by burnzilla » 11 Feb 2015 03:29
as veit already said it is very time dependent...if you're having lots of free time or the motivation to go to the gym more than 2 times a week after work a split can make more sense than a full body workout.
moreover it depends on the individual development of your muscles (this is a very controversial topic though). at some point you might not be able to stimulate your muscles enough to grow with 2 full body workouts per week.
than you are pretty much forced to split your training to make it more intense for the separate muscles (anyway i doubt anybody here is so far developed that he really needs to do that).
pros of a split:
+ the seperate muscles are trained harder/better or better put, the training for the specific muscle is more intense
exp: hypothetically, you do a chest/leg/back split and you do per workout 3-5 excercices for one musclegroup, f.e. your back
than you have the chance to stimulate the different parts of your back better, than with only 1 full body excercise
for your back which focuses on the lower part of your back, like deadlifts do for example
+ what brati already suggested, if you're slow at regenerating and your muscles ache for a long time after the workout
you can still go to train since you won't need the muscles that hurt, f.e. backday after chestday
so flexibility of training days i'd say
+ the time you need per workout is lower
exp: purely seen from the energylevel/hormons in your body. it doesn't make anye sense to train legs for 3h straight f.e.
+ it's more fun due to more variation of excercises -> more long time motivation
+ you can work more specific on weakspots if you're having an affinity for some muscles and one group looks overdeveloped
so by focusing some parts of your body more than others it leads to your whole body looking more complete due to the customized focus
this is so hilarious if you see for example guys with massive upper bodies and legs that look like matches or even the other way around...
downside:
- if you have enough time and your body can take it, you can train more efficiently when you do a full body workout 3-4 times a week
exp: even if the degree of strain on each muscle isn't as high as in a split, the fact that you train the whole body 3 times a week should make up for that
but this depends on the individual...f.e. i need a long time to regenerate and i couldn't handle doing full body workout 3-4 times a week, maybe if i
would lower the intensity, but where is the fun and motivation if you don't put in all you've got into your workout...
that's all that comes to my mind spontaneously...
Last edited by
burnzilla on 11 Feb 2015 03:52, edited 1 time in total.
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