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Are full body routine legit?

Qonix

Qonix

Member
I've been always used to do bro splits, ppl, upper lower and so on, working out 4 times/week.
After years I got bored and want to change a bit (also I don't have much time now) trying full body splits 3 times/week. Are those still legit for muscle gain in a natural lifter?


I'm not even used to think at 3 full body splits and don't know how to set an hypertrophy program. Do you guys have some advices or any examples? I've been googling and looking on YouTube but it's everything for beginners.
 
Qonix said:
I've been always used to do bro splits, ppl, upper lower and so on, working out 4 times/week.
After years I got bored and want to change a bit (also I don't have much time now) trying full body splits 3 times/week. Are those still legit for muscle gain in a natural lifter?


I'm not even used to think at 3 full body splits and don't know how to set an hypertrophy program. Do you guys have some advices or any examples? I've been googling and looking on YouTube but it's everything for beginners.
Click to expand...

Look into HST (Hypertrophy Specific Training)
 
Absolutely
Especially for strength
Squat/bench
OHP/ Deadlifts
I very rarely do a single body part
 
Qonix said:
I've been always used to do bro splits, ppl, upper lower and so on, working out 4 times/week.
After years I got bored and want to change a bit (also I don't have much time now) trying full body splits 3 times/week. Are those still legit for muscle gain in a natural lifter?


I'm not even used to think at 3 full body splits and don't know how to set an hypertrophy program. Do you guys have some advices or any examples? I've been googling and looking on YouTube but it's everything for beginners.
Click to expand...
Google=JTS mike Israel hypertrophy

But my opinion is set your workouts around the big 3
Squat. Bench. Deadlifts.
 
Cgkone said:
Google=JTS mike Israel hypertrophy

But my opinion is set your workouts around the big 3
Squat. Bench. Deadlifts.
Click to expand...
jts seems very valid in explaining reply ranges and so on.. Not very clear the schedule tho.

mickc1965 said:
Look into HST (Hypertrophy Specific Training)
Click to expand...
this looks interesting.. The only issue with every full body workout It's weight guessing.. You have just a few sets to make them good
 
You can spend a few weeks trying to establish your 15, 10 and 5 rep maxes (or whatever rep ranges you intend to do) then take your 9 day Strategic Deconditioning (SD) and then start the routine
 
Full body will be better for you than a bro split if you are natty......

Natural lifters need to hit a body part much more frequently than enhanced lifters to maintain growth.
 
Qonix said:
jts seems very valid in explaining reply ranges and so on.. Not very clear the schedule tho.

this looks interesting.. The only issue with every full body workout It's weight guessing.. You have just a few sets to make them good
Click to expand...
The schedule depends on fatigue managment really.
So if your attacking it as a training block.....or better yet a mesocycle(3-5 months)
Each 4-5 weeks is a micro cycle that makes up the mesocycle.
To grow and continue growing you can attack each micro cycle by doing just enough volume to grow.

For me if I'm coming off of 4 months of training for purely strength I would start my new mesocycle with a micro cycle that looked like this
Chest 2sets of 12 bench press with 250lbs.
2 sets of inclined db press 125 lbs for 10 reps
2 sets of 15 reps chest flies 60 lbs
1 set of burn out pushups followed by burn out dips( lets say 35 of each.
That's it that my chest workout twice a week for 4 weeks.
The end of the 4 weeks that workout is feeling lighter and I get done faster
Then week 5 deload = 50% less volume but keep the weight around 75%.
That's it. Dosnt sound like a crazy chest workout but its 70 reps or so which is double what I do for power phases.
So that's all I need to grow at first.
After the deload I need to tweak the workout and add a reps,sets, weight.
Just enough to grow
Instead of 2 sets of 12 with 250 I add a third set with just 205 and hit 20reps flood that chest.

My point is try to look at it as a block of little blocks.
Each little block needs to be a little more intense/heavy/long/tiring.....but just enough.
Most important(well really really important) deload and switch up.

Each body part can be attacked like that all at once.

I do upper and lower in the same day only when I train for strength.

Hypertrophy I want to get the biggest pump I can and stop so trying that with 2 body parts never works for me.
 
