Split Days vs. Total Body Workouts

Devising the optimal training schedule to meet your fitness goals requires careful consideration of many factors. Besides exercise selection and programming, your personal schedule, weight loss goals, and training status will influence your decision to train all your muscles in one workout, or to split your workouts to train different muscle groups on alternating days.

  1. All or Nothing

    • If you are a weight-training novice, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends you perform two or three total-body workouts per week, with at least a 48 hours between training sessions for recovery. When devising a total-body workout, begin with compound exercises that use multiple joints, like squats for your lower body and bench presses for your upper body. Progress to single-joint exercises to isolate smaller muscles or muscle groups, like biceps curls and leg extensions. Perform at least one exercise for each muscle group to ensure a balanced workout.

    Breaking Up

    • For intermediate and advanced lifters, the ACSM recommends split training performed four to six days per week, working all major muscle groups twice during the course of the week. The advantage of split training is that you can perform more exercises for each muscle group, increasing your training stimulus to build muscle strength and size, and burning more calories. While you focus on selected muscles, others are able to rest and recover. There are many ways to approach a split training schedule. Alternating upper body with lower body is one approach. Another is training muscles that push, like the pectoral, triceps and deltoid muscles on day one; muscles that pull, like your back muscles and biceps on day two; and a third day training just your legs.

    Getting Over It

    • Recovery is a critical part of training that should not be overlooked. According to exercise scientist Len Kravitz, PhD, during your recovery period, your muscle cells are able to replenish energy stores, restore enzymes and return to a resting state. Muscle tissue damaged from lifting is able to repair itself, and hypertrophy, or muscle growth can take place. Failure to give your muscles adequate time to recover between workouts can undermine your progress and lead to overtraining syndrome. Symptoms include muscle soreness and weakness, poor performance, reduced appetite, sleep disruptions, digestive disorders and increased incidence of infections. The remedy for overtraining syndrome is rest.

    Moving On

    • Progressive overload is a fundamental principle of fitness that is essential to changing your physique. Challenging your muscles with loads that are taxing is what stimulates the adaptations of strength and size. When an exercise is no longer challenging, your progress will plateau. As you become stronger, gradually add more weight to each exercise, increasing it by 2.5 to 5 percent. Variety is also important for optimal results. Alter your workout by introducing new exercises that challenge you. Try alternative training modes, like body -weight exercises using a TRX system, or CrossFit-style training using your body weight and nontraditional forms of resistance.