Full-Body Training Made Simple

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by Jason Brown

Fast Workouts, Big Results

Full-body training sessions don't have to take hours. Here's how to use exercise pairings, giant sets, and circuits to build muscle and get lean.

Who’s pressed for time? You are. And even if you’re not, you likely don’t want to spend every day in the gym. The truth is, if you can’t train five or more days per week, you probably shouldn’t be using a body-part split. Full-body strength training is a great option since you can cover all of your bases in just three strength sessions per week.

And don’t think of this as just a beginner thing. Experienced lifters with decades of training often get better with a “less is more approach,” too.

Smart Full Body Training

Full body training may not sound hardcore, but if you do it right, you can improve your body composition, mobility, posture, have fewer aches and pains, and do it all while spending less time moving weight around.

For a complete full-body session, you’ll need three things:

  1. An upper body pushing pattern
  2. An upper body pulling pattern
  3. A lower-body exercise

To take this a step further, break down your sessions by:

  • A Squat Variation: Goblet Squat, Front Squat, Box Squat, Back Squat, Zercher Squat
  • A Single-Leg Exercise: Split Squat, Reverse Lunge, Forward Lunge, Lateral Lunge, Rear-Foot Elevated Split Squat
  • An Upper Body Press: Push-Up, Dip, Overhead Press, Floor Press, Close-Grip Bench Press
  • An Upper Body Pull: Pull-Up or Chin-Up, Pulldown, Inverted Row, Chest-Supported Row, Face Pull
  • A Hinge Exercise: Romanian Deadlift, Glute-Ham Raise, Glute Hip Thrust, Back Raise, Kettlebell Swing
  • A Loaded Carry: Farmer Carry, Front Rack Carry, Single-Arm Carry, Overhead Carry, Trap Bar Carry

Choose one variation from each category and perform in pairings, giant sets, or circuits. Here’s an example for each:

Pairings

Exercise Sets Reps Rest
A1. Squat 4 6 1 min.
A2. Row 4 12 1 min.
B1. Press 3 10-12 1 min.
B2. Hinge 3 10-12 1 min.
C1. Carry 3 100 ft. 45 sec.
C2. Direct Arm Exercise 3 12-15 45 sec.

Giant Sets

Exercise Sets Reps Rest
A1. Single-Leg Exercise 3 8-10/side 1 min.
A2. Pull-Up 3 sub-max reps * 1 min.
A3. Dip 3 sub-max reps * 1 min.
B1. Hinge 4 6-8 45 sec.
B2. Carry 4 100 ft. 45 sec.
B3. Triceps Exercise 4 10-12 45 sec.

* One shy of failure.

Circuits

Exercise Sets Reps Rest
A1. Deadlift 5 5 45 sec.
A2. Bench Press 5 5 45 sec.
A3. Face Pull 5 12-15 45 sec.
A4. Lateral Lunge 5 8-10/side 45 sec.
B. Loaded Carry 4 150 ft. 90 sec.

Here’s an example of a favorite circuit I do when pressed for time:

Exercise Sets Reps Rest
A1. Dip 4 sub-max reps * 1 min.
A2. Neutral-Grip Pull-Up 4 sub-max reps * 1 min.
A3. Single-Leg Skater Squat 4 6-8/side 1 min.

* One shy of failure.

How Many Times Per Week?

Do this for three weekly workouts, with 48 hours between sessions. A Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule works. Or you could do Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. Use the info above to design three full-body sessions using different exercise variations in each workout. Choose the lifts that match your skill level, equipment, and time constraints.

MD-Buy-on-Amazon

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Pretty easy and straightforward all could revert to at times beginning or intermediate lifter.

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For what it’s worth, I’ve always used a full-body approach with the athletes that I’ve trained. I see several benefits with it:

  • I believe that hitting muscles/movements three times a week is optimal for rapid improvements in what you train. I think that, in most cases, more frequency isn’t better (if the period between two stimuli for the same muscle(s) is too short, protein synthesis doesn’t increase it as much).

  • If you have a bad day, a poor workout, or have to skip a session, you’ll still get two good stimuli for each muscle in the week so you can still progress. If you are training a muscle once a week and either feel like crap or skip the workout on one day, that muscle will not improve at all during that week.

  • I’ve seen some research showing that whole-body workouts inhibit myostatin more than either an upper or lower-body workout. The less myostatin is active, the more muscle you can build.

  • You can train several different capacities (e.g. strength, speed-strength, strength-speed, resistance, hypertrophy, etc.) in a week with each capacity having its own training day.

  • You can train several types of contractions (e.g. eccentric emphasis, isometric emphasis, concentric emphasis, plyometric emphasis, etc.) with each type of contraction having its own day.

  • You can have three different workout styles while still hitting everything. For example Monday could be a strength workout, Wednesday can be a hypertrophy workout and Friday can be a conditioning day.

  • You create a more even fatigue level in all of your muscles at the same time, which will not negatively affect your sporting movement patterns as much if you play or practice the next day.

The main downside of a whole-body approach is that it might not be optimal to hypertrophy all the muscles maximally and you don’t get the same feeling of local pump than with a bro split.

But you can fix that by adding a 4th session, that I call a GAP workout, in which you perform more targeted hypertrophy work for muscles that you feel were neglected or that you want to develop more.

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I really think the GAP workout was the most genious thing I ever read. It gives me “permission” to train any capacity I want in a really structured way, and still do a bunch of curls which are the most important part of my plan anyway.

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Agreed. I came up with the idea while training pro hockey players who were complaining about not having enough chest and biceps in their program :slight_smile:

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The other thing I like about the GAP workout concept is that it also gives you a 4th day you can easily skip on any given week where you might not have time to get all 4 sessions in.

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Very good point! Or if you had to miss one of the 3 main workouts, you can replace the GAP workout by the workout you missed.

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Hey, now. I need to train my biceps for dramatic windmill saves.

:wink:

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Yeah, that catch glove is mighty heavy.

On a related topic, can you imagine how heavy those old leather pads could get at the end of a game?!

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Yikes. Those deer hair stuffed beasts probably weighed as much as a mid-sized buck at that point.

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For sure!

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The above rationales I can fully relate to in view of work schedules and travels; full body is the only thing that really works for me.
Absorbing everything said in this thread, I have one important question left (at least important to me that is…): should I discriminate between horizontal and vertical push and pull exercises and should not all 4 patterns be addressed in every workout?
I tried many ways to cover that, but it wears me out eventually, especially when compound barbell exercises are mostly used (training in a CrossFit box, 50+).
Some advice would be really appreciated.

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If you want to stay on a strictly “full body” routine, just keep rotating them each day. There’s nothing magical about the 7 day week, just consider it as an 8-day thing where you are hitting each pattern twice in that time frame. There have been times I’ve switched from what you describe to this and saw easier and more consistent gains. Doing it your original way is essentially Upper 3x/week plus all that leg work, so I can see why you’d come across a bit of burnout.

And if you ever have time for the GAP workout, incorporate low-stress movements to add volume if you think you can handle it. Think machine and cable exercises, or things like lateral raises or chest flies.

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I divided things like this. In one workout, I do one exercise each for a horizontal push, row, triceps, quadriceps, and calf. In the other vertical pull, vertical push, biceps, hamstrings and abs. All in 2 work sets of 8-12 reps, but that’s not written in stone. You can do 3 sets for the big muscle groups, you can train in 3x5, 3x6-8, as you like, and you can also switch them and put horizontal push with vertical pull in one workout and vertical push with horizontal pull in the other. I think this option is even better, because the bench press and rows are two heavy exercises where you use more weight, compared to, for example, the bench press and Lat Pulldown, where you usually use a lighter weight. In the other workout, the push for your shoulders is lighter compared to the bench press, but the rows are heavier. However, it also depends on what devices you use.

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Am I the only one considering the volume with this approach may be too high? If I were to do this program all these sets would have to be half assed or I would burn out. Also, this setup is still time consuming. It is high volume, full body training consisting of compound excercises in a regular frequence - Meaning the intensity needs to be low - Or the fatigue will be massive.

Am I overly critical? Am I missing something here? Am I having a bad day?

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I do not believe that each pattern needs to be trained at each of the workouts, provided that you hit them at least once during the week.

If you do a pull (for example) all the exercise will hit all the pulling muscles to some extent. Granted, vertical will hit the lats more and horizontal the upper back more, but the whole back still receives some stimulation.

Of course, you don’t get to “practice” each movement as often. But if you develop the muscles involved via a somewhat similar action, you’ll still get a transfer to related exercises.

As it was mentioned in another reply, if you insist on training each pattern in each workout it will quickly become too voluminous to do with any kind of effort/intensity.

You’d have to use 3 pulling exercises (horizontal, vertical pulling down, vertical pulling up);

3 pressing exercises (horizontal/bench, vertical pushing up/overhead, vertical pushing down/dips);

3-4 leg exercises (bilateral squat, hinge, unilateral squat, hip extension)

1 loaded carry

So we’re up to 10-11 multi-joint exercises per session. This is not doable, especially if you use even moderate volume (e.g. 3 work sets per exercise) and a respectable level of effort (1-2 reps in reserve) and load (75%+ of max).

When I work with athletes, we use normally use 4 exercises per workout (up to 5 with some more conditioned individuals or as low as 2-3 with those with poor work capacity). I do try to rotate some exercises so that we cover more movement pattern variations, but honestly, this is not super high on my list of priorities. Contrary to what some “experts” claim (and built their brand around that concept), you will not suddenly become non-functional if you don’t train a specific pattern, provided that you are doing work in that family of pattern.

When I write full-body programs each session has:

  1. Squat variation (bilateral of unilateral)
  2. Press variation
  3. Pull variation
  4. Hinge variation (either a hinge or a pure hip extension like hip thrusts)

A loaded carry is often added once or twice a week.

Things don’t need to be overly complicated to work.

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Great insight as always!

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Most would say this is relatively low volume. Typically I program 10-14 sets per muscle group per week using this split, but it does depend heavily on the exercise selection too (if you program all big patterns in one day it could be overkill). I’ve seen some do better (like myself) with lower though.

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What if I am unable to do certain exercises because I don’t have that piece of equipment or I am limited to space on the carry, would a bench dip be ok.

Thank you