Cgkone said:
Google=JTS mike Israel hypertrophy

But my opinion is set your workouts around the big 3
Squat. Bench. Deadlifts.
Click to expand...

this is an example I made following what he says about rep ranges and so on but workouts seems pretty long.. (this is just day 1, which is also shorter than 2 and 3, thanks to a few supersets).

Bentover row 4x8
Pulldown 3x12
Incline bench 2x8
Sumo deadlift 4x8
SS leg extension+leg curl 3x18+15
Dumbell curl 3x8
Rope pushdown 2x15
SS upright db row+rear flies 3x10+10
Leg press calves 4x15
Crunches 4x15

Also I have used the lower end of MEV but every workout has around 35 sets
 
I'm a big fan of HST. But honestly, I think every workout strategy has it's place and time. Seems like I change things every 6 - 8 months, just to keep things interesting.
 
I totally dismissed full body splits until I finally tried them and now I'm a big fan.

I have shared these programs on a couple of related posts.
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I have never done a full body routine, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested. I might put that next in the line-up.
 
R1balla said:
I honestly do not like them. I prefer a push pull or PPL
Click to expand...
Recommendations?

I wanna try new stuff, I feel like even if you don't enjoy something that's probably because it's harder ?

Get to an advanced lifter stage where you need to constantly change routines, I barely break a sweat these days lifting weights.
 
R1balla said:
I honestly do not like them. I prefer a push pull or PPL
Click to expand...

It might not be the correct thought process but I consider most push / pull to be "full body". To me any program where you target arms, shoulders, back or chest, with legs to be "full body". In any case I also prefer push/pull and have seen great result in building muscle and strength.
 
Qonix said:
I've been always used to do bro splits, ppl, upper lower and so on, working out 4 times/week.
After years I got bored and want to change a bit (also I don't have much time now) trying full body splits 3 times/week. Are those still legit for muscle gain in a natural lifter?


I'm not even used to think at 3 full body splits and don't know how to set an hypertrophy program. Do you guys have some advices or any examples? I've been googling and looking on YouTube but it's everything for beginners.
Click to expand...

There is nothing wrong with doing Full-Body splits. And yes, you can make gains using them. Just have to set them up correctly for. As long as you have your hypertrophy sets and reps (remember, there is a range and some muscle groups respond better to different ones than others) set up for it and are eating enough, no reason why you cannot continue to make gains. A few tips in articles Invalid Link Removed.
 
Qonix said:
I've been always used to do bro splits, ppl, upper lower and so on, working out 4 times/week.
After years I got bored and want to change a bit (also I don't have much time now) trying full body splits 3 times/week. Are those still legit for muscle gain in a natural lifter?


I'm not even used to think at 3 full body splits and don't know how to set an hypertrophy program. Do you guys have some advices or any examples? I've been googling and looking on YouTube but it's everything for beginners.
Click to expand...

I'm a huge believer in utilizing full body when it comes to conditioning. I've been in the gym for a decade, tried many different things. I've been watching people this new gym I go to for the last year+ and I notice that the people who split too much don't see the same progress as people who do more full body stuff. really depends on your goals though. At this point I consider single body part days basically active rest days.

An example I might do is something like heavy squats, be it your sets of 5s or 3s, wherever you are. Then a conditioning/circuit/wod/etc that compliments it.

Squat cleans > wall balls > walking lunges > burpees > etc.

I like to set one of the movements as a heavy weight to drive a particular type of response. the rest will tier down into hypertrophy / conditioning categories for me, to keep it hard and effective. So I might do something like:

3 x heavy clean and jerk
6 x burpees
9 x dumbell thrusters at medium weight
12 x wallballs
5 rounds.

To me this hits all the criteria I'm looking for. The heavy explosive movement, the higher rep hypertrophic movement, the conditioning aspect, as well as the full body.

the next day I might prescribe rest, or a day of cardio. Followed by heavy lifting the next day. etc.

But at 35, I also am getting to where spreading my heavy lifting apart is helping with CNS/Hormonal/Energy balances as well that I didn't notice as much at 29/30.
 
I was going to start new thread but saw this one. Has anyone seem Jim Stoppani's Whole-Body Oxford Dropsets Program? It looks ridiculously intense. I doubt I could squeeze that much volume into one week, maybe take a couple weeks to work up to 5 days a week. I was thinking of starting it next week to cut for summer. Here's the summary. Any thoughts?

