Lifting Weights: Target muscle groups or full body?

bmramsey0614

I recently began lifting again and have a few questions.

Currently I lift 4 days a week and do cardio 4-6 times a week. I am wondering if most people do a full body workout like 3 times a week and do a few exercises per muscle group or do you target muscle groups each day?

Right now I am doing target muscle groups so:

Monday: Chest and Shoulders
Tuesday: Bis and Tris
Wednesday: Back/Core
Thursday: Leg Day.

Sometimes I skip days or rest between but overall that's basically what I do. I try to run 3-6 miles everytime I run or if I do an elliptical I will stay on it for about 45 minutes. I still have some weight to lose so I am eating at a calorie deficient and I only plug in my cardio calories not calories I burn from weight lifting. I rarely eat back all my calories. Should I try and increase my caloric intake as well? I get roughly 150 grams of protein in daily.

Thanks.

Escape_Artist

I prefer fullbody 3X a week. On SL now and I love it.

To be honest I don't think I will every have a split routine, it's just not my thang! :ohwell:

Yanicka1

I target different body part on different day but it is because I am not new to lifting. Full body 3 times a week is best when you are a beguiner lifter and have everything to build.

Rerun201

I recently began lifting again and have a few questions.

Currently I lift 4 days a week and do cardio 4-6 times a week. I am wondering if most people do a full body workout like 3 times a week and do a few exercises per muscle group or do you target muscle groups each day?

Right now I am doing target muscle groups so:

Monday: Chest and Shoulders
Tuesday: Bis and Tris
Wednesday: Back/Core
Thursday: Leg Day.

Sometimes I skip days or rest between but overall that's basically what I do. I try to run 3-6 miles everytime I run or if I do an elliptical I will stay on it for about 45 minutes. I still have some weight to lose so I am eating at a calorie deficient and I only plug in my cardio calories not calories I burn from weight lifting. I rarely eat back all my calories. Should I try and increase my caloric intake as well? I get roughly 150 grams of protein in daily.

Thanks.

Just eating at with the calorie deficit will allow you to lose the weight. Just don't go too far into calorie deficit and turn it into a crash diet; you'll likely crash before the diet does.

From a personal standpoint, I prefer bodyweight training these days, 3-4 days a week with a Nordic Track x-country ski machine on the others (yes, I still have one from many years ago and it is still in perfect operating condition). Weight training for a number of years had made my joints a bit painful. Running many years for 30-40 miles a week didn't help before that. At my age I prefer more joint friendly activities.

mustgetmuscles1

Depends on a few thing like experience and recovery time. Most people new to lifting should be doing a full body program like Stronglifts or Starting Strength. Once progress begins to slow down or recovery from your last workout becomes slower then you could switch a upper/lower split or a push/pull/legs split. No matter which of those you choose they should really be based around the big compound lifts with the body part isolation lifts thrown in afterwards. There should never be an "arm" day. : )

The bodybuilder bro split can and has worked for a lot of people but is not really optimal. Muscle protein synthesis stays elevated for around 48 hours after a workout. If you are only hitting a muscle group once per week you are really missing a lot of opportunity. Of course with more frequency you may need to adjust volume.


As for calories you should eat as many of them as you can and still reach your goals.

BlueBombers

I personally do 3 days of cardio and 3 days of compound lifts (full body) per week. The only isolation exercises I do are for my abs.

just_Jennie1

I personally target one muscle group per workout and alternate legs and abs and 30 min. of cardio before I lift (mainly because I won't do it at all if I do it at the end). So for example this week looks like this:

M: Bi's/abs
T: Chest/legs
W: Back/abs
TH: Shoulders/legs
Fr: Tri's/abs

I also do different ab and leg exercises.

I'm not sure why newbies are told to do full body routines to be honest. When I started lifting and was a complete newbie I never started with full body or even compound lifts. I knew how to do the exercises, got a little bit of advice and basically did my own thing and never had an issue with it. Years later I started doing full body 3x a week mainly because of a time constraint. I was able to bang it out in 60-75 minutes and on the 'off' days I did about 45 min. of cardio.

If full body is working for you right now then stick with it. If you want to experiment with working a muscle group per day then try that for a little while. It's really about what you're going to stick to and the results you see.

Cherimoose

I'm not sure why newbies are told to do full body routines to be honest.

There are lots of benefits to a full-body workout. I'll just list a few ..

- Muscles rarely work in isolation outside the gym, so training multiple muscle groups together tends to be more functional.. meaning better performance outside the gym.
- It's less stress on each body part, since your do fewer sets per session. This means the risk of overtraining and getting injured is less.
- Since you do fewer sets per body part, your form is likely to be better later in the workout .. which again reduces the risk of injury.

Full-body isn't just for newbies. I would call myself an advanced lifter and i tend to do full-body workouts.

Mrsallypants

I try to do both. My biceps, forearms, traps, abs, neck, and calves don't really develop too well from just squatting, deadlifting, benching, pendlay rowing, and pressing. My priority leans more toward symmetry, size, and proportion currently.

I do all the compound exercises listed above, but also isolation exercises as they are great to develop some stagnant body parts, and I try to hit all muscles at least twice a week.