Today started my 4-week full body weight training program. Why would I choose a full body training split? There are so many benefits of full body training!
For starters, increased calorie burn! Rather than having your typical "arm day" which doesn't expend a whole lot of energy, you training all the large muscles for that increased calorie burn.
Secondly, sometimes people don't see those gains they're looking for because they actually give themselves too much time to recover. When you're working a 5 or 6 day split, that's usually about a week before you train the same muscle group again. By doing a full body 3- day split, you don't give your muscles too much time to recover from the last session. This is helpful because it puts your muscles under stress causing fatigue, which is what fuels testosterone and GH concentrations, which I turn maximizes those gains we're all looking for.
With a full body workout, you're working every major muscle group, every session, using the best muscle building exercises...which would be your multi-joint, compound exercises; squats, deadlifts, rows, military press, pull ups, dips, bench press. I also usually like to add a set of power cleans at the end for that final push.
Back to the basics: these exercises are the best muscle building exercises and when you focus on the building blocks of where body building started, you can really focus on your form. Sometimes when you do a lot of exercises or sets targeting one body part, your form may get sacrificed because of muscle fatigue. Full body workouts are a great way to check your form and really get in tune with how your muscles contract during each movement.
These type of workouts are efficient ways of making sure you target your whole body. You'll get the added muscle, and the calorie burn that so many of us are looking for.
What does my workout look like for the next 4 weeks?
4x10 of each of the exercises listed above on Monday, Thursday and Saturday. On Tuesdays and Fridays I'll do cardio (usually HIIT on the treadmill or sometimes I'll use the stair stepper to work that boooooty). Wednesday's I do yoga and I may add a nice 1-3 mile run if I'm feeling adventurous. Sunday's are my rest day. However, my rest days are usually active rest days and hiking is beautiful this time of year!