Length of Program: 5 days (1 whole-body workout per day for 5 days)

Muscle Groups Trained in Each Workout: 10 groups (chest, back, legs, shoulders, traps, biceps, triceps, forearms, calves, abs) Feel free to pick whatever exercises you want for each body part, like flat-bench presses and flyes for chest, lat pull-downs and rows for back, squats and leg extensions for legs. My only suggestion is that you switch up the exercises from day to day so your muscles are constantly challenged with new movement patterns.

Number of Exercises Performed Per Muscle Group Per Workout: 2 exercises (20 exercises total per workout)

Sets and Reps for Each Exercise: 3 sets of 10 reps, performed as 1 set to failure plus 2 dropsets (as opposed to 3 straight sets of 10 reps)

Protocol for Each Exercise: Start with your 10-rep max (10RM) and go to failure. Without resting, immediately drop the weight significantly and do 10 more reps (first dropset). Drop the weight again with no rest and do 10 more reps (second dropset). If on either (or both) of the dropsets you aren't able to reach 10 reps initially, rest-pause until you reach 10. Make sure you reach 30 total reps for each exercise.

Rest Time Between Exercises: Rest as long as you need to between exercises. That's up to you.
 
rodefeeh said:
Muscle Groups Trained in Each Workout: 10 groups (chest, back, legs, shoulders, traps, biceps, triceps, forearms, calves, abs) Feel free to pick whatever exercises you want for each body part, like flat-bench presses and flyes for chest, lat pull-downs and rows for back, squats and leg extensions for legs. My only suggestion is that you switch up the exercises from day to day so your muscles are constantly challenged with new movement patterns.

Number of Exercises Performed Per Muscle Group Per Workout: 2 exercises (20 exercises total per workout)

Sets and Reps for Each Exercise: 3 sets of 10 reps, performed as 1 set to failure plus 2 dropsets (as opposed to 3 straight sets of 10 reps)

Protocol for Each Exercise: Start with your 10-rep max (10RM) and go to failure. Without resting, immediately drop the weight significantly and do 10 more reps (first dropset). Drop the weight again with no rest and do 10 more reps (second dropset). If on either (or both) of the dropsets you aren't able to reach 10 reps initially, rest-pause until you reach 10. Make sure you reach 30 total reps for each exercise.

Rest Time Between Exercises: Rest as long as you need to between exercises. That's up to you.
Click to expand...

It's basically crossfit.
 
GAINZFORDAYZ said:
It might not be the correct thought process but I consider most push / pull to be "full body". To me any program where you target arms, shoulders, back or chest, with legs to be "full body". In any case I also prefer push/pull and have seen great result in building muscle and strength.
Click to expand...

Push pull is not a full body routine. I’m hitting back, biceps and hamstrings one day for example. That’s only half of my body lol
 
AdelV said:
Recommendations?

I wanna try new stuff, I feel like even if you don't enjoy something that's probably because it's harder

Get to an advanced lifter stage where you need to constantly change routines, I barely break a sweat these days lifting weights.
Click to expand...

Yeah, T nation has a ready good Push/Pull routine. I started it weeks ago and since then have tweaked it while added more volume + cardio. Here is the link.

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R1balla said:
Yeah, T nation has a ready good Push/Pull routine. I started it weeks ago and since then have tweaked it while added more volume + cardio. Here is the link.

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Click to expand...

Yes another vote for this program. I have personally tried and enjoyed. Currently on part 2 program which I provided in my previous post along with the one you noted above. I agree and would highly recommend Push/Pull.

So if we are considering Push/Pull not a full body split, then I would NOT recommend a full body program. To best summarize some muscles require more time to recover then other, and if we are using the 48hrs rule of thumb for protein synthesis a full body is not the most efficient method.

MY Reasons Against "Full Body":
1.) The time alone to hit all major muscle would not work with me personally.
2.) It's harder to hit the sweet spot for stress versus rest.
3.) You may neglect muscles that recover quicker or specific areas that need more development.

It sounds like you are a more advanced lifter so give the push/pull a try, unless you find a full body program you feel better fits you personal needs/goals and is manageable.
 
I followed that routine exactly (given in the link) for about 3 weeks before I started added on more volume. I still follow it but I do compound movements every time I’m in the gym now. And I always start with the reps exactly but my second exercise is more of a 10-8-6 type or a reverse pyramid.
 
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