There is a lot of conflict out there as to how many times you should train a body part per week. Some say you should train each body part twice a week e.g chest monday and friday while others say that can leed to overtraining that you should only train body parts once a week.
currently i train body parts once e.g chest and tri on mondays. back and biceps on wed, shoulders and deltoids on fri and legs on saturday some times i add extra small chest work out on fri with my shoulder work out.
I have tried training twice a week program for each muscle group but didnt notice any gains.
But i never get big any way.
What do others find the best and do you notice much difference?
Nobody can say a sure time for you. Cos no body other than you can tell when your, muscles are ready and healed from your last workout.
I dont know how hard you work out or what hurts the next day.
If you train light then 48hrs is fine. Somtimes when I Isolate a muscle and work it hard in one session it will ache for 5-6days. so you see I can train the muscle twice a week, but not on a 7 day routien.
This may sound strange but I dont think “programs” are a good idea.
Just go to the gym every 2days, or 2 out of three days and pick a workout that suits you on that day. sometimes I’ll work out 5-6times in one week, sometimes its 2. Dont try doing 1 particular muscle group on a particular day, cos you’ll just end up over training or undertraining.
Doing the standard break down of body parts and muscle group routine is really more of a body building routine than a functional fitness type routine in my opinion.
Those routines are designed to severly break down a muscle group to promote maximum muscle growth. Maximum muscle growth does turn into strength but it doesn’t necessarlly turn into functional strength. ie. make you a better martial artist.
I’d recommend a program like the crossfit workout (http://www.crossfit.com). This program is based soley on functional fitness, speed and power. I’d say that it combines perfectly with martial arts training. At first, the workout is very taxing and you are completely wiped out but soon your body adapts and you can train both crossfit and martial arts in the same day. The workouts are extremely hard so they also benefit your mental toughness as well. That’s how it has worked for me anyway.
Try out the workout for 2 weeks and you’ll see what I mean. Check it out.
The once a week training thing is for bodybuilding only. For functional strength training with weights, you want to do something like I do. I work out every 3 days, always working the whole body. Emphasizing Squat, Deadlift, Bench, Power clean, overhead press, and rows or chins. Throw in biceps, calves, and ab work at the end if you like. Lots of sets but keep reps between 3-7 so that you don’t lose concentration. Sometimes emphasize volume and sometimes intensity (lifting close to your max for a given rep range). Never go to failure in an exercise more than once a week. Hope that helps
If you do high volume you’ll have to wait longer between training sessions.
If you do lower volume you can train more often.
Some powerlifters train with high weights and low reps and a few sets and train the same lift almost every day.
Some bodybuilders train high volume for each muscle group with many reps and sets and they can only do it once a week.
Ditto on what other guys said–and some more advice.
If your not a professional athlete, or don’t have lots of free time, I’d suggest you not stick to the 2 body parts per week program. No need to read the rest of this post if you do have lots of free time on your hands. Heck you could even do 3-4X per week then.(oh, to dream such a dream!)
But–in practice (for us poor working sods, that is), the frequency depends upon, among other things, personal time constraints.
If I plan to train ( lift) 2X per week, but miss one work out every week due to job, school, family, lack of facilities, etc, the exercise program will NOT be effective because probably the most important principles for any type of training are;
a. consistency. Consistancy means working the body part regulary–that is peforming the same exercise ( or approximatyelty the same one) each session. You are trying to get the muscle to adapt.
b. overload. Over load meaning being able to improve. [ By increasing weight or sets/reps or both]
W/o a consistent program, that fits your realistic time schedule, you will go nowhere. For example, flies will help your bench press wieghts, but flies alone will not make the bench press wieghts increase. If you don’t have time to do flies and bench press, then stick only with bench press. Variety does help, but that’s another topic.
W/o a frequency that allows for overload, you will go nowhere. For improvement, there must be a period of recovery. But, wait too long and the benfit is dimished. After about 8 days, the training effect of the last workout has been lost.
As another post suggested–don’t stick to any “program”. Instead, use a frequency that realistically works for you and allows for consistency and improvement. 2X per week is a good guideline, but it’s only a guideline.
Here is what works for me. This is much less than optimal. I can make slow gains and complete it w/o causing much conflict with other commitments.
