of routine yet b/c i figured that a full week of rest for a bodypart would be a little too long. Any comments???
I’ve tried this in my past, more ignorant, days. This is kind of a marriage of HIT ideas (giving adequate rest for total recuperation), and volume for a bodypart. My results? I plateaued very quickly and found myself tired all the time. What this method fails to take into account is the systemic taxing on the body of always being in heavy recovery mode – even if it’s only for one body part.
you will prolly have a tendency to overtrain overlaping muscles when you workout this way. separating out the muscle groups doesn’t work that well. i have had much success with these upperbody push/pull groups: 1)top delts, traps, abs, seratus 2)lats, back, rear delts, obliques 3)pecs, front delts, tris 4)bis, brachials, extensors, flexors.
I have to disagree with the first two posts. Everyone has a different system, but I personally do one bodypart per day myself. I was very skeptical about it until I did it, and I found it to be the very best system, at least for me. My logic in saying this is the following: Doing one bodypart per day is a surefire way to make sure you completely exhaust the muscle worked. In the past, on days that I used to mix up bodyparts (chest+biceps, etc), the muscle groups following the first would suffer from lack of intensity because they weren’t first. With the 1 bodypart a day routine, you don’t have this problem. Doing, say, an all chest day allows you to go in numerous different angles, different exercises, and numerous sets, all with one purpose: to kill the chest (in this case). Then, you are left with a full 7 days to recover and come back strong. I am also a fan of high volume workouts (I do at least 15 or more sets per body part in every workout). May not work for some, but I’ve had other people do it with great results, not to mention my own.
Hardcore: What’s your weekly split like? Mufasa
Mufasa, my training split is the following:
Monday: Chest; Tuesday: Legs; Wednesday: Off (one day off will allow your nervous system to recover, which is a must), Thursday: Arms (Bi, Tri); Friday: Deltoids.
This split represents my old split. My new split will probably be different since after 8 months of prioritizing chest and arms, I am satisfied and will probably switch the grouping to prioritize lats and deltoids. I do not use any gear, btw.
Mufasa, I was just reading my first post to you and I realize that I didn’t explain something. In my old split, I almost deliberately didn’t have an upper back day. For the sake of priority and practicality, I just did pull ups at home at my leisure instead of a formal back workout. This is not always recommended, but I was extremely concerned with my chest and arm development at the time and so I relegated upper back work to various sets of pull ups throughout the week for a total of some 20 or so sets a week. Needless to say, I didn’t get awesome results for my back at all, but I was satisfied as I was able to at least keep the status quo for my back strength and size. I think that the one bodypart a day routine works well when done for 4 workouts a week. You could do five, but when you’ve been slamming the various bodyparts during the week, you really value your weekends off to come in strong on that priority Monday, when you maul the most lagging muscle.
As I said before, I was very happy with the results I obtained for my chest, adding some good thickness to that group of muscles after 8 months of faithfully doing my chest every monday to the point that I’m now ready to move chest to another day instead. I think another safe muscle group to leave out temporarily would be arms in favor of developing lagging torso muscles. For example, I intend to stop doing bi/tri workouts (or at least a full workout of arms) and replace that workout with an upper back workout, since at this point I want to bring my lats up to speed with my chest. The prospect of losing arms size doesn’t worry me because if I am still benching and doing heavy shoulder presses, and doing heavy back work with lots of pull ups in there, then I don’t see how my bis and tris could get any smaller. However, to keep the maximal strength levels that I’ve amassed in the bis and tris, and just to massage my need to work the good old gunz in a more isolated fashion, I’ll probably end up doing a few sets of heavy curls and heavy dips at the crib (I have a dip/pullup set up along with a small 30 lb bar and 120 lbs worth of plates here, which is golden for various occasions). Hope this helps or answers your question!
Just one more thing: I always go heavy in my lifts. Contrary to a lot of popular bodybuilding literature, I hate working out in the 8 to 12 range. I prefer doing heavy 6’s, 5’s, 4’s, triples, doubles, and singles. The lack of lactic acid build up allows me, for example, to do the desired 15+ sets I told you about without too much issue. I don’t think I’d be able to do my usual 26 set chest routine using those high reps.
OUTSTANDING! Thanks, Hardcore!