Thread: full body advice

Originally Posted by weightbob

this is my attempt at a full body workout i've read the sticky by cow pimp just want a bit of feedback:

day 1

squat
military press
bench press
db fly
french press

day 2 rest

day 3

DL
Bent over row
Db pull over
Pull ups
Curls

day 4 rest

day 5 back to day 1

3 sets of 5-8 reps on each?

What's your training experience? What are your goals? What's your diet like?

At a glance, I'd suggest dropping the flies, french press, and curls -- take the 3 compounds from days 1 and 2 and put them together into one workout. Do that 3 times a week.

As for pullovers, they're one of the few "isolation" exercises I actually use almost all the time. I know a lot of people claim it's a chest workout, but I don't get that. I suppose you can "focus" on certain muscles to work harder for you. I know when I do it I'm focussing primarily on my serratus anterior but also lats and breathing deep and stretching hard in my torso for rib cage expansion.

This is close to my current program, except I'm doing close-grip (with a v-bar) pullups and DB inclind press instead of bench and romanians instead of conventional deads.

As for the rep range, you have to ask yourself what your goals are. 3 x 5 is a totally different kind of training than 3 x 8. And, you wouldn't want to stay in the same rep range all the time, anyway. Do a search on the forum for "periodization". Remember, our bodies were designed to adapt to make life easier for us to ensure survival. If you keep doing the same work over time your body will adapt and progress will come to a halt.

i followed the template by cowpimp i want to give each muscle 96 hours before i hit it again ive read thats approx how long it takes for it to be fully mended, i'm 100% natural, not saying you aren't but i know steroids etc mean that you can recover quicker etc. Sorry i never remember to put my goals, my goals are hypertrophy with some strength, 5-8 rep range builds functional hypertrophy? so i was going to loiter in that range for most of the time ie start off with a weight i can do 5 with and when i can do 8 reps up the weight next work out. I was thinking of doing 5-8 rep range for 4 weeks and then 8-12 rep range for 4 weeks then rest for a week?

or should i do 8-12 rep range first?

A:
Squat
Bench
Row

B:
Deads
Overhead press
Pullups/Chins

That should work IMO. You can add a bit of accessory work but don't go nuts with it. I followed a program similar to this one in the summer and made a lot of progress. I added 2-3 sets of accessory work to each day.

Originally Posted by weightbob

i followed the template by cowpimp i want to give each muscle 96 hours before i hit it again ive read thats approx how long it takes for it to be fully mended, i'm 100% natural, not saying you aren't but i know steroids etc mean that you can recover quicker etc. Sorry i never remember to put my goals, my goals are hypertrophy with some strength, 5-8 rep range builds functional hypertrophy? so i was going to loiter in that range for most of the time ie start off with a weight i can do 5 with and when i can do 8 reps up the weight next work out. I was thinking of doing 5-8 rep range for 4 weeks and then 8-12 rep range for 4 weeks then rest for a week?

or should i do 8-12 rep range first?

The 96 hours before working again doesn't always apply. If you're a beginner I see no reason why you can't train three times a week.

Also, regardless of how long you need to rest between sessions, you can do more than one exercise per muscle/muscle group. It's not like once you do a few sets of squats you can't do some deadlifts later in that workout. In my opinion, a truly effective "full body" workout is one which not only covers upper and lower body gives each plane of motion and its respective dominant muscle(s) to be the primary target.

Just a thought.

i'm not a beginner per se i have about 6 months lifting experience, where is cowpimp when you need him....it was using his push/pull design i think its what ive been looking for

why only 2 days a week? When im doing full body workouts i usually go 3 times a week

alternating so each group gets done every 4 days? i have no idea how someone can do a full body workout the same 3 times a week and keep each workout less than 1 hour, unless its an HIT style workout with 1 workset per group. If i added both my workouts togetehr and did it 3 times a week it would be 30 work sets in one work out, plus lots of studies have shown that most people need more than 48 hours for a group to fully recover.

Originally Posted by weightbob

alternating so each group gets done every 4 days? i have no idea how someone can do a full body workout the same 3 times a week and keep each workout less than 1 hour, unless its an HIT style workout with 1 workset per group. If i added both my workouts togetehr and did it 3 times a week it would be 30 work sets in one work out, plus lots of studies have shown that most people need more than 48 hours for a group to fully recover.

I do full-body 3 times a week. So, if I train Tues/Thurs/Sat that gives 48 hours between Tues/Thurs and Thurs/Sat and 72 hours between Sat/Tues.

I may be mistaken, but I would think smaller, "assisting" muscles like biceps, delts, and triceps would heal faster than larger muscles like lats and quads.

How long a workout lasts will vary. I think guidelines are useful, but they can't be taken as the only way. If you're training @ 3 x 8 your workout is going to be much quicker than a 5 x 5 workout. Rest intervals, tempo, advanced techniques, energy levels, equipment availability, warmups..all these are factors to consider. On Tuesday I performed my wamup then moved to the other room to squat, but had to wait 15 minutes to get a cage, at which point I did my warmup progression sets. By the time I got to my first working set it had been over 30 minutes since I started physical activity.

If you're doing each of those splits twice a week for a total of 4 workouts a week that seems good. I like to hit everything in each session for a total of 6 compounds (one for each plane of motion), but your method will definitely be a faster approach. I like to have fewer days in the gym now.

its really 4 times every 8 days but i think it will work, i have got one compound for every plane of movement and then a few isolations but not many. I have weighed myself and taken a few measurements so i am gonna do it for 8 weeks (1 cycle) and then see what ive put on etc

When I did full body wo's I'd do 2 working sets per muscle, M, W, and F, with one lift, a different lift each day of the week. So like chest would be inc bench M, bench W, and dips F. I stuck with the basic heavy lifts for every muscle. I didn't mess around with shit like flies. I also read long ago when working whole body you should always start with the chest and work your way out.

Chest, back, shoulders, tris, bis, forearms.

You could switch chest and back, and you could switch tris and bis, but it needs to be in that basic order. You're not going to work your shoulders or tris and then chest, or bis and then back. That makes no sence if you think about it. Why would you want to wear out secondary smaller weaker muscles before hitting the bigger stronger muscle? The secondary muscle has already been pushed to failure this way, where if you do the secondary muscles second, they basically got a warm up while hitting the bigger muscle. Now push them to failure.

Legs do however you want, but I prefer calves, hams, quads. After quads I'm wore out and ready to go home. I don't need that feeling before I have to hit calves and hams.

I made some good gains when I did this.