I have spent a lot of time thinking about whether it makes sense to train the whole body at once aka Full Body Workout or divide workouts into splits aka you focus on 1-3 body parts per day (depending on how you think about body parts 😊)
For more explanation a full body workout attempts to exercise all of your muscles groups on one day. This can be done doing weights only or often in the form of a HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) workout where you either keep moving quickly between exercises or alternate between a typical strength move & a cardio type move. I wouldn’t consider things like walking, running or biking a full body workout-to me there always has to be a strength component.
Training in a split refers to something like focusing on upper or lower body if you are more of a beginner or only have 2-3 days per week to workout. Or it can be more complex like training one major muscle group once per week. You would need to be in the gym daily for that to work. Or more commonly focusing on say the back half of the body one day and the front half another day or even breaking up into groups like chest, shoulders, triceps one day then legs and glutes the next.
You will see that most Trainers train themselves in a split & their clients in full body workouts especially if they want to lose weight.
Here are some pros and cons
Full Body benefits
ITS MORE EFFICIENT. This works well if you can only train 2-3 times per week. Its way more efficient for people who want to workout less often.
It MAXIMIZES FAT BURN & WEIGHT LOSS. It works well if your goal is weight loss. Keeping people moving on their feet for the whole workout helps lead to more fat burning in the session and afterwards
IF YOU MISS A WORKOUT ITS NOT A BIG DEAL. if you workout 3 x week and miss 1 workout then you have already focused on all of your muscles twice so no big deal
CONS OF DOING FULL BODY WORKOUTS
CAN LEAD TO OVERTRAINING. We know that recovery is super important and that we get the benefits of a workout in the recovery phase. If you are always doing full body the workouts have to be structured to not over train or burn out certain muscles. So you need a more strategic approach. It doesn’t make sense to do the exact same workout 3 x per week. It needs to change. That’s why when I gvie someone 3 workouts per week they are designed differently so that we cn maximize recovery, fat burning & results
ITS HARD TO MAXIMIZE MUSCLE GROWTH . If your goal is to put on muscle or bulk up this may not be the best training for you
ITS HARD TO GET THE BIGGER MUSCLES TRAINED INTENSLEY ENOUGH. Take your legs for example-there are many big strong muscles in the legs and they benefit from heavy intensity. That doesn’t always mean lifting heavier weights. It can mean changing movement patterns, focusing on imbalances or increasing the amount of endurance in a workout
For me I change my training depending upon the time of year. I train differently when I am getting ready for summer than I do when I am getting ready for ski season. And then again during ski season I have to create workouts that allow recovery for skiing on weekends. During shoulder seasons I worry less about recovering for the weekends.
If you have any questions I am here just give me a shout -Marcy
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