The end of the year is a great time to reevaluate your workout goals and whether your current routine is helping you meet them. One question that comes up with new clients is whether it’s better to follow a split routine or go with full-body training.
The answer, like so many things relating to personal fitness, is, well, personal. At Body by Ford Personal Training, we start with a free consultation to understand each client’s fitness goals and adapt a routine to meet them.
Some of the variables we take into consideration are the types of results a client is looking for, how many days they want to spend in the gym, and what types of workouts are going to keep them engaged and moving past plateaus.
Split Routines
A split routine is a type of weight lifting schedule that divides different muscle groups into separate days of training. Usually, this type of routine would focus on one or two muscle groups per day. For example, on Monday, you might train your back and biceps. Tuesday might cover your chest and shoulders, and Wednesday might be leg day.
Split routines have a couple benefits. They allow for more rest and recovery between workouts since you may go an entire week before you workout the same muscle group again. It is designed to maximize muscle growth and strength by allowing each muscle group to be worked more intensely each day. And there’s some research to show that it does encourage faster muscle growth.
Unfortunately, split routines take a lot of time, usually involving five or six workouts every week. But if you have the time and muscular hypertrophy is your goal, it may be right for you.
Full-body routines
A full-body routine typically involves exercises that target all the major muscle groups in one workout, including the chest, back, arms, shoulders, legs, and core. Full-body routines are able to incorporate compound lifts, such as deadlifts, which target multiple major muscle groups and stabilizers.
These routines build in more rest days to allow for recovery before working the same muscle groups again. That means a key benefit of full-body routines is that they get results with fewer days in the gym.
Full-body routines can also incorporate circuit training, which involves rapidly cycling through multiple exercises within a single workout. So while full-body routines may not deliver quite as quickly on muscle growth (hypertrophy), they can provide the benefits of both resistance training and cardiovascular training.
Whether your goal is general fitness or weight loss, if you want to maximize your results with limited time in the gym, a full-body routine centered around circuit-based resistance training (weight lifting) might be more your style. At Body by Ford Personal Training, this is the style of routine that we typically recommend for our clients looking to shed some pounds, get healthy, and look and feel great. It makes for a highly customizable routine that we can develop and evolve with our clients as they progress toward their goals.
Whether your goal is to pack on some muscle, shed some holiday pounds, or just be the fittest, healthiest, strongest version of yourself, Body By Ford Personal Training is the place to get a truly customized plan catered to your body and your goals. Come experience the Body By Ford difference today.
