Full body training incorporates the most muscle recruitment per exercise, which means you get more caloric expenditure, muscle activation, culminating in more muscle tone.
The only
time full body training isn't ideal is for serious bodybuilders because they need to focus all their energy and efforts into one muscle group to make specific gains.
I found that when I started moving back
toward full body training, I was able to balance the higher frequency that I wanted with an adequate amount of volume and intensity.
This can only be accomplished through a much more effective
full body training routine that maximizes both your metabolic response and your fat - burning hormonal response to your workouts.
Instead, you need a consistent and properly designed
full body training program that utilizes mostly multi-joint exercises, and high intensity training to help you slowly but surely lose all of that stomach fat — including the visceral fat and subcutaneous abdominal fat.
On the other hand, with two or three
full body training sessions per week, which saves up a lot of time, we find ourselves in a much better position to complete all workouts while having enough time to focus on other aspects of our lives, especially to making a proper recovery.
So the most important aspect to getting visible abs is actually a properly
designed full body training program, combined with good nutrition that can be maintained for life (instead of a short - term gimmick diet).
It has been my experience to
do full body training (multiple body parts within the same workout), within a superset, tri-set, and mini-circuit format with a rep range of about 8 - 12 reps.. This rep range generates lactic acid which seems to create the biggest metabolic demand.
I have competed in dozens of these races, finishing in the top 1 % of many of them, and I can say from experience, these race take a lot
more full body training than the average person believes.
This can only be accomplished through a much more
effective full body training routine that maximizes both your metabolic response and your hormonal response to your workouts.
For fat loss and body composition change, the main focus should be
on full body training with free weights, with exercises like deadlifts, squats, bench presses, overhead presses, push - ups, lunges, pull - ups, bent - over rows, kettlebell swings, farmer's walks and metabolic conditioning exercises.
Keeping this in mind and in order to prevent your body from adapting to your program and reaching a training plateau, which significantly slows down the muscle building process, you should
try full body training for 3 months, and then follow a split routine for another 3 months.
Exercising large muscle groups like your back and legs, with relatively heavy weight creates a similar result, even
though full body training will greatly accentuate the effect.
Even a
balanced full body training program that includes back strengthening isn't always enough to combat the long term overuse effects of these repetitive daily tasks.
Full body training proponents say it is a superior method when it comes to stimulating all muscle groups more efficiently since all the muscles in our body are connected into one structural unit and they respond best to a training stimulus which is functional and consists of natural body movements.
Since full body training can be done with plenty of rest between sessions, (normally up to two days depending on how often you train each muscle group per week) you can maximize your muscle gains, which in turn will speed up the fat burning rate while resting.
And given that
full body training makes you expend a lot more energy, you may also be able to decrease the amount of cardio and eat more food without worrying you'll gain weight.
But, the caveat is that in my experience, most people I have trained do not
enjoy full body training (done 3x per week, or Mon, Wed, Fri).
Now, when beginning, I am a HUGE proponent of either a Push / Pull / Legs Split doing training either 3x per week and up to 5x per week hitting two of the three muscle grouping up to twice a week OR
full body training 3x per week.
While we have research
demonstrating full body training to be optimal (as used in Bryan Haycock's HST (Hypertrophy Specific Training)-RRB- a few years ago, we also have years and years of natural and enhanced bodybuilders getting tremendous results from bodypart, or «BRO» splits where you train each muscle once per week.
Related: If you're past the beginner stage, but still want to
do full body training, take a look at my Intermediate and Advanced Full Body Workout Routine.
I have a naturally skinny - fat body which I've worked hard on over the years to improve body comp
with full body training and later, body part hypertrophy training.
This is the main focus of my Truth about Six Pack Abs book...
full body training programs and proper nutrition to strip off that stubborn belly fat and reveal the six pack that's hiding underneath!
If done correctly, with as much intensity as possible and the right amount of sets and reps to elicit and acute anabolic response,
full body training can force muscle growth throughout the whole body in just one training session.
Even though, as explained above,
full body training is an effective training approach to building more muscle, there are some guidelines which have to be followed in order to maximize its benefits:
If the lifter switched to
full body training, he could extend his rest days to three, sometimes four days per week, instead of the usual one to two.
It's important to note that
some full body training programs rely on training two days per week, training the whole body in each session.
Full body training is also very suitable for more advanced lifters who need greater training volume and training frequency.
So, taking into consideration its numerous benefits, as well as its negative aspects, could
full body training be the most optimal training method for you?
Even though it is referenced occasionally and employed less frequently,
full body training has all but lost its mystery.
Being an old - school workout method,
full body training was a popular concept among lifters in the 50's, 60's and even 80's, but has been replaced with training programs relying completely on split body training methods.
Unfortunately, like many other trends in bodybuilding,
full body training has become somewhat neglected by the lifting world, even though it produces excellent results in terms of building a strength base upon which one can build more muscle in the future.
During this time, while I was feeling like an absolute MONSTER in
my full body training, my Grip lifts started to decline for some reason.