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!
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