Frequency of full body workouts?

[thea77]

Hi everyone, posted this on the Ask Cathe forum but I am sure she is busy. Anyone care to take a crack at it? TIA!

Hi Cathe,

Just curious---is there any benefit to doing 3 full body workouts per week or is it best to just stick to 2 per week? I have read conflicting reports. Thanks, I appreciate all that you do!

-Thea

 

[Tallchick]

I am bumping this, hoping that Kathryn or another wonderful helpful person can answer.

 

[red_mct]

I think you need to add more information, such as what other activities are you doing besides the full body workouts? And what are your goals?

Personally I think three full-body weight workouts a week are fine as long as you are NOT doing other strength training activities, and you are inserting days between with either cardio or rest/stretch. The general consensus is that you would not want to work the same part two days in a row; in other words, you wouldn't want to do full-body on Monday and then upper body on Tuesday, etc. So if you were doing full-body MWF, that would probably be ok as long as T-Th were cardio or rest/stretch days.

ETA: I would personally not take this approach as I think full-body doesn't really promote strength gains (you are just going too fast and doing too much and it is hard to go heavy on the weight). If you are looking to promote muscle growth, you probably would want to do pure strength training (say, the Pyramids or Gym Styles), not working any body part more than 2x/week.

Just my .02.

Marie

 

[Boybert]

I agree w/ Marie that MWF is good for full body but no more than that. I disagree in that I think full body w/o can be great for strength & endurance gains. It all depends what your ultimate goals are. I look at full body w/o as focusing more on the endurance end of things and giving you that all over nice definition. I think if you are looking to add some muscle mass the training individual parts, particularly like slow and heavy, would be a good route to go. Even mixing up the 2 styles would be great just to keep it interesting, but focusing on the style that more suits your goals. Hope this helps some



"you miss 100% of the shots you never take"

Debbie

 

[thea77]

Thanks for the replies! My goals are to lose fat and eventually gain strength and definition. I have worked out with Cathe quite a bit in the past but at this point I am basically "starting over" with fitness (long story). I am coming off of an ankle injury, so cardio is limited to walking, biking and elliptical for now, (but I really miss Cathe cardio and running!).

I have read here before, that a good progression when you are starting out, is to do 2-3 full body workouts a week, then move on to a split routine where you do lower 2x/week, upper 2x/week, then on to 3-4 day split doing something like PS or Gym styles? Cardio added in too of course, 3-5x/week.

I am looking to clarify that information and what your thoughts and experiences have been.

Thanks again for all your help!