Split trainingWelcome to building muscle 101's split training routines. As you progress beyond the beginning levels of weight training, you will need to increase the intensity levels of your workouts to further stimulate your body into growth. However, adding more exercises on top of a full body workout can start to take up alot of time. Doing a full body workout with 3 or 4 exercises per body part will take about 2 to 3 hours to perform. I don't think anyone wants to spend that much time in the gym and I strongly recommend that you don't start doing this. The answer is to start using split routines. Split training involves "splitting" your muscle groups into groups and on different days. The simplest way to divide your program is to save all the upper body exercises for one training session and then utilize all the lower body exercises in another session. This is probably the most basic slit training routine going. Alternatively, you could do a pull push workout which is another basic split routine that is designed to use your pulling movements (such as curls or rows) on one day and use the pushing motions the following day (such as bench presses). When you use split workouts, you can work out two successive days or more in a row becuase you are not working the same muscle groups each day. One day you may be working chest and legs, and the next day the back and arms will be worked. By doing this type of split training, your recuperative systems can cope with this amount of stress without becoming overloaded. This way, you can train everyday or every other day with the same, if not more intensity than if you trained your whole body once every two days. Increasing intensity requires more time between workout sessions for your muscles to recover from the stress of the workouts. As you progress from the beginners level, you want to add proven mass building techniques to your routines. This will require the use of split training routines. With split training, you can generally avoid the duplication of exercises performed on different days. However, this doesn't seem to interfere with recuperation times. It is concentrated performance of isolating exercises that interfere's with muscle recuperation. For example, it's not a good idea to perform a heavy duty tricep close grip bench presse workout one day and follow it up by doing bench presses the next day because both exercises vigoursly work the triceps and this would interfere with muscle recuperation. One the other hand, you could work bench press and also incorporate the triceps muscles in the same workout. This way you can rest the muscles more thoroughly. There are endless combinations of split training routines. I've outlined a few below but please keep in mind that split training is a trial and error process. As long as you remember that your muscles need time to rest, preferrably 48 hours to 96 hours, you can structure split training routine that reflects your needs and goals. |