How many days rest between training the same body part or lift is everyone following? I’m curious to hear what everyone else is doing? I’ve been doing the following but thinking of trying only two days rest between training the same body part.
M - Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
T - Rest
W - Legs, Back, Biceps
TH - Rest
F - - Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
S - Rest
S - - Legs, Back, Biceps
Repeat
3x a week full body currently.
Before that… 5x a week… also full body, but fewer lifts per session.
If I were to generalize anything, lifting daily has worked fine for strength gains, but not size. Every other day works for both. For me.
My guess is that lifting daily just doesn’t ramp up my appetite enough to compensate for the increased work. But maybe there is something to a full day of rest.
Full body, three times a week.
I might throw in a walk on the treadmill, or reflex bag 5-6 round workout.
I might do 5-8 exercises, 3-5 sets.
Normally, I train 3 days on 1 day off…so, usually: Push, Lower, Pull, rest, repeat.
I tend to like a bro split that ends up being about 1.25x a week per bodypart.
It depends on what I’m trying to accomplish, or the goal of the individual I’m training.
When I train athletes I like to do three whole-body workouts per week (divided either by contraction type or physical capacity) plus a “gap” workout in which we do single-joint hypertrophy work.
When I train strictly for hypertrophy or training a client for hypertrophy I normally use a push (chest and shoulders)/pull (upper back, lats, traps)/legs/arms split.
When I train, or train someone for powerbuilding (combination of powerlifting and bodybuilding) I like to use a “lift-specific” approach:
Day 1: Squat + assistance + rear delts
Day 2: Bench + assistance + upper back
Day 3: Deadlift + assistance + traps/lower back
Day 4: Military press + assistance + lats
For strength performance on specific lifts (e.g. for olympic lifting, powerliftng or a combination) I like to use a high frequency approach doing the competition lifts 4-6 x a week.
Note that for competitive powerlifters I normally use a combination of these splits. Selecting the split best suited for the training phase we are in.
For example, in the off-season we might do either a lift-specific or push/pull/legs/arms split. In the early competition prep we would use a lift-specific approach
In the late competition prep we would use a split similar as the one I use with athletes, three whole-body days and a gap workout (doing 3 days, each with the comp lifts or variations and one GAP workout).
In the peaking phase we would use a high-frequency approach with essentially no assistance work.
It depends on recoverability and training volume.
I think that working sets become less and less effective as the training session goes on. If you’ve already performed 4 working sets to failure, how much more juice you really got left for another 2 sets?
My volume is currently undulating from 3-4 sets per muscle per week up to 9-12 sets per muscle per week, followed by a deload. Every set taken to failure with intensifiers.
Same here.
Looking at the above, it looks like you are planning a routine where you have a single day of rest after every workout day. But if you “Repeat” you will be working two consecutive days: Sunday and Monday.
It is okay to just “repeat” starting on Tuesday.
What I liked was knowing what I was going to be working based on what day of the week it was, but I had to deal with the 7 day week.
Here is one method I used:
Ask yourself if you current plan is working. If the answer is yes and you enjoy it then why not just keep grinding at it until you are sick to death of it?
I actually ran a very similar split as you for a long time. I found it extremely motivating but eventually training both Legs and Back on the same day became too much.
Giving an answer for this type of thing is kind of difficult because most peoples training evolves over time and different splits start to appeal to them. As long as accumulated volume and intensity over the week is matched then ultimately it doesn’t matter much. And sometimes changing a split can be the novelty needed to spark new game and fire in your belly.
I know you mostly advertise this for athletes with 4 BIG movements a day, but I love the thought of it for pretty much any goal. As I try to plan what my split will evolve into (currently back after a lay-off), I’m keeping the Whole Body + GAP in my mind very closely. GAP as a 4th lower-stress day with isolation exercises, and maybe a bit of cardio/mobility work depending on time is very appealing. If I can’t make the GAP workouts because of a busy weekend, it’s no real bother because I’ve already got the important stuff in. If you know you’re short on time one day, you can even bring an impromptu shorter GAP session forward and pick up where you left off in the next session (EOD style), and realign when it makes sense.
There are a ton more great things about it but I don’t need to tell you of all people that. ahem
Your words are much appreciated.
As a matter of fact, I often use the same set-up (with scaled-down methods) for gen pop clients and some of the best body comp results they got was with this approach.
I guess I’m “afraid” that most people are not gonna be into that type of work which is, let’s be honest, a lot tougher than training 1-2 muscle(s) per day using mostly machines and single-joint exercises (not that this approach doesn’t work). And it doesn’t get you the same feeling of a crazy pump in a few muscles.
I think that a lot of people nowadays are less and less into hard work and they also are a lot more into the feeling that their workout gives them… in a sense it’s almost like a metaphor for where society is going, LOL!
A friend of mine, a natural pro bodybuilder, college professor and trainer has a very interesting way of programing:
Block 1 = Three whole body sessions per week, mostly big basic lifts
Block 2 = Upper/lower split, pretty much 1/2 big basics and 1/2 more targeted work
Block 3 = Bro split with like 1/3 big lifts and 2/3 targeted work
Yeah, I completely get why the premise may not appeal to a large group of people, but it’s bizarre how what motivates us can ebb and flow so much over time. Right now jumping around the gym and stimulating different things is what excites me. Ask me again in 6 months and I might be sick to death of it. Maybe unrelated, but I’ve witnessed so many average guys feel a little down about not being able to get in 4-5x/week anymore, switch to full body and have their best gains for years. Its power to keep you on the big movements can be a wake-up call for a lot of people.
I imagine most outgrow it for a few reasons when no longer genpop. It doesn’t deserve to be looked down on like it seems to be though. If it’s good enough for a natural pro, it’s probably good enough for the person reading this. And phasing it in and out sounds perfect.
“BUT WHERE DO I FIT MY 3 LAT RAISE VARIATIONS IN?” said the 150lb teenager with the big fringe.
Definitely a metaphor for where society is going. People can’t even read a book these days because there are not enough dopamine hits - what chance does whole-body training have?
Training the same body part with only two days rest didn’t work for me for my legs even with lowering sets. I couldn’t recover from squats and deadlifts. I went back to three days between hitting the same body part.
A lot of people evolve out of full body training to things like Upper Lower or PPL for that exact reason. I had to myself a while back but my training is very different now. When I was training to get certain lifts up it became intolerable. Right now I’m more of a Squat pattern Monday, Leg extensions Wednesday, Leg Press on Friday. Add leg curls into one session, RDLs into another and I feel I’m sorted for my legs.
I know it’s fairly minimal compared to some people’s leg training but I guess you could call it a Heavy-Light-Medium which I find easy to recover from and highly motivating for what I want to achieve. If I feel like I want to do more I could add a unilateral quad movement and/or a hinge-type movement…or even leg curls in a different rep range.