I’ve always done a split routine but had not been making gains and had not been as motivated as usual so decided to try something new. I didn’t like what I found for full body routines, mostly 1 or 2 sets of a dozen exercises. I came up with the following, let me know what you think. I’ve been getting extra reps and or lbs on a few exercieses and am up 5 pounds in the month I’ve been doing this.
Your ability to gain bodyweight is dictated by your diet, not what training program you are doing. Just because you switched to a new program and are now gaining weight again doesn’t mean jack shit about the program except that maybe it is less taxing if you haven’t changed your diet at all.
Also, if you were training on a split and everything stopped making progress all together, that is a strong hint that you are either under-eating, under-recovering, or training improperly.
Your entire body doesn’t just decide to up and plateau all at once in the presence of a good diet and training program.
It wasn’t all at once. It was a long period of stagnation. Also complicated by a couple of injuries. I did increase my calories by 400 + 40g protein. I also hadn’t changed things up in a long time. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with a setup like this or opinion. I am not saying splits are bad.
Seems like I may not have been clear enough that I’ve always done splits (for years), made much progress over the years. I just tried this a few weeks ago and have had good results so far. So don’t think I’m a full body guy, I have never been. Just trying something new for a little while so don’t be a dick.
If you aren’t gaining weight and +400 calories didn’t work, go for +1000 calories.
Also, those full body workouts are alright, but kinda crappy. Maybe for a beginner, but anyone else is going to develop some serious imbalances. You have a ton of pushing and pressing and very little pulling. Also, if you are gonna do full body 3x pe week, there is no reason to avoid at leas some isolation type movements.
EX: workout
Bench, Pullup, Squat, triceps
Deadlift, overhead press, lunges, face pulls
You get the idea. But as far as this thread goes. You cant make any real conclusions based on your experiences, because you were not eating nearly enough and probably were doing crap programs.
I’m not bashing fullbody training or being dick - although it is a poor way to train for bodybuilding - I was simply making sure you understood that your training program isn’t a function of the bodyweight you gain.
But now I’m confused by the fact that you upped your calories and protein when you switched it up, yet felt the need to state that you are “up 5lbs” once starting fullbody training without mentioning your diet at all in your original post.
Hadn’t it occurred to you that if you’d kept with your original program, and increased your calories and protein to the point that you were gaining again, that this just might have solved your “stagnation” problem?
It would be like me going to a car racing website and saying that my car hasn’t been going anywhere, and I solved my driving problem by switching out my Corvette for a Geo Prism, and now it’s driving again. Then later, when someone brings it up, I mention that oh yeah I actually put gas into the Geo.
Good point about mentioning the 5 lbs, that only clouded my purpose in posting and made me appear to be making some type of statement which I was not.
I’m hoping to hear from some others that may have tried something like this. I basically took the exrcises I was doing in a split and mixed them together in a different order trying to work each body part more frequently without increasing the overall volume.
Why are people trying to reinvent the wheel here? Find a proven BB split and run the motherfucker until the wheels fall off. Dorian Yates inspired 3 way routines, CT’s stuff is gold.
Yeah you can gain on and given program, if nutrition and training is in place. Of course some will be better then others. Yet wouldn’t you want to go down a road many have already had success on? I used to be like you. Yet realized, I didn’t know jack shit and I listened eagerly to those who have been there and done that.
I went from 455 to 515 dead and 315 to 345 incline bench on a variation of total body training. Not sure about weight gain, I weigh about 225 now days.
[quote]EB2012 wrote:
Dumbbell clean and press?[/quote]
I train at home (power rack) the ceiling in the room is low but there is a skylight so I can fully extend with dumbells but not with a barbell with 45s on it. I bend down like I’m going to deadlift and pull the dumbells up to my shoulders as I stand and pause for a second and then press them. Put them back down on the floor and repeat.
Thanks for the feedback, MikiB. That’s good progress. I think the frequency increase and just the change from the same old 5 day split I was doing is the reason I’m doing well with this.
[quote]mr popular wrote:
Your ability to gain bodyweight is dictated by your diet, not what training program you are doing. Just because you switched to a new program and are now gaining weight again doesn’t mean jack shit about the program except that maybe it is less taxing if you haven’t changed your diet at all.[/quote]
Wow, so your training program doesn’t have any effect on body composition?
[quote]K2000 wrote:
mr popular wrote:
Your ability to gain bodyweight is dictated by your diet, not what training program you are doing. Just because you switched to a new program and are now gaining weight again doesn’t mean jack shit about the program except that maybe it is less taxing if you haven’t changed your diet at all.
Wow, so your training program doesn’t have any effect on body composition?
LOL.
[/quote]
not the point trying to be made…if you don’t have adequate calories your body will not gain weight no matter how much lifting you do, you don’t just grow out of thin air and nothing was said about body composition…
[quote]K2000 wrote:
mr popular wrote:
Your ability to gain bodyweight is dictated by your diet, not what training program you are doing. Just because you switched to a new program and are now gaining weight again doesn’t mean jack shit about the program except that maybe it is less taxing if you haven’t changed your diet at all.
Wow, so your training program doesn’t have any effect on body composition?
LOL.
[/quote]
Saying that TBT or Splits are better than one another because one has gained when switching from one to the other has no credibility unless diet is mentioned. Not saying the OP is saying this, but many TBT jedis would love to use this as fuel for their cause.
