Full Body programs can be incredibly effective at building all-around strength and muscle-building goals.
What are full-body Programs?
You essentially train all your muscle groups in each session. Ideally, this is done to a rhyme and reason and not stuff for stuff's sake.
As you train everything each day it's an incredibly effective tool to get loads of work done while limiting how sore you get, and how fatiguing each session can be. Plus, a great way to keep sessions ''moving''.
Also, no matter how many sessions you get in each week you are always training everything. Aka Gents, no more skipping leg day...and ladies, no more skipping the upper days! Trust us, they are important in both stances!
Does it matter what movements?
As stated above the thing to ensure is that there is still a rhyme and a reason for each movement. For example, even though in theory each session alone will be a full body workout, if you just did that one workout over and over again it wouldn't be a complete program... plus you'd probably go a little crazy...
The way we like to run it is to have each day biased towards one element over others but still gets a full body session in.
If for example on Monday we did a heavier leg movement for Quads such as Squats and did 3 sets of 6-8 Reps. Then on Tuesday, we would go for more volume with some lighter reps with something like Hip Thrusts for hamstrings/glutes with 3 sets of 12-15.
Then in the next two sessions, we could role-reverse them and go lighter on the squat movement and heavier on the hinge.
This is a slight simplification but hopefully, you can see how this would help us have a more balanced program.
Who should do a full-body Program?
Honestly, anyone!
Anyone can do these programs for a magnitude of reasons as stated above. If you are super busy and chaotic with your lifestyle right now then this is a great way to get loads of work in with each session and not leave the gym feeling trashed unable to walk for the next 4 days...
In the right circumstances, this program will get pretty much EVERYONE an amazing result!
However, if I had to pick out of a generalisation then I'd say Beginners or people newer to lifting weights and advanced athletes.
Why beginners?
- It's a great way to get loads of work in without getting crushed. The volume is spread out across the week rather than in 1-2 hectic sessions.
- You can get more time practicing each movement each day, which will help you build your awareness and strength.
- You'll get amazing results without having some over-the-top complicated program.
- It will set an incredible foundation for whatever you want to work on over the long term.
Why advanced athletes?
Well in a nutshell for a lot of the same reasons as the beginners...
- The volume is spread out and experienced lifters hitting bigger numbers means that they can hit it harder without getting wrecked by DOMs after each session.
- The volume again. However, with more experienced lifters if they did a full leg session with some intense weights the time to recover from that can be incredibly taxing. Both physically and mentally. If you have a taxing job/lifestyle then the chances of recovering properly from those sessions can be compromised, which just means you're doing a lot of work and getting not much from it. This way the sessions can be spread out and help with recovery which inevitably helps with the results!
- Intensity. Along with the above, we can increase the intensity across the sessions. Again, if after doing very heavy squats you have some more quad work then you simply won't be able to hit the second element as hard, as you've already done a ton of work. Now with it spread out you can keep the intensity higher on all sets and reps.
- Better chance to go by feel if you have been training for a while. You can increase the frequency with which you train some muscle groups if you feel they need a bit more work and are recovered. Rather than waiting for the next "quad'' day, you could hit it sooner!
Interested in trying a program or finding out more?
If you want to find out more about whether you should do a Full body program or are unsure how to structure it for long-term success then let us do the hard work for you!
We can program and show you everything so you just need to take implement and win!