Full body

[classic27]

I have been working out on and off for years and I usually use split routines working out any where from 4 to six days a weeks. These routines have always given me decent results but I was thinking about trying a 3 day a week full body workout. My goal is gaining as much mass as I can in a fairly short time. I was wondering what experiences other people have had with these types of routines. I was also wondering what a good set range would be. I have been researching and some people say one set, some two, and some people say three.

[tnubs]

bill starrs 5x5 is always a good start to full body, it works better than any other full body routine ive tried

[carpee]

Hypertrophy Specific Training

[suncloud]

its great if you're a beginning lifter or an ectomorph, or someone that doesn't want to gain mass, but increase functional strength. if you don't fit one of those categories, it may not be your thing...

[classic27]

Well I am not beginner but recently took a decent amount of time off. I for sure want to gain mass. I am some what of a ecto though. I have extremely small joints and as you can see from my stats I am not huge by any means. I am not fully ecto though. I am not super lean like most true ectos and with a decent diet I can put on weight just a little bit faster than some of my true ecto friends. If not a full body workout, what would be another good mass gaining workout for someone with my body type?

[suncloud]

westside for skinny bastards comes to mind. realistically at your height/weight a total body won't put much size on you. for example, you'll gain a couple pounds in some areas and loose a couple pounds in the muscles that will not be targeted as much (traps, calves, rear tri's etc).

you can also do a push/pull routine. mine is
M - push : chest/tri's/front and mid delts
T - pull : bi's/back/rear delts
W - mixed : legs/forearms
Th - monday's but isolation movements
F - tuesdays but isolation movements

etc. a more developed bodybuilder like yourself will loose muscle in some areas if you switched over to total body. but you may not be at that point yet? dunno for sure without actually knowing you.

as far as all out mass though, look into DC training.

[classic27]

westside for skinny bastards comes to mind. realistically at your height/weight a total body won't put much size on you. for example, you'll gain a couple pounds in some areas and loose a couple pounds in the muscles that will not be targeted as much (traps, calves, rear tri's etc).

you can also do a push/pull routine. mine is
M - push : chest/tri's/front and mid delts
T - pull : bi's/back/rear delts
W - mixed : legs/forearms
Th - monday's but isolation movements
F - tuesdays but isolation movements

etc. a more developed bodybuilder like yourself will loose muscle in some areas if you switched over to total body. but you may not be at that point yet? dunno for sure without actually knowing you.

as far as all out mass though, look into DC training.

How many sets and exercises do you recommend for this push/pull routine? Could you please go into a little more detail? I need to bring up my shoulders, triceps, and the width of my lats a lot.

[suncloud]

How many sets and exercises do you recommend for this push/pull routine? Could you please go into a little more detail? I need to bring up my shoulders, triceps, and the width of my lats a lot.

well, standard bulking is pick an exercise and do 3 sets of 8-10. more recently i've gotten into a bastardized version of DC training where i do a rest/pause set DC style (30 second break before doing the same exercise, repeated once more), using 2-3 exercises that use a different head of the muscle group.

for example, i'll do bench, incline and butterflys for chest, then military press and wide grip upright rows for delts, and an overhand/underhand/parallel grip for tri's. i still warm up to my heavy set, but its only one set, and its balls to the wall. if you've tried rest pause you understand how challenging it is. basically, my heavy set will be 8-10 reps, then i take a 30 second break and try again - this time i'll probably get 5 reps. break for another 30 and go again. this time 2-3 reps. i do this again for 2-3 heads of the muscle groups i'm working - i will not hit the same muscle head again for that workout. the next time i try the same workout, i have to increase my reps by at least one, or increase weight. if i fail doing that for two consecutive workouts, i'll sub that exercise out - maybe for dumbells, etc. this is followed by the DC style extreme stretching.

did i explain that properly or have i massively failed?

[jcp2]

For guys that like a little volume and don't want to do bodybuilder splits i have always liked Dual Factor Training by Matt Reynolds. I did the first version of it years ago and liked it. It is probably the workout i would use if i ever decided to never compete again.