The old school method of training whereby you devote one day of the week to each area of your body is one that is still favored by many bodybuilders because it does generally yield some excellent results in the long run.
Plus of course it is very simple to follow because you don’t really have to think about what workouts you are going to do before you get to the gym.
For example, a typical training schedule may look something like this:
- Monday – Shoulders
- Tuesday – Legs
- Wednesday – Rest
- Thursday – Chest
- Friday – Back
- Saturday – Rest
- Sunday – Arms & Abs
The reason why this works so well is because you are doing sets of exercises that are all targeting specific groups of muscles on any given day. Therefore you can really train them to exhaustion and see some noticeable gains, and you won’t just be drifting aimlessly from one machine to another from one day to the next, which is what a lot of people do.
This type of schedule also enables you to train more often and get faster results because you don’t need to wait for your muscles to recover. If your shoulders are still aching from yesterday’s shoulder workout, for example, you can still go to the gym and do a full leg workout without any problems.
However the problem is that it can still lead to muscle imbalances in the body, just like any other training schedule, where certain parts of your body are stronger and more muscular than others.
The most notable example of this can be seen whenever you come across someone who only ever trains their upper body and rarely, if ever trains their legs.
Nothing looks more ridiculous than a man who has a huge chest, a wide back, strong shoulders and massive arms, but has a couple of matchsticks for legs.
Bodybuilding, and indeed strength training in general, involves training all areas of your body, and if one area of your body is underdeveloped, you should devote more time to it.
So, for instance, if you are someone who has a large upper body and really skinny legs, you should think about changing your training schedule to include two leg days per week until your whole body is in proportion.
Similarly, if you have a wide chest and a really strong back, but don’t yet have massive arms to match, you should think about doing two arm workouts per week to really hammer your biceps and triceps.
You don’t need to stick rigidly to the same old training program week after week. If you are not happy with one area of your body, or if one part of your body is noticeably weaker than others, you should aim to train it more often in order to create a balanced physique.
It is not just about aesthetics either because if you have a few muscle imbalances, you could easily injure yourself whenever you do compound exercises that require many different muscle groups to work together.
So the point is that although it is good to have a regular training program that you can follow every week, it is still a good idea to change things up every so often if certain muscle groups are not growing at the same rate as others.
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