Choosing The Right Training Program

So you’re heading to the gym and ready to rock it! But what are you going to do?

A full body workout like this:

Bench Press 3x8
Incline Dumbbell Press 3x10
Seated Barbell Press Behind The Neck 3x12
Wide Grip Pulldowns 3x10
Seated Rows 3x8
Shrugs 3x10
Squats 3x10
Leg Extensions 3x15
Leg Curls 3x12
Smith Machine Calf Raises 3x20
Seated Calf Raises 3x20


Or a workout from a body part split routine like this:

Day 1: Chest, Biceps, Triceps
Day 2: Quads, Hams, Calves,
Day 3: Back, Shoulders, Abs
Rest
Repeat


With either, you’re heading down the road to nowhere! A regular full body routine that you do every second day has the advantage of giving you more frequent stimulation to grow and get stronger, but with so many exercises and relatively low intensity you’ll quickly adapt to this workout.


There isn’t really a way to increase the stimulus without increasing the total volume through more sets, reps, or weight… and the volume is already too high to sustain a decent intensity.


Many people figure this much out on their own and progress to a body part split routine. However, the higher frequency of training stimulus afforded by full body training programs generally delivers superior results to split routines except for the most advanced (and usually steroid using) bodybuilders.


With steroids muscles grow even if they’re not being trained, and consequently hitting a body part just once or twice a week is enough stimulation to elicit a growth response.


Body part split routines recruit the lower threshold motor units which have less potential for strength and mass accumulation, although they’ll pump up pretty nice and you’ll look like you’re growing in the mirror. Unfortunately once the pump disappears you’ll be no further ahead.


If your training age is less than a year, on a body part split routine you’ll grow initially, but that growth will quickly taper off except for the genetically gifted who may continue to see gains with this type of routine. But chances are, those folks will grow and get stronger with any routine.


If you insist on using body part split routines, you’ll likely burn out or get injured frequently, precluding any significant accumulation of muscle mass. And if you don’t, then you probably
aren’t training hard enough to grow on any routine.


Enter The Full Body Split Routine

A full body workout involves all muscle groups of the body. But each muscle group can be trained with different movements, and consequently a full body split routine is a program that has multiple training days, and each training day trains the full body but with a different emphasis each time.

Obviously if your goal is to get a huge bench press, and you try to lift heavy on the bench every two days, you’re going to be in for trouble. But substituting overhead presses, pushups, dips, and various other angled pressing movements you can get a serious strength training program each and every time you hit the gym without baking any of your joints.


To set up this type of workout, we pick full body, compound movements. The general template is laid out as follows:


Full Body Split Routine Template

Main Quad or Hip Dominant Lower
(ex: Squat/Deadlift/Cleans)

Main Horizontal or Vertical Push 1
(ex: Bench Press, Military Press, Barbell Press Behind The Neck)

Supplemental Quad or Hip Dominant Lower 2 (optional)
(ex: Step-ups/Split Squats/Good Morings/Romanian Deadlifts)

Main Horizontal or Vertical Pull 1
(ex: Barbell Rows, Pull-Ups)

Horizontal or Vertical Push 2(optional)
(ex: Dips, Dumbbell Military Press, Incline Dumbbell Flyes, Suspended Push-Ups)

Horizontal or Vertical Pull 2 (optional)
(ex: Rope Face Pulls, Dumbbell Pullovers, Straight-Arm Pulldowns)

Hip Abduction or External Rotation (optional)
(ex: Sideways X-Band Walking, Seated Band-Resisted Abduction, Side-Lying Clams)

Core work (static, dynamic, bilateral, unilateral, isolateral)
(ex: Front Plank, Side Plank, Roll-outs, Leg Raises, Floorclimbers, T-Twists)

Shoulder Prehab (external rotations, internal rotations, etc…)
(ex: Side Lying External Rotations, Kneeling Band-Resisted Internal Rotations, Swiss ball IYTWA)


Below I’ve given you a sample program with three workouts, and I’ve listed which exercise each one is from the template above. With a few small exceptions, each workout fits into the template pretty well. The Kettlebell clean and push press and the Suspended Atomic Pushup are both hybrids involving upper and lower or upper and core and the same time.



