In Defense of the Workout Split

I have had several people inquire about using whole-body exercises as opposed to working separate body parts. Many times it seems the whole-body camp gets almost charismatic about how their way is better. Me? I don't see it that way. I like separating body parts instead of working all, or most, of them at once.

There is nothing wrong with whole-body exercises. If this is what trips your trigger and keeps you going to the gym, by all means: Do whole body exercises! We all gotta do what works for us. But me? I'm splitting them up. Here's why:

- First and foremost, for me personally I get better muscle definition and size this way.
- It allows me to spend more time on lagging parts and lets the parts the are more developed (namely, my back) hang tight until the other body parts catch up.
- When I work body parts separately I can "custom form" my body more to my own taste. For instance: I've mentioned in prior blogs that I naturally have very slight shoulders. By working shoulders separate I've been able to add width to them, therefore helping to balance my wide hips and turn my bowling-pin body into a true hourglass.
- When I do enough whole-body exercises to make me feel like all of my body got hit as hard as I'd like, it takes a REALLY long time. Splitting things up helps me either do less exercises at a time and get out of the gym faster, or hone in and do a LOT of exercises on one part to thoroughly exhaust it.
- I bore easily. There are only so many whole-body-type moves out there. With splitting things up I'm not stuck doing the same moves over and over, so it helps to keep things interesting for me.

Here is my current split (a split is what they call it when you "split" body parts up into different days), and why:

- Monday- Quadriceps, Hamstrings, and Delts (These are all body parts that I need to build up more, so I work them twice a week. For this reason, I put them on Mondays and Fridays, to maximize healing time between workout sessions.)
- Tuesday, early AM- Abs (On Tuesdays I have a Weight Watchers meeting and do yoga, so I try to keep it minimal to allow time for the rest of my life to happen. I would do no body parts this day, but I like to try and work abs twice, if I can [as far as I am concerned, one cannot have ripped enough abs], and this puts them far away from my other ab day on Friday, again for max muscle repair)
- Wednesday- Chest, Triceps, and Calves (None of these body parts need to play "catch up", so they all get worked just once a week. I put calves here to keep them away from my quad days on Monday and Friday, when they usually get hit as a secondary muscle.  This gives them suffecient repair time before they are singled out)
- Thursday- Back and Biceps (Again, I don't need to build either of these, so once a week is sufficient.)
- Friday- Quads, Hams, Delts, and Abs (All body parts that need to be hit a second time to build. If I'm short on time, I'll do less sets of these and leave abs out.)
- Weekends- Off

I also do cardio, but this blog is about weight lifting splits, not cardio.

I no longer worry about only doing some body parts once a week and here's why: Most figure and body building competitors only work each muscle group once a week. My workout partner is the most muscular person I know, and sometimes he goes MORE than a week between working body parts. The thing is, when he works any body part, he really goes at it: Multiple exercises (I've never seen him do any less than 5 for any given muscle group), and max effort.

If you are just starting out and want to try splits, I'd advise hitting all body parts twice a week. I did this for years, until my imbalances became apparent. The good news is that the body can be shaped according to how you'd like it to look with splits, so there is no need for these imbalances to be permanent things.

Here is that split. When I used it, I usually did just two exercises per body part (abs I did 6- two for each obliques, upper, and lower). It was quite effective:
-Monday- Legs and abs (Quads, Hamstrings, Calves, obliques, upper abs, lower abs)
-Tuesday- Upper body (Pecs, Back, Delts, Biceps, Triceps)
-Friday- Repeat legs and abs
-The next Monday- Repeat Wednesday from week prior
You continue alternating upper with legs and abs, which means that one week you are doing legs and abs on Wednesday, and the next on Monday and Friday (or whichever days of the week you choose to work out). This still hits all body parts twice within a seven-day period.

If you want to lift four days a week and hit everything twice in a calender week, you could still do the above split, but do legs/abs days 1 and 3 and upper days 2 and 4 (or vice verse).

The following split would be good if you want to lift weights 5 days a calendar week while hitting all body parts twice in a 7 day period. With this split you won't be spending hours in the gym each session:
-Day 1- Quads, Biceps
-Day 2- Hamstrings, Calves, Chest
-Day 3- Back, Delts
-Day 4- Abs, Triceps
With this split, you would just start back with day one the next scheduled lifting day after you have completed day 4. Also with this split, personally I would NOT do cardio on day two, because that's a longer lifting day with three body parts.

