This is going to be a fairly short post compared to what I can say on the topic but it was prompted by my own changing of my split. Obviously, there are many muscle groups in your body. Major muscle groups include pull muscles, push muscles, lower body, core, and so on. Some people like to split them up even further into back, biceps, triceps, chest, abs, quads, calves, and even more. Some people like to split them up even more but I won’t do that to you.
Depending on your fitness goals, you might be trying to focus on certain muscle groups more than others. If you’re trying to lose weight, you’re probably targeting all those groups equally in some intense interval training paired with lots of cardio to cut down. If you’re trying to gain mass and strength you might be methodically working out each group in detail in order to build clear-cut muscles so your arms don’t fit in your shirt. Either way, it is very intelligent to plan your approach to achieving your goals.
Every personal trainer initially assesses their client’s health conditions, background in fitness, personal goals, nutritional plan and diet and so forth. This information helps the trainer create the most fitting workouts and lifestyle for their client to achieve these goals. Even personal trainers and professional bodybuilders have trainers and nutritionists that help them achieve their goals so don’t think that you’re too good or smart for some help. It’s always helpful to have someone objective pushing you and leading the way, constantly motivating you to achieve your own goals. It’s hard for me to push myself to failure when I don’t have that motivation or person telling me try harder. Whatever your motivation might be, some extra push can help if the person with you knows what they are doing.
Splits have many depending factors, such as time. How often do you plan to do strength workouts? Every day? Every other? Maybe every 3 days. Depending on which one, you want to plan your workouts accordingly to give enough rest and recovery time. What happens when we don’t give ourselves proper recovery time? We overtrain and lose progress. So plan to give yourself proper rest in between each muscle group to avoid overtraining.
You typically wouldn’t want to go to the gym and work your chest out every day. This would not allow proper time to recover. Depending on your personal recovery rate, you may be ready to workout a certain group every other day, although that is rare. I typically allow somewhere around 4 days before repeating a workout that is targeting the same muscle group if they are intense workouts. If you plan on doing full body workouts multiple times a week and are not trying to gain massive amounts of strength, power, or size, less rest is necessary.
Some of the greatest bodybuilders of all time have claimed to workout only two to three times a week while some workout six days a week doing double sessions every day. No matter what you decide, to do make sure you are allowing proper recovery time. If you have any questions about how to fit “cardio”, strength training, performance training or whatever you do together to maximize results, please let us know in the comment section below. With these tips, we hope you can stay even more hungry and fit!
You may also like:
