PTC

The Million Dollar Bodypart Challenge
by Chad Waterbury
Let's imagine two guys: Both are 5'10", 165 pounds, 14% bodyfat, and both have the same genetic make-up. One guy wants to build a body that looks and moves like UFC champ Georges St. Pierre, the other wants his body to look and move like bodybuilding legend Dorian Yates.
Should these two guys use different muscle-gaining methods? No. The rules of building muscle don't change whether you're trying to add five or 50 pounds of muscle. You must focus on getting stronger and increasing your training volume. For those who have the luxury, the most effective way to increase volume is through a higher frequency.
But should our two guys use different exercises to gain muscle? Yes, and this is the biggest difference between training a bodybuilder and an athlete. A guy who wants to move like an athlete must train with movements that challenge stability across the entire body and that force the joints to work through a full range of motion.
A bodybuilder doesn't need to do pistols, but a combat athlete does. And a barbell bench press from chest to lockout is not a full range of motion exercise when you consider the function of the shoulder blades.
Should one follow a total body workout and the other follow an upper/lower split? Probably. Most bodybuilders need to train with more volume per bodypart than an athlete. Therefore, upper/lower splits are good for them. But keep in mind that an upper/lower split is where the conversation ends if you need to gain more than 10 pounds of muscle fast.
A chest/back, legs/abs, and shoulders/arms split each week will take you a helluva lot longer to gain 10 pounds of muscle compared to either of the protocols I prescribed above. Don't let anyone tell you different.
Here's my dream challenge, if I had a million bucks to spare. I'd like to take the coaches who are the biggest proponents of bodypart splits and challenge them to add 10 pounds of muscle to a natural guy as quickly as possible. The coaches can train the guy for an hour, three times per week. The first coach to add 10 pounds of pure muscle to his client gets a million bucks.
I guarantee you this: you wouldn't see a single bodypart split.
I guarantee you this: you wouldn't see a single bodypart split.

AndyMitchell

I find it interesting that after twenty to thirty years we have gone backwards.
The above article is a prime example of the crap that is being written.
The average production of results has steadily declined during the last twenty years; the average results being produced today are not better than they were forty years ago- instead they are worse.
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Christian

Geared or not looks better then a bodybuilder...

I wonder if he has an arm and abs day ..

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AndyMitchell

What you young kids all seem to miss here is that you cannot make goats piss out of gasoline.

You blindly follow some blokes routine in the belief that one day you will look like it.
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as long as you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting.

PowerBuilder

never is a pretty big time frame. That's also a pretty unusual statement. I don't think it's a situation of 'you can Only gain 10lb of muscle doing whole body training'. Since, I can't see any reason gaining 10lb of muscle doing a split workout isn't possible.

Here's a point...

- - You can do a whole body split & gain 10lb of LBM
- - You can do a mixed body split & gain 10lb of LBM
- - You can do somewhat of a whole body & mixed workout split & gain - - 10lb of muslce
- - You can do somewhat of a whole body & mixed workout split & NOT gain 10lb of muslce
- - You can do a whole body split & NOT gain 10lb of LBM
- - You can do a split body workout & NOT gain 10lb of LBM

please follow this link for some clarification

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AndyMitchell

All this works, working the body as one is more efficient than a split and more effective.
Someone once said; the human body is a unit and must be treated as such, you don't feed your body in sections and you sleep the entire body at the same time.
I think that more than 3 weekly workouts will result in a condition of overtraining.
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as long as you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting.

Kyle Aaron

Good old Chad Waterbury. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

I should like to see these people, PB, who do splits right from the beginning to today and who make 10+lbs of lean mass gains. Because I just don't see them in gyms.

Now, I am willing to believe that a lot of the benefit of the full-body routine compared to the split is psychological, in that since the best workout is the one you stick to, full-body workouts are easier to stick to, and that if someone stuck to a split they'd get as good results.

It's much the same as how squats and curls together vs just curls don't actually have any long-term physiological thing that makes the squats help your arms grow, but the attitude you must have or develop to do hard squats makes your curling training more intense, too. Likewise, a full-body routine is just more intense than most splits people do. So perhaps a lot of the benefit is psychological rather than physiological. But there it is, it's still a benefit, it still helps. Full-body helps you be more consistent in your training.

The thing is that people don't stick to splits, they chop and change their workouts. The sort of person who enjoys 8 different exercises a workout and 24 different exercises a week... three months from now they might have a few favourites, but at least 16 of the 24 exercises will be different ones.

These are the same people who'll latch onto the latest fad diet or supplement, and will have forgotten it and be doing something else 1-3 months from now.

Consistent effort over time gets results. Inconsistent effort, not so much.

None of which means that people in the first 6-12 weeks of training won't benefit from splits or whatever else you care to come up with. The body changes because it's doing more than it was before; when people begin, anything is more than the nothing they were doing, so their body adapts.

I mean after that beginner time, and before they're advanced.

I've no idea what these imaginary coaches would do when faced with a one million dollar prize. But prize or not, I'd give people training appropriate to their capabilities and goals. Which for almost all beginners will be a full-body routine, it's only after that, once they've built the base of strength and fitness and flexibility, that we go onto stuff specific for their particular goals - whether that be modelling or some sport. The beginner might have one or two exercises to correct muscle imbalances or to help rehab from particular injuries, but the base will be a full-body routine.

Or we could put it this way: Markos has his people do a full-body routine, and has had 40 or so people deadlift 200+kg there. You can't deadlift 200+kg without gaining some lean mass along the way to it. Please tell us about a gym where people doing splits right from the start till today can deadlift 200+kg.

Shit, even I've had people doing full-body routines and their bodies have changed and they've got stronger and fitter, and I've only just started as a trainer.

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lkt004

Really, have you ever trained more than three days per week? I have, alot of my clients have, alot of my friends have. They werent overtrained, olympic lifters train 6 days a week, 2 times a day. It all depends on how much you eat and sleep, a little to do with genetics and a whole lot to do with your mind set.

Do you have any evidence to support your wildy inaccurate statement?

AndyMitchell

Have or are?

Evidence? Self evident.

If you can train your clients / friends more than three times a week over a protracted time where the intensity of work is high and progressive, good for you
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as long as you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting.

lkt004

Post up your diet whilst you were training 4 or more days per week, because that was most likely the problem, not the fact you were overtraining.