Full Body Workouts For The Advanced

I hear this question all the time: “I’ve been doing full body workouts three times a week for 6 months, when should I switch to splits?” And the answer is classical, “When you can’t progress, do 2 day splits, do a few months, and 3-4 day splits, then you need to work every muscle group only once a week.” Personally, I don’t think this is the correct answer and that’s why I’m here writing this. But if you think this is an unchangable law like gravity, this article is not for you.

Firstly let’s think about why full body workouts don’t work after a while. If you keep repeating the cycle “lunges, pullups, pushups/lunges pullups, pushups” over and over for months, it will stop working. Which program and repetition of exercises work forever? None. You can get the smartest routine from the most intelligent trainer, it won’t work forever.

But once a program doesn’t work, is adding exercises the only way to start getting gains again? NO. What do we do? We change exercises, set/rep ranges, rest durations between exercises. But most of the time, we love leaving full body workouts and jumping to splits, saying “Ohh I’m not a begginer now, because this program doesn’t work anymore. Yay!” Nobody considers adding one more session (Working out 4 times a week instead of two), changing reps/sets, or anything at all! Just jump into splits because you’re not a begginer anymore. Ego, ego, nothing else.

First of all, are full body workouts only for begginers? No. I hate hearing “Advanced bodybuilders recover slowly, that’s why they need to workout less frequently.” There is no such thing. This is only true because you’re literally toasting your muscles. This is indeed not the only way for an advanced lifter to gain muscle.

I always believe what a lifter needs is variety. First few months, you’ll improve no matter what you do due to neural-motor adaptations. But then, you need variety, and this is not only about splits or “doing more exercises”.

Variety has a lot of benefits. Especially if you’re advanced and able to lift heavy, you need variety not only for steady gains, but also for decreasing the risk of overuse of joints. Yes, I’m saying you can keep getting stronger and bigger with total body workouts but you need variety if you don’t want to overtrain but at the same time you want to workout frequently.

The point is; do full body workouts every session but don’t repeat yourself. That’s why I love classifying exercises. One day I’ll do a quads-dominant exercise, a horizontal pulling exercise, a horizontal pushing exercise. The next time, I’ll do a hams-dominant exercise, a vertical pulling exercise and a vertical pushing exercise. I’ll choose one more compound exercise according to my needs. If my legs are weak, I’ll add one more exercise for legs. If I want to train my upper body more, I’ll choose a horizontal pulling or pushing exercise on the first day and I’ll add a vertical pulling or pushing exercise for the next session. So I got 4 exercises for every session. Then I’ll add 2 additional exercises. Be it curls, tricep extensions, crunches, calf raises, side bends, etc.

Before making it more complicated, let me tell you my favourite exercises that everyone can do (Especially if you call yourself advanced and believe full body workouts won’t work for you).

Horizontal pushing exercises: Bench press, low incline bench press (10-30 degrees), dumbbell bench press, close grip bench press.
Horizontal pulling exercises: Bent-over row, chest supported row, seated row, rear delt row.
Quads-dominant exercises: Back squat, front squat, lunge, step-up.
Hams-glute dominant exercises: Deadlift, sumo style deadlift, snatch grip deadlift, goodmorning.
Vertical pushing exercises: Chest dip, shoulder press, high incline bench press (around 45 degrees)
Vertical pulling exercises: Pullup, chin-up, upright row
Additional exercises: Woodchop, standing or donkey calf raise, hanging leg raise, lateral raise, reverse fly. Okay, I hear you. Add curls and tricep pushdowns/extensions to the list.

Now to make things easier, I’ll say how workouts would look like:

Workout A
Back Squat
Bent-over Row
Bench Press
Incline Bench (I added a pushing movement as the 4th exercise)
Bicep Curl (I know you’ll add arm isolation exercises anyway)
Woodchop (I love this one, it works abs and obliques both)

Workout B
Deadlift
Pullup
Upright Row (Workout A had two pushing movement, and this one has two pulling movements for equal training)
Chest Dip
Tricep Pushdown
Calf Raise

So do each workout twice a week, making 4 times in total. It’s not as easy as it seems. To decrease the risk of burnout and emphasize different motor units (Remember, variety is necessary), I suggest alternating heavy/light workouts. So, if first workout A is heavy (6-8 reps), first workout B should be relatively light (10-12 reps). And second workout A of the weak should be light too, 10-12 reps. Finally, the second time you do the workout B, go heavy, 6-8 rep range.

Following your progress is important. You need to keep track of every single workout separately here. You can’t compare the first workout A with the second workout A. Exercises are same but reps are different. Of course you can’t compare workout A and B because exercises are different. So think about this as split routines. Compare heavy workout A to the next week’s heavy workout A. I hope this is clear.

I’ve mentioned a formula I use in a few topics here. It goes like this:
Total reps x Weight used = Total volume.
Let’s say you did squats 4 sets of 6 seps and used 200 pounds on monday. It would be: 24 (Total reps) x 200 = 4800. In the next heavy workout A, try to beat that number. Doing one more rep, adding a pound would do the trick. If you can’t do anything, rest less between sets. If you keep sets, reps and weight same but just decrease the rest between sets, you still beat the previous session because the intensity per minute becomes higher. There is a difference between completing a workout in 6 minutes from completing it in 10 minutes.

