In the past I have always prefered full body routines 3 times a week.
A few months back I started getting serious after a long period of “not-trainingness”
Anyway, I have been stiff and sore lately. I don’t think I am allowing myself time to recover properly.
I am thinking of starting an Upper/Lower split: Two Upper days and two lower days.
Have any of you guys had much success with this style of training?
I use upper/lower splits or full-body workouts. Both work great for different things.
Do it up!
yup I go between upper lower and full body as well with some shorter stints at larger split just for a change.
Go for it.
[quote]Nate Dogg wrote:
I use upper/lower splits or full-body workouts. Both work great for different things.
Do it up![/quote]
My main goal is hypertrophy/muscle mass.
I have been checking out different Westside Templates online and I listed to Louie Simmons’ “Westside For Bodybuilders” .
I am gonna give it a shot.
I personally believe that Upper/Lower splits are some of the perfect balance between frequency and volume. Keep the rep ranges and exercises rotating so that you dont stagnate.
Also, you may look at what exercises and reps you are using in your full body. If I rotate exercise planes and the rep range so I am not doing the same thing each workout, I stay fresh regardless of If I am on full body, multiple daily sessions, or a split.
You may try 4 weeks on U/L split or Push/Pull/Legs, and then return to full body afterwards.
Experiment!
I think it depends on your goals. I just cant buy you can built some freakish size from a 45 minute full uuper body routine. So for me? No I cant do it. May work well for you.
[quote]Dirty Tiger wrote:
In the past I have always prefered full body routines 3 times a week.
A few months back I started getting serious after a long period of “not-trainingness”
Anyway, I have been stiff and sore lately. I don’t think I am allowing myself time to recover properly.
I am thinking of starting an Upper/Lower split: Two Upper days and two lower days.
Have any of you guys had much success with this style of training?
[/quote]
How does your full body training schedule look like?
I use full body 3 times a week, but I emphasize upper or lower body alternatively.
I used the search button and found…my own post.
I can honestly say that replacing full-body routines with a split routine has been very effective.
I am toying with the idea of going to a Pull/Push/Legs routine and training 4 days per week. Each week one movement gets repeated.
Week 1: pull-push-legs-pull
Week 2: push-legs-pull-push
Week 3: legs-pull-push-legs
Pull Day= Deadlifts-Rows-Curls
Push Day= Benching-Overheads-Tricep
Leg Day= Squats-Leg Press-Hams-calves
Everything works. For a while.
I like doing something for legs in every workout personally. Only upper body feels like I’m cheating.
A good option is to emphasize other parts(more volume), while doing some work for the whole body. This way you’ll get the benefits of splits, but still maintain or raise your work capacity. … You may consider them fullbody or split sessions. Either way you’ll get some work for every bodypart every session, even if it’s only some couple of light sets not taken to failure for the non-emphesized bodyparts. …
I think that as far as hypertrophy goes, the more work you do for one muscle group in one session, the more sacroplasmic the growth is going to be since your fast motor units fatigue earlier in the workout as opposed to shorter more frequent sessions producing more contractile hypertrophy. So neither way is wrong. But seeking more contractile/myofibrillial hypertrophy is propably more achievable for natural trainees.
[quote]kobra wrote:
A good option is to emphasize other parts(more volume), while doing some work for the whole body. This way you’ll get the benefits of splits, but still maintain or raise your work capacity. … You may consider them fullbody or split sessions. Either way you’ll get some work for every bodypart every session, even if it’s only some couple of light sets not taken to failure for the non-emphesized bodyparts. …
I think that as far as hypertrophy goes, the more work you do for one muscle group in one session, the more sacroplasmic the growth is going to be since your fast motor units fatigue earlier in the workout as opposed to shorter more frequent sessions producing more contractile hypertrophy. So neither way is wrong. But seeking more contractile/myofibrillial hypertrophy is propably more achievable for natural trainees. [/quote]
Oh! Forgot to mention that rep ranges of course also highly affect which kind of hypertrophy it’s going be.
[quote]Dirty Tiger wrote:
I used the search button and found…my own post.
I can honestly say that replacing full-body routines with a split routine has been very effective.
I am toying with the idea of going to a Pull/Push/Legs routine and training 4 days per week. Each week one movement gets repeated.
Week 1: pull-push-legs-pull
Week 2: push-legs-pull-push
Week 3: legs-pull-push-legs
Pull Day= Deadlifts-Rows-Curls
Push Day= Benching-Overheads-Tricep
Leg Day= Squats-Leg Press-Hams-calves
[/quote]
Waterbury’s ABBH is a good upper/lower split. The template itself can be customized to your liking.
As for the 3-way split, I posted this a while ago:
http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1169158&pageNo=0#1170701
It is pretty much standard PL split and it works very well.
As for you feeling much better after switching to split training, have you considered the possiblity that you just needed a week off or a deload? And that dropping frequency, by using a split routine, has essentially provided just that? Just an observation 
Good luck with the new program.