frequency of workouts

[turtlemilk]

Hello, I'm new here, and happy to find such a forum online. My questions:

I want to tone up my upper body and abs (and drop about 10 pounds). I'm trying to fit this all into my lunch hour, so I want to be efficient and effective.

I know it's good to wait 48 hours between workouts. For muscle-building, I've been doing a routine where one day I work on chest, shoulder, and delts, and then the next on biceps and triceps, figuring that I'm allowing each group to rest at least 48 hours before working them again. I've been working out 5 days a week, so one week one group gets 3 workouts and the next week that group gets 2 workouts. Is this okay, or should I just do all of them 3 times a week (e.g., M/W/F)? I usually do 3 sets of 15 reps on each machine, at a weight that is difficult for me to finish the last set, with about a 60-second rest between sets.

Also, can/should I do ab workouts every day, or is it best to let them rest 48 hours between exercises as well? I've seen conflicting information on that.

Three other pertinent bits of info--1) my legs and butt are strong and muscular, and I don't feel a need to build them up like with my upper body/abs; 2) for cardio, I walk fast an average of 3-5 miles a day (outside, not on machines); 3) as of this past month, my diet is almost entirely whole grains, proteins, fruits and veggies, and "good" fats like nuts and avocados and lowfat dairy (I feel great!).

Any advice or critique of my little plan would be most appreciated. Thanks!

[ultimatehlth]

Hi turtlemilk,

If you are new to working out I would suggest 3 full body workouts per week. Pick 10 exercises, do 3 sets of 8-12 reps and no more. If you have been working out for a while a split that I use for clients is chest/back/abs. Alternate with delts/biceps/triceps. Do the first day of each hard and the second sub-maximal (a couple of reps less than you can with lighter weight) you want to speed recovery not overwhelm the muscle. Additional abdominal work won't make the area smaller, you're better served using the time for cardio.

Personal Trainer Studio City - Burbank

[Fygle]

Mind if I ask what would be considered a suitable time to be doing full body before thinking about body split? A year or more maybe? Do you get stagnant results from full body workouts after a while?

[Boss Man]

Most old schoolers could switch to splits in as little as 4-6 weeks. Once the 4-6 weeks adaption process with TBT 3x a week, had occured the switch could be achieved.

Stagnancy of the TBT system, depends on 2 things. How the body responds to a specific format of TBT I.E. the chosen exercises sets, reps, plus how diet affects things. Smaller factors like water, sleep and hormone secetions, come into play.

TBT can be made more challenging by going for close ot max lifts and alternating workout setup ever 3-6 weeks, though I say, if a programme keeps working stick with it if you like, as often the a plateau has little to do with a schedule that the body has adapted to, but a lack of caloric intake, so plateauing would be better served sorting out diet before consiering training changes as oftne people flit from one adaption to another, sometimes potentially wasting up to maybe 2-3 months, before considering diet to be the key to further progress.

There are 3 things to consider weith TBT and splits.

1. Don't overload with weight.

2. Don't use sloppy form or technique.

3. Don't waste time with pissy or physically risky exercises, like Wrist curls or behind the Neck stuff, that may place risk on certain joints or tissues, or simply waste time utilising less muscle fibres than other exercises.

One main difference is thart with Splits you either do a 5 day one, a 3 day one, where you double up area, like Chest / Triceps for example, or you do a 4 day one, Upper, Lower, Upper Lower.

Some say TBT allows you to train again before atrophy occurs, because of the timeframe between workouts, but others prefer the higher volume splits will allow and think the growth potential in relation to the atrophy betwen individual body part workouts, is not significant to cause a stunted progress effect, allowing you to really work the specified area more throughly, with a mix of compound and more isolatory style exercises.

Eother / or will do, it's just a case of if you wish to stay on TBT or go to splits and if you choose splits would you go for a 3,4 or 5 day one. Providing you don;'t do the 3 aforementioned things, you won't have any real issues with injury risk, or shouldn't whatever training style you use.

[Fygle]

Cheers mate, love your in depth replies. I have definitely felt behind the neck exercise problems, being set back 2 weeks from a muscle pull in my upper back sholder area from military barbell press behind head. Never doing those again. I love compound movements, squats being a definite favourite. This is the one exercise that really gives a feeling of working the whole body, even cardio!

I'm a high metabolism type, I can pretty much eat how much I like w/o gaining any fat, so I'm eating plenty plenty around workout sessions. Hoping I can keep doing FB for a long time w/o losing progress. I'm still new at FB exercises, 3-4 weeks, and I can definitely see it doing more for me than more isolation like movements. I have moved up in weight in bench especially, and other exercises for the first time since I started these.

Small question regarding muscle adaptation to specific movements. If you do a movement routine for a couple months, then change to a different one, will the muscle group "forget" the previous one you did, so that you can return to it again after a while with fresh stimulation?

Apologies for hijacking the thread.

[Boss Man]

What you're talking about can happen and if you think about it, if that didn't happen, eventually you'd run out of exercises to use, if evey time you switched back to an old one, it didn't create or maintain change for you.

It's not forgetting as such, just slightly changing the way the muscles and tissues are emphasised, so the body must adapt to what may be greatly or slightly altered stimulii, in the specific area(s), each time you switch.