The One-Day Training Split: "Full Body Training"

This is the second article in our series on training splits. You can read the introduction to training splits here. As the name suggests, a one-day training split means you’re training the entire body in each workout. This type of training routine is a great introduction to bodybuilding for beginners or people who have been inactive for a little while.

The main reason for this is that it introduces your nervous system to resistance exercise. It would NOT be appropriate for a beginner to jump into an advanced workout regimen that isolates specific muscle groups each day, and would likely end up in injury. Eventually, you will get there, but for now you need to teach (or remind) your muscles how to contract in response to specific weight-bearing movements. Once you build some functional strength and start improving the mind-muscle connection necessary for proper form on these specific exercises, you will be ready to progress to an intermediate level training split.

The exercises we have selected for this training split are designed to recruit the largest number of muscle fibres in a single exercise. This was done on purpose, because you will only be completing one exercise per muscle group. Otherwise, you would be in the gym all day.



For each exercise, pick a weight that you are not able to do more than 12 repetitions on. You should almost always struggle on the last few repetitions of these exercises. Don’t make it so heavy that you sacrifice form, but aim to be outside of your comfort zone. For exercises such as the barbell bench press, make sure you have a capable spotter to help you out if necessary. For other exercises, such as barbell squats, make sure you set the safety bars appropriately. Remember, training smart is more important than lifting too much weight.

Complete the following workout three times per week, with a minimum of one day of rest in between workout days. Recovery is essential to repair muscle tissue, increase muscle size, and increase strength. This would typically mean working out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and taking the other days of the week and weekend off.

Barbell Bench Press – 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Lat pulldown – 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Dumbbell Shoulder Press – 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Barbell Squat – 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Barbell Curl – 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Triceps Pushdown – 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Standing Calf Raise – 3 sets of 15-20 reps

Bicycle Crunches – 3 sets to failure

Note: Rest up to 2 minutes in between sets for all exercises. This will allow your muscles to recover enough that you won’t need to decrease the amount of weight you lift for each set.

Follow this training split for 2-3 weeks, and then try our next segment, the two-day training split.

Workout Plans: Legs 2

As many of you already know, the legs are comprised of four major muscle groups; quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calves. This workout involves exercises that target each of these muscle groups to maximize your muscle building and thus calorie burning potential.

Try this workout in sequence, to exhaust your quadriceps, then hamstrings and glutes, and finally your calves. Keep rest periods in between sets below 1 minute.

Quadriceps

Barbell Squats

• 2 warmup sets of 8-12 reps
• 3 working sets of 8 reps

Leg Extensions

• 1 warmup set of 20 reps
• 3 working sets of 10-15 reps

Hamstrings

Stiff-Legged Deadlifts

• 2 warmup sets of 8-12 reps
• 3 working sets of 6-8 reps

Lying Leg Curls

• 1 warmup set of 10-15 reps
• 3 working sets of 8-12 reps

Glutes

Leg Press (feet wide and high on platform)

• 4 working sets of 12-15 reps

Calves

Calf extension on leg press

• 4 working sets of 15-20 reps

Standing Calf Raises

• 3 working sets of 15 reps (weighted)
• 2 sets of 30 (bodyweight)

Have fun with this one. As we've said before, if you feel slight nausea or struggle to walk out of the gym, that means you're doing it right. Do this workout once a week and you'll get stronger, more defined legs in no time!

Workout Plans: Arms 2

Who wants tickets to the gun show? According to Ron Burgundy, handing these out is the only way to bag a classy lady. Although we may not completely agree, it can’t hurt to have well developed triceps, biceps, and forearms, right? This workout will tone and build lean muscle mass onto your arms.