Full body workout every 2 to 3 days, 4 to 5 sets, 2 to 4 exercises per muscle/group. Run/aerobics every 2 to 3 days. Will do lifts/ aerobics same day (a.m. vs. p.m) or one after the other if missed one of the previous days to fit it all in. Almost always rest Sunday (church, family), sometimes full body work out. Never > 4 days recovery between any activity. Will lift/run even if not recoverd so can fit it all in. On occasion, if a rest days comes up about 30 mins worth of power lifts. Will take time off if feeling overtrained. Take 5 days off every 10 weeks and start a new cycle.
train
i like as much as time allows but i always jump rope or so fast martial arts in between sets, and lots of finger push ups for good grip or mantis claws
That is absolute Cr*p. I train 2 in 3 days Using mainly isolation exersises, working each muscle once every 6-8 days.
Its not just for body building, this is the fastest way to build strength. I understand what ppl are saying, “its not practical strength” What they mean is, The new muscle may restrict movement and slow me down. This may be true, But it just mean you must train and strech more.
You dont train fast kicking and internal forms at the same time. Just think of flexibility and strength training as two diffrent parts of your training
I know what you mean by not having time thats one of the main reason i do muscle group splits as opposed to doing total body work outs.
by doing splits your only in the gym around 30mins or so and thats doing around 12sets per body part 4different exercises* 3 sets as opposed to full body workouts that take 1hour 30mins or more doing only 9sets or less per body part.
I agree that if you train full body 2or 3 per week you will get fitter than splits but you should be getting fitter training MA, splits give you more time to do that and i find less fatiging and i think you get just as strong.
Its just there is so many ppl on both sides e.g skip la cour trains only 1 per week(muscle group) where as keven levern and others train twice (and he is on the gas ) as opposed to la cour.
Its good to get some mortals opinions lmao.
The problem is that your metabolism can’t prosses enough protien to cope with you doing a full dody workout. It can only heal 30% of your muscles, so If you do a full body workout 3times a week, your loosing out of 70% of your potential.
If your going to do 3 workouts a week you’ll get stronger so mach faster to do this:- workout 1 - push = pecks, tris, delts
2 - pull = lats, traps, bis, core
3 - legs = hams, quads, gas, sol, glutes, tibs
this way you would heal properly and gain strength at a much faster pace.
I understand that some ppl just enjoy having a workout and dont do it for the gains in strength.
As for fittness, thats Crazy, you dont get fit and strong at the same time. All this body pump stuff is good, but if your serious you gotta seperate them. When “getting fit” your working your heart to make it stronger, But you need your heart to be at its best when lifting weights. If you do them at the same time your not gotta be able to lift as much cos you wont have the energy.
If you want to get fit then run, swim, box, skip do whatever you want but keep it seperate from your weight training cos they will both hinder the others potential.
News
Ive got news for you guys, the body remembers. if you concentrate on slow movements for extended periods without snapping into high speed moves in between you might increase strength for lifting weights but most of us dont have that as the end goal. do lots of slow moves and you will slow down gradually because you are training muscle memory into those slow powerful moves.
Fighting is very anaerobic, so exahusting the lungs and heart with a burst of technique or jump rope then grabbing heavy weights and busting out a set simulates the rigors of the fight. say what you will about recovery, but training one hundred to one thousand punches a day every day is much better for the fighter (not the fr eaking body builder)
i do agree on the split of body parts entirely
Since my school is at a full service gym i have seen true results of this type of training.
remember though to each his own.
Got some news for you, Sifu Darkfist - the body DOESN’T rememer, the brain does.
I dont think going slow would help too much, if at all. And even if it did, your time would be much better spent actually lifting weights, or training and streching.
I just explane something about lifting heavy…
You only ever have x amount of muscle fibers, lets just say its 100 to make it easy. the muscle fibers only work On, or Off, there is no in between.
When you lift your arm u’ll use 10 fibers. When you lift a brick you use 50 fibers, and when you lift the full max your using every fiber in your body.
So you see, if you do 50 pushups your not using the whole muscle. By lifting weights you can gain your full potential.
