Workout Help!

[amberyan]

Hello everyone, my name is Amber and I have a question that has been bothering me for a while. Everything I read, whether it be magazines, or educational books, they all tell you different things. What is a better workout routine... working each body group seperately, or doing a total body workout? I know that your muscles have to rest, so you would have to break it up right? I really am stumped, so any help would be great

[narcsarge]

Welcome Amber. Not quite sure what you are asking but I will try to help. If you are "new" to Body Building or weight training you can do either. Just start of with 3 days a week (Mon-Wed-Fri). Beginners should start with compound exercises (Bench Press, Pull Ups, Squats, Military Press, Bent over rows, Deadlifts (personally I think Deadlifts should come once you have a good idea of what you are doing to avoid injury) Curls, and ab work. It is possible to through that into a "complete" body work out but don't be in the gym for more then 1 1/2 hours. Your other choice is use a split like:

Monday: Upper body (Bench, Pull Ups, Military press, Bent Overs)
Wednesday: Lower Body (Squats, Deadlifts, calves)
Friday: Abs and cardio

Depending on your level of experience with weight training, you can do this for as little as 2 months before you can progress to a more "advance" split. The key when starting out is to target the big muscle groups:
Back
Chest
Quadriceps

Building these muscles with compound exercises will also incorporate supporting muscles like Triceps, Biceps, shoulders, etc. I hope this helps!

[Patrick_Bateman]

Originally Posted by amberyan

Hello everyone, my name is Amber and I have a question that has been bothering me for a while. Everything I read, whether it be magazines, or educational books, they all tell you different things. What is a better workout routine... working each body group seperately, or doing a total body workout? I know that your muscles have to rest, so you would have to break it up right? I really am stumped, so any help would be great

"The body doesn't know muscles. It only knows movements."

-Mel Siff

"If you are still training body parts and not movements, you have missed a signifigant amount of information written on the subject of resistance training in the past 10 years."

-Mike Boyle

"Write programs. NOT workouts."

-Alwyn Cosgrove

In general there are a few splits I like:

- Total body 2-3 days per week with 1-2 days of rest between each workout.

- day 1- upper, day 2- lower, day 3- off, day 4- upper, day 5- lower, day 6 and 7- off

- day 1- upper push (chest, shoulder, tri), day 2- legs, day 3- upper pull (back and bi). With a day of rest inbetween workouts.