What would be the best training strategy since my goal is to gain some weight all over my body? Full body workouts for 3 days per week or an Upper/Lower split for 4 days per week?
I am currently doing Chad’s total-body training routine.
Remco
This is really an open-ended question as you need to answer these 3 questions:
- training experience
- time available
- injury history
with those questions answered thorougly, then we could give you some tips; but it is going to be difficult since the best for me may not be the best for U.
Total body has its place. Many old timers did very well on them, but they are not the holy grail and some lifters would do better using bodypart splits.
To simply answer your question I have personally had better success with the Upper/Lower split. There can be some obstacles to it. You run the risk of fatiguing your back muscles by working them on upper and lower body days. You also can’t easily integrate Olympic lifts if you really want to do those and Deadlifts of any sort are hard to integrate. But if you design it well or use a pre-existing program you’ll find that it’s better than 3 days a week for full body.
I’ve been doing the next routine for about 2 years:
monday: chest, shoulders & triceps
tuesday: legs, back & biceps
wednesday: off
thursday: chest, shoulders & triceps
friday: legs, back & biceps
saturday & sunday: off
About 3-4 exercises for the bigger muscles and 2-3 exercises for the smaller muscles, I think this was way too much volume.
A few months ago I started reading this site and started doing full body workouts, especially chad’s stuff and noticed great strenght gains. Also I’ve done CT’s 12 weeks to war ready guns program, it worked but I know now I shouldn’t focus on certain body parts, but rather on gaining weight all over.
I’ve never been injured, got some wrist troubles now and then though, my wrists especially hurt while doing dumbbell bench presses and hammer curls.
I have time to train for about 4 times a week, that’s why I got the idea I’m wasting some time since I’m following a 3-day per week full body routine.
I also like to do some of the olympic lifts like the clean & press.
Stats
Bench: 160 x 2
Squat: 200 x 3
Deadlift: 220 x 5
Both workouts would be effective, but if overall body mass is your goal then you need to be much more concerned with your diet than worrying so much about which routine would be better.
[quote]Remco D. wrote:
What would be the best training strategy since my goal is to gain some weight all over my body? Full body workouts for 3 days per week or an Upper/Lower split for 4 days per week?
I am currently doing Chad’s total-body training routine.[/quote]
If what your doing is working then stick with it until it stops or you get tired of it. It sounds to me like the TBT your doing is working. Just make sure you bulk clean with diet and train hard, really hard. Add an extra set of everything this week (provided you have time).