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| It's been way too cold to train outside - and it's hard to train in ice and snow - but I've been having some great workouts down in the basement. When it warms up, I'll head back outside. And wherever I train, I follow the same kind of no-nonsense, old-school workouts I detail in all of my books and courses. |
Hail to the Dinosaurs!
A reader asked me which is better - split routines
or total body workouts?
To answer the question, let's begin by defining our
terms.
A split routine is generally defined as a training
program where you:
1. Train 4 to 6 days a week.
2. Split your program into two or three different
workouts, with each workout targeting different
muscle groups. For example, you might do chest
and back in one workout, legs in another, and arms
and shoulders in a third.
3. Do a high volume bodybuilding program with
lots of exercises, lots of sets, and medium to high
reps. 20 or 30 sets per bodypart is very common.
4. Train for two to four hours per workout.
5. Don't worry about how much weight you use,
and focus on getting a big pump in whatever
muscle groups you are training in a given day.
The split routine is a bodybuilding type of work-
out. It became popular in the 1960's and 1970's.
Themuscle magazines of the era pushed it real
hard.
As a result, almost all of us tried split routines -
and we all thought they were mandatory for
building a "championship" physique.
But a small handful of writers taught something
different: the total body workout.
In the total body workout you did five to ten
different exercises, one for each major muscle
group, and you trained three days a week.
You did a low volume workout, usually doing no
more than two or three sets of each exercise,
and you tried to increase the weight on the bar
whenever possible.
Your total training time was around an hour or
90 minutes per workout.
When I was a kid, I read the muscle magazines
and I did the conventional split routines. They
didn't work at all.
I switched to the three day a week total body
program, and it worked great.
But later, my gains plateaued, and I couldn't
seem to go anywhere. That was in my 20's -
a time of my life when I should have been
making great gains. But for years I trained
and went pretty much nowhere.
I switched to something different - a divided
workout program where I trained three days
per week, doing three different workouts, and
hitting each exercise just once a week.
In other words, I benched once a week.
Squatted once a week.
Deadlifted once a week.
Hit every exercise once a week.
And THAT worked great - because it gave me
more time for recovery and recuperation.
That's the kind of training I've been doing for
the past 30 plus years - and the kind I teach
in all of my books and courses.
You can see my exact program - the one I used
to win five National Bench Press Championships
in drug-free competition (in the sub-master's
division) in Strength, Muscle and Power:
http://www.brookskubik.com/strength_muscle_power.html
For special advice on how to modify your
workouts as you grow older, grab a copy
of Gray Hair and Black Iron:
http://www.brookskubik.com/grayhair_blackiron.html
So in the final analysis, don't worry about
whether split routines are better than total
body workouts. Instead, do what I do - use
a divided workout program! It's better than
either one of them.
As always, thanks for reading and have a
great day. If you train today, make it a good
one.
Yours in strength,
Brooks Kubik
BEFORE YOU LEAVE . . .
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