My Training Routine, too much?

Well my workout schedule is very simple for me. Some people say its too much but I don't seem bothered by it. Tell me what you guys think.

Basically I workout every body part twice a week. I usually workout everything in 3 days, then there's a day in the middle to play with.

For example,

Sunday Chest and Tris
Monday Back and Bis
Tuesday Shoulders and Legs or OFF
Wednesday OFF or Shoulders and Legs
Thursday Chest and Tris
Friday Back and Bis
Saturday Legs & Shoulders
Sunday REPEAT

Cardio and Ab workouts are thrown in here and there, whenever its convenient. Sometimes I dont even take a day off, and just focus on Cardio and Abs. Or I might cut out one of the shoulder and leg workouts to add in the Cardio if I want to take a day off.

My main concern is how much I'm working out. I basically have two 3 day cycles. So that leaves me with one day to play with. I workout every body part twice a week, I think it's fine, I find myself lifting more weight consisently, but some people tell me this is too much?

I"ve had a couple people recomend a workout that would basically have me working out each body part only ONCE per week, then taking the remaining 2 or 3 days off.

What do you guys reccomend?

Most people will tell you that if your goal is to gain mass, you should work out everything once a week. Muscle grows when it's at rest, not while you're in the gym- And while your muscles might feel like they're ready for another workout later in the same week, they actually still have some rebuilding to do. Getting the right amount of rest is something a lot of people overlook.
My advice? Try working everything once a week, taking weekends off, for six months. See how you like the results.

In my opinion, if your looking to gain mass, you should be in the gym 4, at most 5 days per week.
If your in the gym too much, your gonna burn too much. Like most other people around, I would recommend a nice heavy overloading workout once per week for each muscle group.

ORIGINAL: nickflnj
workout every body part twice a week, I think it's fine, I find myself lifting more weight consisently, but some people tell me this is too much?

I believe its only TOO much if you are injuring or damaging your body in any way. If you are seeing good gains and are happy with the progress you're making stick with it. It might be an idea to change things round for a few months and see how you like it and how your body responds to one muscle group per day. If you don't get any stronger or any bigger, go back to how you were. Everyone is different. Good luck.

Stu.

ORIGINAL: stuartg40

ORIGINAL: nickflnj
workout every body part twice a week, I think it's fine, I find myself lifting more weight consisently, but some people tell me this is too much?

I believe its only TOO much if you are injuring or damaging your body in any way. If you are seeing good gains and are happy with the progress you're making stick with it. It might be an idea to change things round for a few months and see how you like it and how your body responds to one muscle group per day. If you don't get any stronger or any bigger, go back to how you were. Everyone is different. Good luck.

EXCELLENT post! Too bad I can't rate that....that deserves 3 stars!

"Try and fail is the manner of losers. Try and learn is the way of the strong." -- Unknown

[image]http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/8302/opensuse2oi.jpg[/image].

If it happens to work for you than fine, and no routine is the "right" way of course...if your making good gains on that routine, than by all means, keep it up....but if your not getting as good progress as you'd hope, I would recommended cutting back the amount of days your in the gym. We all know that rest is very important.

The only reason I would suggest changing something that's working for you is this- It sounds like you might be overtraining, which isn't good. You might be seeing gains now, but it could also lead to injuries... Muscle takes longer than we think to recover from a heavy routine- The fact that it's not sore anymore isn't necessarily enough of a sign that it's time to work it out again. Besides, what can it hurt to try switching to once a week per body part? If you're getting results now, you might just get even better results by giving your body more rest.

Comments in this thread are awesome! If you start to train heavy (near your max) you'll soon see that a few days rest won't be enough to come back and hit your maximum again. What I've found is that if I go lighter but more reps, I can do it again. If I go heavy, I need about a week to recover. If you are doing each bodypart 2x a week, you can't be doing your max. And maybe that's fine. Maybe that's not your goal.

Switch up the routine and go a bit heavier, with each body part 1x a week. And don't overdo the sets because you are only going in 1x a week.

Variety is a nice thing. It's another overlooked aspect of motivation. Switching it up. If your current routine is working for you and you are seeing good gains, maybe keep it. But if you need something to spice it up and switch things around, you might try going heavier but allowing for a full week's rest between body parts.

Slayerboy was right.. that was a great post.

Marc C. David - NGA CPT
Author of NoBull Bodybuilding
www.nobullbodybuilding.com

hey MDA, i know muscles adapt so to speak to increased weights and ONE is not supposed to increase the weight too much becuase it will interupt the muscles ability to adapt........so my question is CAN THE BODY ADAPT TO OVERTRAINING?? and once that happens, ONE would be superhuman??? kinda FAR OUT.....but made me think today

i know muscles adapt so to speak to increased weights and ONE is not supposed to increase the weight too much becuase it will interupt the muscles ability to adapt

The reason why you increase weight is because your muscles WILL adapt to the weight. That does not make size gains. You might can some strength, but not size. The human body is an amazing thing. It will try to adapt to whatever it is exposed to in order to keep it in harmony and "safe". Increasing weight each lift, if possible, makes it so that the muscle DOESN'T adapt and FORCES the muscle to grow in size or strength. You can keep training with the same weight, but you will not gain size over time because your muscles will have adapted to it.

Now, my question is this....Do you burn the same amount of calories if you constantly increase the weight as apposed to letting your muscles adapt to one weight for a while? I would honestly say that you would burn less because the workout is less intensive. But, you would do this if you just wanted to keep your muscle that you have and not gain size.

