2023-11-23 17:00:24
Building muscle is not rocket science when you know the formula, but there are still some subtleties to avoid shooting yourself in the foot.
The choice of exercises and their execution is of course part of this, just like your programming.
How often will you train your muscles and in what distribution?
It largely depends on your goals and schedule, but we’ll take a look at your different options.
1/ The traditional “split”
The most bilingual among you know, “to split” means to divide, this method therefore consists of dedicate a workout to each muscle groupexample :
Monday: pectorals, Tuesday: back, Wednesday: rest, Thursday: shoulders, Friday: biceps/triceps Saturday: legs, Sunday: abs.
On paper, it’s an intelligent distribution, but it has its share of faults, starting with the fact that you will have to be dedicated, with a large number of sessions per week.
For beginners, this will not be ideal and the training frequency per muscle group may be too low.
Another solution may be to rethink the grouping model in movement diagramthere are 4 main families in bodybuilding:
pushing movements: chest, shoulders, triceps (examples, push-ups, bench press, triceps extension bench press, etc.), pulling movements: lats, trapezius, rhomboids, biceps, rear deltoids, forearms (examples, pull-ups, rows, shrugs shoulders, curls, facepull etc) squat: quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes (back squats, front squats, split squats etc), hinge: hamstrings, glutes, back, forearms (deadlift with dumbbells, swinging with kettlebell, Romanian deadlift).
This allows us to consider our training by group of muscles united in the same movement pattern rather than by muscle individually.
2/ Training by antagonistic muscles
Antagonist muscles are “opposite” muscle groups because they will make “opposite” movements.
By working on the same sessions of the antagonistic muscles, we can reduce the total number of sessions over a week without hindering the ability to recover.
Alternating opposing movements or body parts means that while one muscle group is working, the opposite muscle group is resting.
Here are some examples of antagonistic muscles:
Biceps/Triceps, Pectorals/Back or shoulders/Back, Quadriceps/Hamstrings.
Advantage: you can train these muscle associations in superset to save time.
But we might also see this in the form of an association of opposing movements:
Push/Pull, Squat/Hinge.
Option B: additional training
Another similar option, rather than combining antagonistic muscles, you can associate another muscle group or a large movement to a lesser intensity movement (example, do a set of calf raises or bicep curls between each set of bench presses):
Shoulders/biceps Back/triceps Quadriceps/calves Hamstrings/abs Chest/biceps
This is an excellent way to insert “second zone” exercises between sets of polyarticular exercises.
3/ Upper body/lower body training (upper/lower)
You don’t need to be a genius to see where you’re going with such programming! Each body part has its own dedicated session and you can put excellent intensity!
Here, we are certain not to use muscle groups worked in a previous session and we have an excellent frequency/volume of work ratio.
4/ Push Pull Legs
The push pull legs can be seen as a subcategory of the previous upper lower, in which the upper body session is divided into two distinct sessions: one for the muscles responsible for pushing, the other for the muscles responsible for pulling.
This results in a great way to ensure that the front and back of the body are worked equally.
5/ Full body training
It is entirely possible to train all the muscles of the body in each session!
This is called full body and it is not the prerogative of beginners.
You can do 2 full body workouts per week as well as 5 or even 6!
At the beginning, however, you will need to make sure to leave enough recovery time between two sessions (at least 48 hours), then gradually increase the training frequency.
This method is perfect for practitioners with little time and allows you to stimulate the muscles at a high weekly frequency.
The main disadvantage (especially in the case of a low number of weekly workouts) will be the low volume per muscle group.
Also Read: Say Goodbye to Boring Bodybuilding: Here Are 5 Great Reasons Why You Should Switch to Full Body Training
Well, that’s all well and good, but what is best for you?
To answer this, your first task will be to ask yourself how many days per week you have to train.
Next, you will have to organize yourself to determine the most effective way to work each part of the body, at least twice a week.
You have 1-2 days per week
One day a week is not much, but it’s better than zero!
No doubt, you will have to work all your muscles at once and opt for the full body.
Two days ? Same, but you will be able to go a little further (for example, your big leg exercise on Monday will be squats while on Thursday, you will opt for deadlifts).
Another solution with two days of training, an upper body session and another lower body session.
You have 3 days a week
There we begin to feel comfortable and several options are available to you.
The first is to continue with full body, but with more total weekly volume and training variety.
You can even vary the intensities depending on the day, for example:
Monday: heavy leg work, moderate pectoral work, Wednesday: light leg work, heavy pectoral work, Friday: moderate work on the whole body.
You can also claim PUSH/PULL/LEGS for an even distribution.
So, you will work for example:
Glutes, quadriceps, calves and hamstrings on Monday, Pectorals, shoulders, triceps on Wednesday, Backs and trapezius on Friday.
You have 4 days a week or more
So, you can choose what suits your goals the most.
Full body remains a solid option, with the ability to prioritize one big movement each session before attacking the others.
You can also choose to do upper/lower for two sessions of each per week.
You can also do push/pull/legs and why not include a second leg session in your cycle if they are lagging behind (which is often the case).
From 5 days onwards, you can consider “split training”, dedicating a session to each of your muscle groups.
Updated by Quentin on: 11/23/2023
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