"1001, 1002, 1003,..." - a bit higher than conventional rep ranges

Warm up:

·         5 minutes on stationary bike, treadmill, or jump rope

Incline Dumbbell Curls

·         5 sets of 8-12 reps

Preacher Curls

·         5 sets of 8-12 reps

Barbell 21’s

·         3 sets

o   There are 3 steps to barbell 21’s:

1.       Start at bottom of range of motion, and come halfway up 7 times

2.       Start mid-way, and lift to the top of the range of motion without moving your upper arms, 7 times

3.       7 full reps

Lying Barbell Tricep Extensions (“Skullcrushers”)

·         5 sets of 8-12 reps

Cable Tricep Rope Pushdown

·         4 sets of 8-12 reps

superset with…

Overhead Cable Tricep Rope Extension

·         4 sets of 8-12 reps

Tricep Dips

·         3 sets to failure

Minimize rest time to 60-90 seconds in between sets, and 2 minutes in between exercises. As always, have a protein shake immediately post-workout to optimize protein synthesis. Good luck, have fun, and let us know what you think!

Workout Plans: Chest 2

We’ve been getting very positive feedback from the workouts we have posted thus far. If you haven’t tried any of our previous workouts, visit our training page here.

This is an intense chest workout designed to build both size and strength. It can essentially be divided into two sections; presses and flyes.

Presses:

Incline Barbell Bench Press

      ·         2 warm up sets of 15-20 reps

·         4 working sets of 8-12 reps

Dumbbell Bench Press

·         1 warm up set of 15-20 reps

·         3 working sets of 8-12 reps

Decline Barbell Bench Press

·         4 working sets of 8-12 reps

Flyes:

Incline Dumbbell Flyes

·         1 warm up set of 15-20 reps

·         3 working sets of 10-15 reps

Superset with…

Flat Dumbbell Flyes

      ·         1 warm up set of 15-20 reps

·         3 working sets of 10-15 reps

Cable Crossovers

·         8-12 reps from top cable position

·         6-10 reps from middle cable position (half way down rack)

·         That is one set, do 3

This is a very demanding workout. We recommend a pre-workout or intra-workout drink containing caffeine and BCAAs, as well as a post-workout recovery shake and lots of rest.

Have fun with this one, and as always, keep us posted on your progress by commenting on this board, or on our Facebook page or Twitter (see feed on right).

One Easy Trick to Maximize Muscle Growth

Our apologies for the hanging title. Trust us, when you read this article, you’ll be the smartest one in your gym. Well, maybe not (depends on the gym!), but at least you’ll have something cool to tell your friends.

If you gain nothing else from this article, the take home message is that you must constantly mix up your workout routines to achieve maximal gains in muscle strength, size, definition, and to avoid plateaus. Some have cleverly marketed this concept as “muscle confusion”, and it is one reason why we have outlined several training techniques on our blog to help you train smarter to achieve better results than just training harder. Just click around and you’ll find them!

Without getting too scientific, you should know that resistance training (lifting weights), targets specific muscle fibres. These muscle fibres are anaerobic, meaning they function without oxygen, and are capable of fast and powerful movements. Ever heard of fast-twitch?

New research in the European Journal of Applied Physiology (catchy title, we know) reveals that there are different subtypes of fast-twitch anaerobic muscle fibres in bodybuilders. Interestingly, the most abundant fast-twitch muscle fibres are dual capacity, meaning they function for both power AND endurance.

Therefore, if you only train using low-rep sets, you’re only utilizing half of the ability of your most abundant muscle fibres, and your gains in size and strength will reflect that. You need to train to exhaust both power and endurance components of your fast-twitch muscle fibres.

The perfect example of a bodybuilder who trained this way?

 

Arnold often used a technique we have already described, pyramid sets, where he would increase weight over a number of sets on his compound moves like bench presses. When he reached his heaviest weight for around six reps, he would then reduce the poundage for two "burnout" sets, 12 to 15 reps each.

He also often used double-drop, or strip sets, which are three progressively lighter sets back to back to finish off an exercise.

Therefore, he crushed the power component of his muscle fibres early in his set, and then got an immense pump with the lighter sets towards the end.

Therefore, the trick is:

Use a lighter weight and get a higher number of reps at the end of a set of compound movements.

There are many techniques and names for these lighter sets (burnout, drop sets, strip sets, double-drop sets, etc.). We will write about each in detail in the future. For the meantime, use one of them to integrate both power and endurance into your workout routines.