Day 1 (Monday)

Squats 5x5 (Quad Dominant Lower)
Incline Dumbbell Press 4x6 (Horizontal Push 1)
Glute & Ham Raises 4x8 (Hip Dominant Lower)
Bent-Over Barbell Rows 4x10 (Horizontal Pull 1)
Weighted Side Plank 3xmaxtime (Core static)
Side Lying External Rotations 3x15 (Shoulder external rotations)


Day 2 (Wednesday)

Deadlifts 5x3 (Hip Dominant Lower)
Weighted Pushups 5x10 (Horizontal Push 1)
Split Squats 3x12 (Quad Dominant Lower)
Wide Pull-Ups 5xmax (Vertical Pull 1)
Mountainclimbers 3x20 (Core dynamic, isolateral)


Day 3 (Friday)

Kettlebell Clean & Push Press 4x6 (Hybrid – Hip Dominant Lower & Vertical Push 1)
Front Squats 4x6 (Quad Dominant Lower)
Suspended Inverted Rows 4x12 (Horizontal Pull 1)
Sideways X-Band Walk 3x12 (Hip abduction)
Suspended Atomic Push-up 3x20 (Hybrid – Horizontal Push & Core dynamic, bilateral)


As you see just because it’s in the template, we don’t necessarily do it every time. But over the course of time as you modify your program you drop one and add another. If you try to do everything from the template every single workout, it starts to look like the typical full body training program, similar in many ways to the pretty useless workout I listed at the beginning of this article.



What !? No Arms???

You may notice there’s no direct arm work listed, but if you are training both pushing and pulling exercises three times a week with the higher intensities this type of training allows, you should notice that your arms get all the training they need.

However, if you are gun-hungry, and you insist on training those arms separately, the best way to do it is to incorporate it into the template by substituting a bicep movement in place of your Horizontal or Vertical Pull 2, and substitute a triceps movement in place of your Horizontal or Vertical Push 2. Choose exercises like Dips, Close-Grip Bench Press, Bodyweight Triceps Extensions, or Skull Crushers for best results.

If you need your workouts to be as short as possible, still targeting your whole body, and insist on throwing in arm training, then choose only one horizontal or vertical pushing movement, and then do a biceps exercise in place of a horizontal or vertical pulling movement.

On the subsequent workout you switch it around and do only one horizontal or vertical pulling movement and then substitute a triceps exercise for your horizontal or vertical pushing movement.

This allows you to train push + biceps on one workout, then pull + triceps on the next. While not optimal for over all growth response, it will deliver slightly more biceps/triceps value at the expense of over all size and strength growth.

If you want to include a bit of direct shoulder work such as Incline EZ-Bar Raises or Dumbbell Bent-Over Rear Lateral Raises, substitute them for either the Horiztontal or Vertical Push 2 and the Horizontal or Vertical Pull 2.

And again, if you’re really strapped for time but feel it important to get in some direct deltoid work, make your template modifications like this:

Day 1: Horizontal or Vertical Pull + Incline EZ-Bar Raises
Day 2: Horizontal or Vertical Push + Dumbbell Bent-Over Lateral Raises

Of course you could always keep it all pushing one workout and all pulling the next such as:

Day 1: Horizontal or Vertical Pull + Dumbbell Bent-Over Rear Lateral Raises
Day 2: Horizontal or Vertical Push + Incline EZ-Bar Raises


There is really no limit to how you combine the exercises so long as you generally move from high CNS (compound movements) to lower CNS (isolation movements) throughout, and keep core and rehab work until the end.


As always, your feedback, questions, and comments are most welcome and encouraged, whether in agreement or critical.

You know I love it!.

:)
Shane