Leg day vs Arm day vs Torso Day

Jiigzz

Jiigzz

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So I was thinking, why is it that bodybuilding splits seperate Chest and Back and Arm groups (or dedicate an entire day to Arms) but yet group "Legs" together?

The arms have two major muscles and the chest one (with different heads and attachment points, yet between the Quads, Hamstrings, Hip Flexors, hip extensors, Adbuctors, Adductors, External rotators and Calves there are more than I can be bothered counting?

Im intrigued. No defensive comments, I just want a thought process. I cant even fathom a week where I dont train legs at least twice.
 
kboxer7

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Most only work quads, hams and calves with the other "accessory" leg/hip muscles being an afterthought...kinda like forearms for a lot of people.

That's what I do at least. Quads, hams, calves on leg day. I hit the "other" less thought of muscles on random days of the week at the end of my workouts, and they definitely get less attention. It would take too much time to hit them all in one leg day, and 2 legs days a week isn't on my list of priorities right now....though maybe it should be lol

Right now my split is a 4 day split:

Legs
Bicep / Delts
Tricep / Chest
Back

Rinse and repeat.

I'm thinking of switching out chest with delts due to my delts being a bit burned out on chest day, affecting my bench performance the next day...so it would look like:

Legs
Bicep / Chest
Tricep / Delts
Back
 
Aleksandar37

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It's probably a lot from people having different goals and when it comes to looking better in the mirror, some prefer to stare at arms and chest. Personally, I haven't had a day just for arms in several years now. I'll train biceps and triceps with back or chest, but don't devote entire sessions to them.
 

kisaj

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^^^ yeah. I think it is simply to workout what they like to look at the most.
 
Jiigzz

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I've always been curious as many of the groups we dedicate the most time to are actually singular muscles with few attachments points yet the ones we work the least have the most muscle groups and require more actions to fully work.

We see this often if we get people doing unilateral hip work where knee tracking and stability is very poor despite decent musculature in the legs. I suppose everyone trains for different reasons but I can help but wonder if 10 exercises for the arms is required when you have 2 or 3 total for the entire lower body
 
UCSMiami

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The time honored

CST- chest. shoulders, triceps

BB- Back & Biceps

legs- self explanatory
 

kisaj

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I've always been curious as many of the groups we dedicate the most time to are actually singular muscles with few attachments points yet the ones we work the least have the most muscle groups and require more actions to fully work.

We see this often if we get people doing unilateral hip work where knee tracking and stability is very poor despite decent musculature in the legs. I suppose everyone trains for different reasons but I can help but wonder if 10 exercises for the arms is required when you have 2 or 3 total for the entire lower body
I think a lot of it has to do with what you say about training for different reasons. I believe that legs are well suited for big compound movements and other than development of specifics like the vastus medialus, which can benefit from isolation work, they can get all they need with 2-3 movements. I train for athletic purposes and strength and explosiveness are my goals, so I am coming from that camp.

Arms? meh.. I will work in a set or two of curls before a heavy chest day because the blood pump helps my stability. Other than that, they get worked within all my other work. Nothing is more annoying in the gym to me than arm guy.
 
asooneyeonig

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let's use an IFBB pro as an example. this person has spent many years, at least if not closer to 20 years building their body. we know work capacity increases over time as well as what the body needs to stimulate growth. pro's while taking steroids can recover faster therefore they can spend a LOT more time and need to spend a lot more time to force a muscle to grow. this can take hours for some muscles not leaving any time or energy to work other muscles the same day.

the issue i see with this is not the pro or his routine, but the other 99.999% of the world that sees their workouts and thinks that is what they need to do today. they ignore the fact the pro took years to get the point he is at today, years to build his work capacity, increase recovery ability, years to increase his mass to the point that it is a massive struggle to get anything to grow. the pro has spent his dues in the trenches being unrecognized and unknown, trying out all kinds of routines and building a platform, a foundation to have a body of a pro.
 

kisaj

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99.999% of the world could give two ****s about an IFBB pro, so that has nothing to do with it.
 
genthoseffect

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So I was thinking, why is it that bodybuilding splits seperate Chest and Back and Arm groups (or dedicate an entire day to Arms) but yet group "Legs" together?

The arms have two major muscles and the chest one (with different heads and attachment points, yet between the Quads, Hamstrings, Hip Flexors, hip extensors, Adbuctors, Adductors, External rotators and Calves there are more than I can be bothered counting?

Im intrigued. No defensive comments, I just want a thought process. I cant even fathom a week where I dont train legs at least twice.
I think the big reason is that the lower body muscles are pretty tough to isolate very effectively. For example, you can do a lot of work including compound movements for your back without fatiguing your chest, tri's, and anterior delts. If you tried to make a quad routine that didn't significantly engage the ham strings, you wouldn't be left with many options at all, and none that are powerful, compound movements...leg extensions and arguably sissy squats are that immediately come to mind...and those 2 are damn near useless imo
 
fro60ol

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I think the big reason is that the lower body muscles are pretty tough to isolate very effectively. For example, you can do a lot of work including compound movements for your back without fatiguing your chest, tri's, and anterior delts. If you tried to make a quad routine that didn't significantly engage the ham strings, you wouldn't be left with many options at all, and none that are powerful, compound movements...leg extensions and arguably sissy squats are that immediately come to mind...and those 2 are damn near useless imo
Exactly how I would have wrote it. Completely agree
 

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