The above split would also work if you want to lift 4 days a week and hit each body part once. If that were the case, I'd do more exercises per body part (at least 3) to really give it something to recover from before it gets worked again.

I just came up with this last split off of the top of my head. There are no "Hard and fast" rules to setting up a split. There are some general rules, but it's good to even change those up sometimes, just to keep your body guessing. (I'll blog about that next.)

I know this is a lot of information and I hope I haven't overwhelmed, over-informed, or over-bored you. If you have any questions, please feel free to message me and I'll try my best to answer them. I love helping!

Here I am..... AGAIN!

Okay, I have a big confession: As of this morning I am at 160.4 pounds. This is about 3 pounds over where I was allowing myself to be for the purpose of muscle gain, 8 pounds over the top of where I would like to "normally" be, and 12 pounds over where I would truly like to hold my weight on a permanant basis.

There is a bit of a history to this: I started German Volume Training (you can read about it here: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/luis13.htm ) almost 6 weeks ago in an effort to gain some muscle in my legs, chest, and delts. I was only going to do this for 6 weeks, so this is the last week. At any rate, bodies tend to gain muscle better when they are carrying a little extra weight, so I made the choice to allow myself to hover around 157. My plan was, and still is, to get through the training, then take a week off and start working on losing the weight in fairly short order. I had it worked out so that I could still weigh at Weight Watchers once a month, but had time to get down to my goal weight before I had to do my October weigh-in. Or so I thought. The thing is, I gained 3 pounds more than I had intended, and I'm having a real issue with getting it off. 3 pounds may not sound like a lot, but when you add it to the original planned gain, I'm getting off into some dangerous (for me) territory, here.

I know another part of the reason I am at this weight is because of PMS bloat (Sorry to any guys reading this), but the truth is that this isn't a good enough excuse, because my "normal" weight should be low enough to give wiggle room for this.

The fact is that the REAL reason I am up higher is that because I have let myself have a little too much of this here and that there, and it's adding up. And I've been eating more carbs lately, which really holds water and makes me look a lot "fluffier".

And I love baking! I've started doing that again. Of course, I always want to eat what I bake.....

It also hasn't helped that I have been struggling with finding a goal right now. I made the decision not to do figure competition, which I blogged about last. So I lost that goal.

Then I thought I'd found a photographer to do fitness photos on my 44th birthday, but he started showing signs of not being very reliable, and was going to charge me a pretty penny. (As a friend of mine said "That's a lot of cheese for 2 hours of time in front of the camera!") I felt uneasy about using him for my photos.

So I've been a bit adrift, not feeling anything looming over me as far as a goal.

Regardless of the excuse (and these are all excuses), the fact is I am simply too heavy right now. It not only shows on the scale, but also in the mirror.

So I'm back to the old grindstone of being in weight-loss mode.

I guess for now, weekly weigh-ins with Weight Watchers will have to be motivation enough. And next week I WILL BE weighing in, regardless of whether I have to pay dues for being over my goal or not. With WW the highest I can be is 157 (dressed, or course). So unless I lose about 5 1/2 pounds in the next 5 days, I'll be shelling out $12 in dues next Tuesday.

Yay.

Additionally, as much as I would like to work with a nutritionist again, budget won't allow it, so I'm on my own. It's a LOT harder to self-diagnose than it is to help others, I am finding. But I'm giving it a shot......

Here's my game plan:
- Keep up my lifting and cardio. Honestly, it'd be hard to do much better in this department than I already am. Lack of exercise is NOT why I am where I am. Diet is.
- I'm going to clean up my food choices. Refined carbs are going to all but leave my diet.
- I'm back to a minimum of a gallon of water a day. Water. Not unsweetened tea w/ Splenda. Water.
- I will continue to log my food by writing it down in my WW Journal.
- I will go back to weekly weigh-ins with Weight Watchers, and will continue to do this every week for eternity, as well as continue to stay for the meetings.
- Daily weigh-ins at home until I am down to where I want to be, and I will daily change my weight on the tracker here on Spark to reflect that number.

So here I am, a little back slidden, but not defeated.

Onward and up......er....... DOWNward!!!!!!!!