Now think about it. You do squats 2 times, and deadlifts 2 times a week. Since you’ll start every workout fresh, you can do them intensely too. Think about your leg routine of a split workout that lets you work them once a week. I highly doubt you have 4 exercises that are as effective as squats and deadlifts. Most people, even squatters, move to crappy exercises once they do squats. I don’t blame them, because it’s pretty demanding. Most leg routines look like “Squats, lunges, leg extensions, leg curls”. Now tell me which one looks more effective? That or doing squats/deadlifts intensely twice a week each? Same goes for back and chest. You still do plenty of exercises for them, probably more intensely than split, exhausting routines would allow you. Personally, I believe many people are not able to intensely perform four challenging, compound four exercises which works the same muscle group in one session. Your intensity decreases, you have to start resting more between sets, or you just can’t help but choose less demanding exercises. After all, working whole body in one session will result in more hormonal responses and bigger gains, even if you keep the intensity and volume same with split routines.

As you may have noticed, I didn’t add any direct shoulder exercise, except for upright rows. That’s because anterior delts and rear delts will be engaged during all chest/back exercises. But if you’re not satisfied, then you have limitless options, you can just switch exercises and add some exercises according to your personal preference. Or you can make workout C and D for more variety. Then I’d suggest more lower body exercises, choice is yours but mine would look like this:

Workout C
Front squat
Lunge
Low incline bench press
Chest-supported row
Hang raise
Donkey calf raise

Workout D
Sumo-style deadlift
Goodmorning
Chin-up
Shoulder press
Lateral raise
Reverse fly

Okay, I’m just typing freestyle. You can be more creative than me. Just choose 4 compound exercises and 2 additional exercises, work all body parts with 6 exercises but think about this as splits; choose different exercises and don’t do two same routine in a row. And workout frequently, as you did when you were a begginer. Also be creative about reps/sets. Do 5x5, 6x4, 4x12, 3x8, etc. Alternate heavy/light workouts, and keep track of each workout. Like I said, even if you do 2 full body workouts, it will be 4 different workouts. If you use different rep/set/tempo of reps parameters with same exercises, they become different routines so you have to keep track of each separately. And always try to beat your previous workout. Try to break a record every workout. If you don’t, you can’t expect gains. But make sure you’re safe and not sacrificing strict form just to increase your performance.

Note: This is not an advice to anybody. I say “Do this and that” just to say it. I did not sit back and think about designing the example programs I wrote above, I didn’t even think about exercises in details, just typed ad lib. I’m just trying to say that, most people lack variety. There is nobody that adds 10 more exercises to each session and design 10-day split when that 6 day split doesn’t work. When your split routines don’t work, you try plateau busting techniques and keep sticking to split routines. But everybody will claim they should just give up full body splits once it stops working.. Still apply to those techniques, but just keep doing full body workouts, why not?

I’m not denying benefits of split routines, there are advantages of it over full body workouts, like full body workouts have advantages of them. I do splits too but not because “I’m advanced.” I need variety like everybody so splitting is one of the ways for it. It helps to break plataeu, sometimes you need to stimulate muscles for longer. In this article, I tried to show you variety is not just about adding more exercises to a session. You can still do all of those exercises but spread it through the week, working your whole body at once every time. Again, this is harder than it sounds and it’s taxing on body to workout 4 times a week that way, so don’t try this if it’s too much for your limit. By the way, my personal favourite is 2 day splits and working out 6 times a day. If you’re not used to it, it will burn you out completely. But like full body workouts, 2 day splits don’t mean you do same exercises every other day. For constant gains through frequent workouts without overtraining, you need variety even after you are built up and adapted to working out frequently. I’ll do quads-dominant exercises on my first lower body day, and do hams-dominant movements on my second lower body day. I won’t perform same exercises or same rep/set ranges in two consecutive upper body sessions. So it's kind of splitting 2 day splits. You get the idea.

I just don’t agree advanced lifters are doomed to 5-6 day splits. I don’t think it makes sense to spend half hour on curls, spend another half hour on skull crushes and call it arms day, like arms don’t work on other days. Personally, the furthest I’ve gone is 4 day splits. As I said in the beggining, if you enjoy what you do and you believe that’s what you have to do, go ahead. But I don’t find it natural to toast muscles and let them rest for so long. I’ve said this before, it feels like lying on bed whole week but once your alarm clock rings on Monday, you get up and suddenly start sprinting until you can’t breath. Then come back and rest whole week again. I don’t usually give my muscles more than 4 days of rest, I’ve lifted weights for 7 years, and never had problem. If you avoid joint problems, don’t ruin your tendons by overtraining, your muscles adapt to working frequently. Yes, if correct exercises are chosen, full body workouts work for the advanced too.

great thread. Should be stickied.

