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daswiss14 · Joined: 17 Oct 2006 Posts: 15 Location: leeds, uk

I am a 19 year old student who has been into going to the gym for the last few years. In the last year i have learnt a few things from a friend who was very much into weight lifting etc and i put on some good muscle mass. I did this by a healthy diet, going to the gym 3 times per week (concentrating on two muscle groups each time i went) and attending amateur boxing classes twice per week. This new year i have started boxing training twice a week, 5-a-side football once a week and kickboxing twice a week so i feel that i am doing enough exercise. However i want to maintain the mass i have but not really put anything significant on. If i can only realistically get down to the gym twice per week, what would you guys recommend in terms of what muscle groups to exercise at each time? or should i make a full body work out for each time i go?

SarahPT · Joined: 09 Sep 2006 Posts: 583 Location: Western Maine

Hi there,
I do think that 2 full body workouts would be good. That would be helpful for you to maintain your muscle mass. You can do some good compound, free weight exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench press, pull ups, rows, etc so you're hitting everything in a short period of time.
Make sure you take some rest days as well.

Sarah

swanso5 · Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:48 pm Post subject:

sarah is spot on but just a little something to think about...a lot of times someone suggests full body workouts, the other person will think of combining all of their present exercises into 1 session...sample:

they usually do:

chest/delt/tri's day - bench / incline / fly / push ups / military press / side raise / rear delt raise / shrugs / pushdowns / dips

legs/back/bi's day - squats / leg ext / leg curls / deadlifts / pull ups / rows / db curls / bb curls / reverse curls

wehat they try and do is to do both of these already long sessions into 1 giant 2hrs+ marathon session because they have been advised to do full body workouts.

the point?

full body sesions use full body compound movements...all single joint / isolation movements are taken out and only compounds are used such as deep squats for quads, hams and glutes instead of sqauats, leg ext then leg curls and wted push ups or heavy bench presses for most chest, shoulder and tri work...as you can see efficency is the key here.

so more to the point, instead of focusing on muscle groups for your abbreveiated worjouts as your looking at now, focus on 4 - 6 movements that use multiple muscles