Prime

even though I have an upper/lower split put together for the beginning of the school year, I was contemplating 3 full body workouts since I might be pressed for time with studying and everything. so I have a few questions:

1) what does everything think about a fullbody?

2) I'll be going for hypertrophy, so is full body a decent split for it?

also I was only going to come up with 2 workouts, labelled A and B (typical) and do something along the lines of this:

Week 1:
Monday - workout A (medium intesity, high volume) hypertrophy work
Wednesday - workout B (high intensity, low volume) strength work
Friday - workout A (medium intesity, high volume) hypertrophy work

Week 2 would be reversed: Monday 'B', Wednesday 'A', Friday 'B'

every Wednesday would be strength work.

just wondering what everyone thinks of that. as for the workouts I'll get 'em posted when I figure those out.

Condor

From my experience, full-body, though having its advantages for certain goals, would probably be less advantageous for hypertrophy...You want to tear these muscles to shreds, but you'd also be working them 3 times a week...this leads to overtraining, at least for me...If you have a def. 3 days per week that you will be able to work out, I'd allocate those days to 1-2 body groups each. With full body, you will probably end up spending too much time in the gym and your last exercises will be much less intense than your beginning ones (of course you could rotate to fix this, but I feel there are better options here) By splitting it up, you'll be training each of these muscles/muscle groups HARD once a week, and will be able to spend more time on each body part=more hypertrophy. If I did a full body workout, I'd be in the gym for 3+ hours (to truly tear my muscles up)...talk about diminishing returns!

TheUrbanMyth

3+ hours? How's that? You can do a full body workout with just two or three exercises. Think squat, deadlift, bench. Or deadlift/dip.
Many old timers (pre WWII) built good physiques just by squatting/deadlifting and OH pressing plus a couple of auxiliary exercises...most had full time jobs and couldn't devote hours to training.

TheUrbanMyth

It all depends on what exercises you use, what intensity and what weight you are using, For example the first scenario could be not enough or just right, or too much...as could be the second one. There are just too many variables when it comes to hypertrophy. If you want to get bigger you definitely have to eat more. The body needs the fuel to turn into mass.

Personally I'd go with a upper/lower split and train the chest (along with everything else) twice a week with weighted dips and flat bench. And keep the weight high and sets low no more than 6-8 per session.

Gazhole

Then you were grossly mis-informed on how to set up a fullbody program.

Fullbody A

Deadlifts
Bench Press
Good Mornings
Dips

+1-2 Lifts (Accessory/Grip)

Fullbody B

Squats
Pullups
Lunges
Bent Over Rows

+1-2 Lifts (Accessory/Grip)

Mon - 6x3
Wed - 3x8
Fri - 2x16

Is a common Fullbody setup that i've used. With warmup + warmdown i was in the gym from 45 - 80 minutes. Well within acceptable limits. The rep ranges are alternating through the week and are disparate enough to not lead to overtraining (the workout you repeat in the week is done high intensity the first time, and low the second time - no overtraining there.)

Fullbody means only that you train upper body and lower body in the same session. You dont have to train every single muscle in your body for it to be considered a full body workout. Its a lot easier to overtrain using bodypart splits, because of the overlap of recruited muscles.

***

As for Primes questions:

Fullbody splits are great for overall development. You use lots of muscle groups, therefore takes a lot of conditioning, and stimulates a lot of growth if your diet is right.

Any split is good for hypertrophy. I've seen great results with all the splits ive done.

I would change your plan to this, but you've got the general idea:

Week 1:
Monday - workout A (high intensity, low volume) Strength work
Wednesday - workout B (medium intensity, high volume) Hypertrophy work
Friday - workout A (low intensity, low volume) Recovery Work

The reason for this is that strength work should be first in the week after a good weekend's rest. Strength is the most taxing on the body, so doing it when you're recovering from a previous workout wont produce optimal performance in that session.

The recovery work is to avoid overtraining since you're repeating a workout during the week. I usually do these workouts with supersets and low ri's to perhaps make the session a bit more aerobic. You could add steady state cardio after this session aswell, both for recovery and that you'll probs be done with weights earlier than usual.

My 2 cents

Condor

You make a good point here...I wouldn't be satisfied with 2-3 exercises as a "FULL BODY" workout, but that's just me...I'd be more inclined to spend at least around 20 min on each body part, give or take...either way, the time would add up quickly for me personally; other people may find ways to do this successfully.