Wow, too much info to read right now. I will have to come back to read it even though i am not quite at this level yet. From what I have read so far, this is typical dodo awesomeness. 

Not exactly. Doing ten sets of squats and ten sets of deadlifts a week is obviously not "doing a little bit of everything" and it is more than most people who follow split routines do. It still takes 4-5 hours a week, not a limited time. And it is how many old school pro bodybuilders used to work. 6 variations of curls in one session have been popularized by modern bodybuilders. However, olympic athletes in eastern Europe still work that way. Some of them train twice a day, AM and PM sessions, total body workouts. It is not just to maintain what you have, it is actually AT LEAST as effective as splits. I know it from experience. People are biased, nobody is going to try that so I don't expect people to agree with me. Going by the book makes people sure.

Was a good read, nice work!

Ive recently changed up my routine in the last few weeks to a 2 day split routine with legs/shoulders monday and thursday then back/chest on tuesday and wednesday. Before this I'd been doing a 5 split routine for about 6 months to a year. I have to say Ive made great gains in the last few weeks on the lesser split! Im getting my body used to working more frequently then in september Im starting a total full body routine.

Possibly the best point you said and what I think has helped me make my gains in the last few weeks is when you were talking about how when you are doing a full body routine you can stick to the really big good exercises like squats and deadlifts rather than having to pad out some time to fill an hour with lesser exercises. Doing this helps me focus a lot better too, after all my favourite exercises to do are the big compounds and Ive always got more drive to push myself harder than with curls for example. And obviously like you said doing squats and deadlifts 2 times a week is going to be pushing your body harder than just doing them once a week then filling in with leg extensions

I did not read all the words you wrote but some of what you say is sort of a personal opinion, first off I`m old school, don`t believe in short cuts and like hard work, when younger full body workouts were fine but as you get older the body can`t recover as well, I had no probs doin 3hr sessions 4 days a week, now knowledge has spoken and norm says 1 hour is all you need to achieve. I do a 3 or 4 day split for 2 main reasons 1: save time 2: enables to fully concentrate on various muscle. sorry theres no ego with age and safety. I do agree with you on variety but that comes with knowledge, not many know the various exersizes avalable for each group eg I can think of at least 12 different bicep variations and actualyy rarely do an exersize more than twice in a row. For my clients I change their program monthly, but I get bored fortnightly. Sometimes I do full body as a quick workout by just doing basic compounds but normally I work on isolation which I gather you know needs a lil more understanding, sorta why I take a likin to Scooby`s back to basics and uncomplicated simplicity..keep up the good work I`ll try read all of it later..cheers

@ozmuz: You clearly responded without reading it all. If you read it, you'll see I didn't recommend more than 6 workouts per session. It's pretty brief type of workouts I do and suggest. I never recommended 3 hour sessions, that would be crazy and impossible to complete. What saves time is full body workouts with compound movements. Not curls and kickbacks. When I say variation, I don't mean 12 variation of curls. I posted my upcoming routine to progress dairies, you can read it. There is only one curl per week! You don't have to know a hundred workouts for a muscle group, most of them are pointless anyway. But you can create a hundred routines just by using squats. Variety is not just exercises. Rep/set ranges, rest duration between workouts, tempo of reps are all important. You can use 10 exercises but if you always use 8-12 reps of 3-4 sets, it's not variety at all! Apart from that, I've only had joint problems when I focused on specific body parts for an hour. Full body workouts are safer if you ask me. More challenging to the body, less damaging for joints. By the way, everything we write is our personal opinions, I haven't claimed otherwise. But more than that, I know it works for me and other people who do it. I also know there are many athletes that follow routines designed by the same philosophy. This doesn't mean split routines don't work. I don't claim that. I just stand against split fans claiming full body routines wouldn't work. It goes against general belief so I expected negative comments when I wrote this.

@dread: It's pretty personal. I said in the beggining, if you don't choose compound movements, it won't work much. If you don't do squats, deadlifts, make sure you take it slow, get an experienced trainer to watch your form, adapt to compound movements like squats safely, use light weights. I took months before going for heavy squatting, and more for deadlifting.

When you improve and make sure those movements are no problem to you, then you can start doing it 2-3 times a week. Give yourself 1-2 days between workouts. Your body will tell you if it is too or less frequent. After that, you can start trying 4 times a week. But 5 weeks is pretty short, adapt to weights slowly first

No no, I didn't mean you can't move any muscle. If you want to work frequently, that shouldn't be your goal anyway. Just stimulate enough to come back stronger, but you can't kill a muscle completely. I was trying to say that, it is different from working a specific muscle group. Let's say you only worked your chest, you'd flex it, intentionally rotate your shoulders inwards or hold your chest and feel good that it burns. But when you finish full body workouts, you don't have to test anything because whenever you move, you feel the burn in some muscle. When you walk it's your legs, when you push the door its your chest, triceps, when you pull something, it's your lats that feel "worked". You don't feel damaged, you feel different from split routines, it is such a pleasant feeling. Yes, you're right about starting fresh and being able to train intensely.