I do know what I’m talking about, My girlfriend is a level 3 NVQ Gym instructer and my best mate has a BA in Gym Based Exersise. And im double checking this against there book before I post.
Everyones body is a bit different, but basically I feel the best i ever have with what i do now. I only take two days off of lifting a week. I normally start off after a brief warmup with some dynamic lifts of plyos. After that i do a little of targeting a certain area in my body, normally mixed up with some core and isometric exercises. After this, given the time i will try to do some cardio immediately after, if not possible, later in the day i’ll do some interval cardio.
I’m not saying this program is good for anyone but me, but i feel great, and i feel i’m gaining stength and speed.
Thats a fairly good.
cardio is really important after weight training cos you need a the blood to surge round your muscles to wash away the lactic acid witch is a bi-product of ATP energy. If you dont you’ll end up getting knots in you muscles and it will tickle like hell when you get a massage!!!
I don’t like the standard break down of body parts routines for a few reasons.
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yes they do build strength but like I said, not functional strength. Take the bench press for example: How is this motion useful in any sport? Where in sport or life for that matter do you have a slow controlled pushing movement? You don’t. You have explosive movements.
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The body break down workouts take too darn long. I’ve done them before and have seen guys in the gym doing them. I’d say average time is 45 minutes to 2 hours. That’s too long and s…l…o…w. Also, most of these guys chat with their buddies most of the time.
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Isolated strength movements don’t exist in sport or life. So why practice them in the gym? Where on earth am I going to use the motion of a bicep curl? The only purpose for this exercise is to increase the size of the muscle so you can look good on the beach. Lame!
Just to clarify, I’m not saying that a full body routine 3 days a week is good either. What I am saying is full body motion is good.
What are good exercises?
- Pushups are great
- Pullups are great. When you do kipping pullups it turns into a full body motion. Great for you core.
- body weight squats for speed.
- box jumps.
- All Olympic lifts are awesome.
- Many more non traditional exercises.
All of you guys should try out the crossfit work out. It’s awesome.
before i did a lot of cardio i was always ticklish when getting massage, I still can’t get my legs massaged. Any rough massage, and i’m squirmin. Sucks.
Thats pretty funny! How is a bench press useful in MA!!! Whats the most basic thing you could do??? and the 1st thing ppl think of in martial arts? what do you do 1000 times a day?
are you ready? … Punching you T*at! Your pecks are responsible for moving ur arms forward and your triceps straighten your arm. Plus the position you are in at the end of your bench press is the strongest position your arm can make to take an inward force. maybe at some point you may even find the strenght usefull for getting off the floor quickly, or pushing someone or something.
No one should spend anymore than 1hr lifting heavy weights you body cant take the healing even if you can take the pace. and if you can go more than 1 hr youve not been training hard enough.
thats hardly too slow if your serious about it. You dont pay for your kung fu class and say that 45mins is too slow and your board, do you?
Your so dumb its getting me down. You wouldnt use a bicep curl in many sports, but a stronger bicep gives you more pulling power. Climbing - grapling - hook punch - carrying the shopping. Plus when you lift weight you are strengthening you core muscles(there the ones all round your mid-section, not just abs!!!). the stronger your core musles, the more they support your spine and the less chance you’ll get of having a bad back later in life.
Bodhitree - I was the same.
Best thing is to have a massive massive leg workout, it loosens up the musscle and gets it really warm, then go right in for your massage and ask her (him if your unlucky) to do you legs 1st.
I had the same problem, but it so much better after a couple of massages.
n.mitch,
In CST’s perspective, we do not isolate muscles into a specific group for specific training. However if you want to train muscles into groups and discuss when and how to do so will be than you want to discuss this with those who have the paradigm of bodybuilding and perhaps powerlifting? In the body building community, there is two schools of thoughts: more is better and less is more. Intensity, progressive loading, and volume will vary according your psychological temperament, genetic make up, past experience, and present specific goals. What works best for me in putting on size and strength is doing a double density program using my 45lb Clubbell bruiser. I am doing the ABC program: http://clubbell.tv/abc.html. I do not do specific isolated exercises, but I am adding “size” evenly all over by using my Bruiser. I have noticed that the principles of ABC and the attritubes have developed through CST has also increased my martial arts ability as well.
One in CST,
Bao