2 months or so ago i switched from doing a split routine to doing a full body routine, training just 2-3 times a week.
My routine was fairly simple, do one warmup set for each exercise, then one super intense set to failure in the 8-12 reps range. I would do a couple of exercises per body part. After leaving the gym i would not have the same feeling of "muscle rapage" lol, that i would get from doing a split routine, but the results were kind of suprising to me.
After stagnating with my split routine, my strength has gone up fairly dramatically in all my lifts. (And ive been training for a while, im not hugely strong or anything, but my old routine i definitely plateaud). Its hard to draw conclusions from this and say that a full body routine is better because all other things are not equal. Since starting the full body routine i have made my diet better, i am eating more clean food. So that could partially or completly be attributed to the results.
Or it could be the fact that i was doing the same split routine more or less for a year, and even though i was going to failure in my lifts, maybe my body was just getting used to that routine and the new full body routine shocked the system. I'm not sure if i buy this, but that could be why i have been getting better results.
It could also be because i am giving my body longer to recover between working out, IE i would go to the gym 4 or 5 times a week with my split routine and now only 2-3 times a week with my full body routine.
It could also be because my new full body routine has mostly compound lifts. Example squat, bench, rows, military press and its is stimulating more growth that way.
Either way, i am going to stick to this routine since it is yielding better results. Again, take what you want from this. I would like to get peoples opinions on what they think of this and what is the main thing that has attributed to my strength and muscle gains over this time.
Thanks,
- Andy
<message edited by Geek 2 Freak on 12 January 2012 13:58>