Many busting through plateus can be accounted for by a change in diet, exercises, frequency, even exercise order, changes that might be brought about, inadvertantly, because someone switched from one “style” of training to the other.
[quote]That One Guy wrote:
K2000 wrote:
mr popular wrote:
Saying that TBT or Splits are better than one another because one has gained when switching from one to the other has no credibility unless diet is mentioned. Not saying the OP is saying this, but many TBT jedis would love to use this as fuel for their cause.[/quote]
True, but it works the other way around too.
They each have their place. Beginners tend to benefit more from it because of the two commonalities for most beginners; they are (1) relatively weak and (2) have not learned the technique of lifting. The higher frequency of performing any given movement will at a minimum accelerate the learning curve for technique. The higher degree of efficiency will tend to suit someone who is either unwilling or unable to spend more than 3 days in the gym. Of course, once you get past the beginner stage, splits will inherently be better. Splits are customizable and thus will enable you to bring up weak or lagging parts with more volume, frequency and/or intensity.
[quote]iwong wrote:
That One Guy wrote:
K2000 wrote:
mr popular wrote:
Saying that TBT or Splits are better than one another because one has gained when switching from one to the other has no credibility unless diet is mentioned. Not saying the OP is saying this, but many TBT jedis would love to use this as fuel for their cause.
True, but it works the other way around too.
They each have their place. Beginners tend to benefit more from it because of the two commonalities for most beginners; they are (1) relatively weak and (2) have not learned the technique of lifting. The higher frequency of performing any given movement will at a minimum accelerate the learning curve for technique. The higher degree of efficiency will tend to suit someone who is either unwilling or unable to spend more than 3 days in the gym. Of course, once you get past the beginner stage, splits will inherently be better. Splits are customizable and thus will enable you to bring up weak or lagging parts with more volume, frequency and/or intensity.[/quote]
I get tired of hearing this crap.
The reality is, if it takes someone more than a VERY few number of workouts to LEARN to do an exercise, then they are probably not genetically predisposed to even having the muscle coordination to do much more than make very average progress…unless their drive is far greater than we usually see on this site.
That means using these general assumptions of how weak and uncoordinated beginners are as a blanket statement for ALL beginners will inevitably leave out those who are above average just like most natural athletes truly are.
That means, yeah, what you wrote might make sense if dealing with some fat newbie who can’t even perform a squat with no weight without falling over. It is NOT the best approach for the guy who actually has a shot in the dark of truly getting big and strong enough to shock people.
[quote]iwong wrote:
That One Guy wrote:
K2000 wrote:
mr popular wrote:
Saying that TBT or Splits are better than one another because one has gained when switching from one to the other has no credibility unless diet is mentioned. Not saying the OP is saying this, but many TBT jedis would love to use this as fuel for their cause.
True, but it works the other way around too.
They each have their place. Beginners tend to benefit more from it because of the two commonalities for most beginners; they are (1) relatively weak and (2) have not learned the technique of lifting. The higher frequency of performing any given movement will at a minimum accelerate the learning curve for technique. The higher degree of efficiency will tend to suit someone who is either unwilling or unable to spend more than 3 days in the gym. Of course, once you get past the beginner stage, splits will inherently be better. Splits are customizable and thus will enable you to bring up weak or lagging parts with more volume, frequency and/or intensity.[/quote]
If someone is that much of an uncoordinated sedentary weakling, and they are UNWILLING TO SPEND MORE THAN 3 DAYS IN THE GYM, that means they are just some pathetic weekend warrior who doesn’t even care about bodybuilding or weightlifting sports.
Why would anyone take the approach used to force fat weak people to work out, and try to apply this to any novice lifter?
It would be like telling every new English major that they have to memorize “See Spot Run”, because that is what the absolute lowest and least qualified individuals do best with when starting the english language.
I think if you look pretty much anywhere but here, and maybe bodybuilding.com people that know what they are talking about will tell you that both TBT and body part splits are pretty much inferior for muscular growth in a natural athlete. Upper/lower is where its at.
(Unless you are talking about a body part split that hits each muscle somewhere between 2x per week to once every 5 days)
[quote]dankid wrote:
I think if you look pretty much anywhere but here, and maybe bodybuilding.com people that know what they are talking about will tell you that both TBT and body part splits are pretty much inferior for muscular growth in a natural athlete. Upper/lower is where its at.
(Unless you are talking about a body part split that hits each muscle somewhere between 2x per week to once every 5 days)[/quote]
Wait, so this is what “people who know what they are talking about” are now saying?
[quote]dankid wrote:
I think if you look pretty much anywhere but here, and maybe bodybuilding.com people that know what they are talking about will tell you that both TBT and body part splits are pretty much inferior for muscular growth in a natural athlete. Upper/lower is where its at.
(Unless you are talking about a body part split that hits each muscle somewhere between 2x per week to once every 5 days)[/quote]
You’re forgetting that split programs where the user has many large “compound” movements in it WILL hit muscle groups 2-3 times a week. Maybe only once directly, but more than that indirectly, gaining strength in those movements results in an increase of overall stimulus felt by the muscle. I don’t understand why people use the excuse of only hitting a muscle once per week as a weakness of splits, when no split program really only hits a muscle once a week, unless they’re using only isolation exercises.