How important is splitting up muscle groups in days?

Yes, you need a plan. Exercising without a plan is ****arounditis, a deadly gym disease.

A couple of recommendations I would give you is to limit strength training to 3-5 days per week. Your body needs rest to rebuild and recover. And look up an established, popular program that fits into your strength training goals. I recommend Stronglifts 5x5 for newbies as it is very simple and linear, with a ton of resources to help you with form on the five lifts it recommends.

Also recommend Strong Lifts. As I've gotten more experienced, I've added other exercises to address weak points. *cough*glutes*cough*. But Strong Lifts, or Starting Strength, etc. are great places to start.

It's not important at all.

Stick with full body training 3x week if you want to get optimal results. When it stops being optimal, then you can look to splitting things out.


TL;DR: If it was important for you, you'd know about it already.

I met with a trainer when I first joined a gym 6 weeks ago. Before that I was doing zumba mostly with some exercise videos.

I am a complete newbie to the gym, so I had no idea where to start or what to do- I have been following her instructions exactly.

The trainer said since I wanna lose about 40 pounds I should do 30 minutes of cardio three days a week, and then she gave me a full body routine for the other half of my workout. For the past six weeks I have been doing couch to five k on the treadmill, and then this weight routine for 30 minutes.

On non weight lifting days I do 60 minutes of cardio. This is usually 30 minutes on the elliptical and then 30 minutes on the bike or walking on the treadmill.

As for results- I was weighing myself every day and the scale had not moved AT ALL in three weeks. Mind you, I am eating mostly clean and logging every bite I take. So I said screw the scale. I haven't stepped on it since. I am giving myself til the end of September to weigh again and redo my measurements.

I feel AMAZING-- that is good enough for me right now. And I am really running. Best part of the whole thing is I am increasing my weights every couple of weeks and I am shocked at how strong I am getting.

Many gyms give you a free personal training session, so if you can do that, I would. Ask them for a routine and write it all down. Good luck!

i'd also like to point out that what your title says and what your OP asks seem to be two different things.

many seem to be just addressing the title. no its not important to split the body into different groups and do those groups on different days (otherwise known as a split routine).

but your OP seems to suggest that your going into the gym with no plan or routine what so ever. I think thats a bad idea especially if your relatively new

i think its going to be that much harder to get fit/strong if you don't have a plan.

would recommend just googling 'beginner weight program' and choosing one from there.

the reason why you'd want a plan, is so you have consistency in your workout. Variety can often be helpful, but you need a certain amount of consistency in weight training to make sure you keep stimulating a muscle often enough (and not to often) to make it grow.

You don't want to go more then 3 days without hitting a body part again. so if you are going in and doing all your body parts and take no more then 3 days between workouts, your actually not doing that bad. but (especially as a beginner) its probably better to do flat bench each workout for a few months and then change the exercise (if desired), rather then one day doing flat bench, 3 days later doing flys, 3 days later doing incline, etc.

honestly the easiest way to do it and not have to think about it would be to do strong lifts or one of those. if theres something in the program you really don't like, try a different one.