I don't really understand what you mean..."How do you get hypertrophy without overtraining?" How do you get hypertrophy WITH overtraining...The very fact that it is called overtraining suggests that you're not giving the body ample time to recover, thus inhibiting gains...If by 'overtraining' you mean working your ass off, then I would agree...you need to work hard as hell, just not to the point of sabotage.

Condor

Also, Gazhole, the split you described is not what I was commenting on...yours looks much more realistic, so props to you either clearing that up or making a better suggestion...My original inturpretation of the fullbody split that Prime described had me thinking of working out with ONE same exercise routine 3 times a week, and the split described only adjusting for volume and weight...That got me nervous- sorry if there was any confusion on my part from either poster.

Gazhole

No worries

I think Prime said he was gonna be cycling two workouts, but how those are gonna be set up i couldnt say.

1quick1

Daman, please stop hijacking other peoples threads. Your question is on topic but this is Primes thread. I will start deleting future hijacked posts without warning.

Prime

thanks for the input everyone.

when it comes to designing a routine, I'm like a kid in a candy store...and I mean that as though I dunno which direction I should go in! lol.

I've again kind of scrapped the full body training, as fun as it does sound but I couldn't quite figure something out that I was happy with. so I went back with what I was doing (a horizontal/lower/vertical split) and just stuck with all compounds, and after the main compounds doing a tri-set.

________

this is what I came up with...

Workout A Horizontal
1a)compound pull
2a)compound push
3a)compound pull
4a)compound push

5a)bicep auxillary
5b)quad movement
5c)delt auxillary

Workout B Lower
1a)quad movement
2a)glute/ham movement
3a)uni-lateral exercise
4a)calf auxillary
5a)grip + core

Workout C Vertical
1a)compound pull
2a)compound push
3a)compound pull
4a)compound push

5a)tricep auxillary
5b)glute/ham movement
5c)trap auxillary

I plan on just doing linear progression/periodization with every third week being strength (except for the tri-set), something along these lines:

Week 1&2: 3x10/w 10RM RI60s
Week 3: 5x4/w 5RM RI2-3min
Week 4&5: 3x12/w 12RM RI60s
Week 6: 6x3/w 4RM RI3min
Week 7&8: 3x12/w 12RM RI45s
Week 9: 7x3/w 4RM RI3min
Week 10: 3x14/w 14RM RI30s

I am thinking about changing the periodization up because I am not sure how that will work. the tri-set will be 2 sets of 8-10 reps, and the only progression I plan on making with these would be shorter RIs. also the vertical day tri-set might consist of 2 lowers and 1 upper instead.

I decided to go back to the hor/lower/vert split also like I said to avoid overtraining with having 3 different days, instead of only 2 and doubling one of them. if that makes sense.

Malley

I wouldnt do all of that with the loading patterns. Your making things to complicated. Just do something like this:

Wks1-3:3x10:ri-60-75 seconds
Wks4-6:3x6-8:ri-90-120 seconds
Wks7-9:5x3-5:ri-Full recovery
Week10:deload

Now that just makes more sense.

And for those who think hypertrophy cannot be attained per full body split your wrong. But I also dont think hypertrophy would be good with only doing bench, squat, and deads. Simply put doing those 3 lifts 3 days a week is to much.

Herc2015

When I was in the Marines(I'm a old man now)I would do a full body workout every other day for two years, a few breaks, a day or two off, but no than a week. My starting weight was 155lb.(70kgm) and after 24 months, I weighed 215lb. That's a gain of 60lb.(27kg.) solid weight. I weigh 223lb. at this writing and I plan on doing that kind of workout again by December this year.

wala

wow, nice gains..

Big Guns

I only train in the gym 3 days per week. If you want to grow, you need to train 1-2 muscle groups 1X per week and train the snot out of these muscle groups. Full body work-outs are for those who are not concerned w/ getting stronger, just toning. I seriously doubt that you will grow much on full body wo.
Mon: Chest / Bis / shoulders
Wed: Back / traps/
Fri: Legs / tris / calves

My work-out>>>
Mon: Road bike 2-3 hours
Tues: Chest / shoulders
Wed: road bike 2-3 hours
Thurs: Back / traps
Fri: Road bike 2-3 hours
Sat: Bis / Tris