"Try and fail is the manner of losers. Try and learn is the way of the strong." -- Unknown

[image]http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/8302/opensuse2oi.jpg[/image].

here is my schedule, what do you think about it!

Monday
Back 3 exercises 4 sets 10 reps
Biceps 2 exercises 4 sets 10 reps

Tuesday
Rest

Wednesday
Chest 3 exercises 4 sets 10reps
Triceps 2 exercises 4 sets 10 reps

Thursday
Sholders 3 exercises 4sets 10 reps
Biceps 2 exercises 4sets 10 reps
Abs 2 exercises 4sets 12-15 reps

Friday
Rest

Saturday
Chest 3 exercises 4 sets 10 reps
Tricep 2 exercises 4 sets 10 reps

Sunday
Legs 3 exercises 4sets 10 reps
Abs 2 exercises 4sets 12-15 reps

I try to use as much dumbbels as I can, between the reps I take 2min rest.

Kevin van Beek

Okay, what are your goals? Are you trying to gain more muscle, or just stay in shape/tone up?
If you're trying to build any muscle, you should be doing less reps. When using heavier weight, you should work everything out only once a week. (Personally, I feel that you should work everything once a week even if you're using lighter weights.) I notice you're only working out shoulders and legs once a week- Why do you do things differently with them as opposed to the rest of your muscles?
It would also be a big help if you could post which exercises you're doing for each muscle group.

CPL have reason, i did a test .... on one week i train each body part twice ... after i did 2 weeks with one body parts by training and my last 2 weeks was very great .... full energy, full power, full recovery, put more weight and much more intensity .... :) and it take 45 mins to do my training .... and i saw on my Gym many people train 1h30 ... 2h ...... lost of time totally and lost of everything else by the way :)

Chest:
Incline dumbbell press 4 x 10
Benche press 4 x 10
Dumbbell flye 4 x 10

Sholders:
Upright rows 4 x 10
Sholder raise 4 x 10
Shoulder press 4 x 10

Back:
front pull-downs 4 x 10
Single rows (dumbbels) 8 (4L en 4R) x 10
Arm spread (in machine) 4 x 10

Biceps:
Preacher curl 8 (4L en 4R) x 10
60º seated curl dumbbels 4 x 10

Triceps:
Lying curls 4 x 10
Dip 4 x 10

Legs:
Squates 4 x 10
Calve raises 4 x 10
Leg push down 4 x 10

Abs:
Crunch on bal with weights 4 x 15
Axe in cabel 8 (4L en 4R) x 12

Monday:
Back
Biceps

Tuesday:
Rest

Wednesday:
Chest
Triceps

Thursday:
Sholder
Biceps
Abs

Friday:
Rest

Saterday:
Chest
Triceps

Sunday:
Legs
Abs


Or is this a better schedule to follow:


Monday:
Back
Biceps

Tuesday:
Rest

Wednesday:
Sholders
Abs

Thursday:
Legs
Triceps

Friday:
Rest

Saterday:
Chest
Abs

Sunday:
Rest

My target is to gain more MASS (not like a BB, more proposion, Strength is less inportant). I train for about 7 months and always train some of the body parts twice. The last 2 months I stopped growing, so I really need a better schedule.

and what do you think of Creatine in combination with Glutamine

( I am 5,7ft 68 kg)

What do you reccomend?

That sounds like a much better schedule- Train everything once a week, except abs- Not too bad at all in my opinion. If your old workout has stopped giving you gains, then maybe you need to try this one out for a while- Give it a couple of months, see how you feel with it. If you're trying to gain mass, you should be lifting heavier weights. Check out this link- Max OT It's a long read, but download the document and read through it, it'll help you understand how heavier weights make muscle grow.
One more thing- For your leg workout, you mentioned leg push down- What exactly are those, and what area of the leg do they work? I've never heard of them.

I don't no what the real name is of the leg push down I tought it is called the leg extension, for the Upper side of your legs!

If it's for the front of your thighs- Which are called the quadriceps- Then you need to throw in an exercise for the back of your legs- The hamstrings. Try stiff leg deadlifts. If you only work out the quads and do nothing for the hams, you'll end up risking injury from a strength imbalance.

How many excersises Y'all recon for, Biceps, triceps, chest etc.?

&

So, you really think doing less reps like 6 gives more mass than doing 10 reps, because allot of people say you only gain mass if you do between 8 till 12 reps?

Read that Max OT manual. It'll teach you a lot about how muscle grows- That's one of the things I really liked about it, not only does it tell you how to work out, but it explains why you should work out that way.
The best way to build muscle is to overload it. Our bodies will try to adapt to anything they're faced with- When it's cold out, they restrict the flow of blood to the extremeties in an attempt to keep the head and torso warm, for example- It adapts to the situation. Now, if you lift heavy weights- Weights you can only do six to eight reps with- The body will adapt to be able to lift the heavier weight by building more muscle. Think about it- Who has more muscle, the guy who's curling a lighter weight or the guy who's curling a heavy weight? Sure, the one with the heavy weight might not be able to perform as many reps with that same heavy weight- But the guy with the light weight most likely won't be able to do even one rep with the heavy weight. Check out the Max OT link I posted for you above, read that manual. It's full of great info.
As for the exercises- Max OT recommends 3 different exercises per muscle group- After a warmup, you would do only three heavy sets per exercise, and you're done. You'd be surprised at the gains you can see from this kind of workout.