I am considering starting to use full-body workouts. Does anyone have any positive/negative experiences with these? Even more important: does anyone have a really good and tough program they are willing to share with the rest of us?
Thanks, Thomas - Denmark.
Not sure how many x per week you are planning to train but Ian King just posted (2 issues ago) a great 2 day routine. Check it out. It’s not easy either.
HST is a great way to schedule your total body workouts. Also, Renegade Training is another good option. Although, not the traditional “total body workout”, it is much more of a total body workout than a typical bodybuilder split.
Check out Coach Davies program ‘Fat to Fire’ or Don Alessi’s ‘Meltdown Training’.
I like full body workouts, especially for strength/power training, because it is easier to incorporate multi-muscle group lifts like deadlifts (leg day or back day?), overhead squats, power cleans, ect. What I like to do is do 2 or three full body workouts per week, but use different exercises (performed circuit style). For example, day 1 I would do Bench, Squats, Rows, and Power Cleans; day 2 I’d do Dips, Deadlifts, Chins, and Clean and Jerks. Try it.
A couple weeks ago I did 50 pull ups (palms facing one another) and 100 dips. Great workout! I went until fatigued, rested a couple minutes and got back on, repeated this until fininshed. I did pull ups first. I plan on going up increments of 10 until I can do 100 pull ups.
Well, I’ve been using two full-body routines a week for some time, and it’s the best way (for me) to get the most amount of work in the least amount of time. Here it is – Workout A: Squats, chins, dips, abs. Workout B: Deads, bench press, bent-over rows (or seated cable rows), abs. At times I’ll put the chins before the squats, and do abs first. Sometimes I’ll add front squats to the B workout. And in addition, I’ll add a third day of peripheral stuff, which can be any mix or curls, OH press, upright row, OH squats, standing flyes, or any light Oly movements.
my version HST. warm up with 2 sets power snatch, 2 sets power clean. (5 reps) Bench, Row, 2 sets. Then either squats, leg curl, leg ext, or Dead, ext, curl, 3 sets, in circuit. chin, military, 2 sets. 1 curling set, 1 triceps set. hanging knee raise 2 sets, crunch, 2 sets. calves 1 set standing, one set seated. With the amount of time I spent on low rep training, (4-6) this 15 rep stuff is cooking me.
I just started using Convergent Phase Training about 3 wks ago and have loved it so far. It’s not a complete full body workout in one day, but really close. It combines strength and hypertrophy training together. Give it a shot!!
I did Bill Stars 3x a week full body workout from his book “Only the Strong Survive” and got really strong.
Great idea Thomas!
Find some corelifts that you master and compose some functional circuits around them, 2-3 workouts per week, avoid failure and have fun. Read articles by Staley, Davies, Alessi an Chek for inspiration.