Lifestyle

A Full Body Workout Routine

Because doing half the body at a time means going to the gym twice as often!

The Common Wisdom

When making resistance training a regular part of your life-routine, it’s essential to structure workouts to allow for both optimal muscle growth and adequate recovery. A common approach is to split muscle groups, ensuring that each part of the body gets focused attention while the other parts rest.

One traditional method is the upper-lower split, where on one day, you work on the upper body muscles, including the chest, back, shoulders, and arms, and on the next day, you target the lower body muscles such as the quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calves. This method allows for thorough muscle engagement and ensures that each muscle group has sufficient recovery time before being worked again.

Another popular strategy is the push-pull split. In this arrangement, one day is dedicated to “pushing” muscles — those involved in pushing movements, including the chest, shoulders, and triceps. The following day focuses on “pulling” muscles, such as the back and biceps. This method not only balances muscle engagement but also emphasizes functional training by mimicking natural movement patterns. It helps maintain muscular symmetry and prevents overuse injuries by alternating the muscle groups and their respective movements.

A third approach is the torso-limbs split. This divides the workout sessions into upper body muscles, or torso muscles, like the chest and back, and lower body muscles, or limb muscles, such as the arms and legs. This method ensures that the major muscle groups of the body are trained adequately while allowing the other regions to rest. The torso-limbs split can be particularly effective for those who want a balanced approach to upper and lower body training, ensuring that both segments of the body receive equal attention over the course of the workout week.

These three methods — upper-lower split, push-pull split, and torso-limbs split — provide structured approaches to resistance training, ensuring comprehensive muscle development and proper recovery. Each has its benefits, and the choice often depends on individual fitness goals, training experience, and personal preferences. By alternating muscle groups, these methods help prevent overtraining, reduce the risk of injury, and promote balanced muscular growth.

So Why a Whole Body Routine?

A major drawback of dividing weight training across multiple days is that it often assumes weight training is the primary focus of one’s fitness routine. For example, adhering to an upper-lower or push-pull split typically requires a commitment of six days at the gym each week to ensure all muscle groups are adequately worked, since a common goal is to get all muscles worked ~3 times/week.

This kind of schedule can be demanding, and not everyone has the time to dedicate to almost daily gym visits. Many people have busy schedules that make it difficult to allocate so much time to weight training alone. Additionally, it’s important to consider that there are other types of exercise that contribute to a well-rounded fitness regimen. Cardio activities like running or cycling are essential for cardiovascular health, while practices like yoga are beneficial for flexibility and mental well-being.

Given these considerations, it’s worthwhile to design an effective full-body workout routine that can be completed in a single session at the gym. By doing so, you can ensure that all major muscle groups are engaged three times per week, with just three gym visits. This approach not only saves time but also allows for a more balanced incorporation of other fitness activities.

From Larger to Smaller Muscles

When engaging in a full-body weight training routine, it’s common practice to start with the largest muscle groups and then progressively work towards smaller muscles. This approach maximizes efficiency and effectiveness in each workout session. Large muscle groups, such as those in the legs, chest, and back, require more energy and strength to train, and targeting them at the beginning of the workout ensures they receive the most attention and effort when your energy levels are highest.

It’s important to understand that many muscle areas are actually collections of different muscles, each requiring specific exercises to be effectively targeted. For example, working out the “chest” involves more than just one movement. To fully develop the chest muscles, you typically need to perform a variety of exercises such as the standard bench press, incline press, and decline press. Each of these exercises targets different parts of the chest, ensuring comprehensive muscle development.

Similarly, the “back” is comprised of multiple muscles, including the lats, traps, and rhomboids. To effectively work the back, you generally need to include both a rowing motion, like bent-over rows or seated rows, and a pulldown motion, such as lat pulldowns or pull-ups. These different movements ensure that the entire back is engaged, promoting balanced strength and muscle growth across the upper and lower back regions.

The shoulders, another complex muscle group, require exercises that activate the front, upper, and rear deltoids. This can be achieved through a combination of exercises like front raises, overhead presses, and rear delt flys. By incorporating these different movements, you ensure that all parts of the shoulder are worked, contributing to overall shoulder strength and stability.

Understanding these muscle groups is important for designing a well-rounded full-body workout. By including a variety of exercises that target different muscles within each major muscle group, you can ensure that your training is balanced and comprehensive. This approach not only maximizes muscle growth and strength but also helps prevent imbalances and reduces the risk of injury by ensuring all muscles are adequately trained.

Hypertrophy

Below, I outline my personal whole-body workout routine as a list that can easily be copy/pasted into your cellphone’s note app, since that’s a popular way of tracking one’s progress. Each exercise is done as three sets of 8–15 reps each, or thereabouts, depending on whether you want to do more reps with less weight or fewer reps with more weight.

I personally find that more reps/less weight makes me far less prone to injury. Also, common sense will tell you that higher stresses on your muscles and joints will also include higher risks of straining them too hard. The main thing you want to achieve is hypertrophy, which refers to the increase in muscle size due to the enlargement of muscle fibers. This occurs when muscles are subjected to consistent, progressive overload through exercises like weightlifting.

The primary benefit of hypertrophy is improved muscle strength and appearance, which enhances physical performance, metabolic rate, and overall body aesthetics. Hypertrophy is generally achieved by completely exhausting the muscles at the end of each set, which means lifting weights until you reach muscle fatigue. This intense effort stimulates muscle fibers to repair and grow stronger and larger, leading to increased muscle size over time.

Concetric and Eccentric Phases of the Movement

In weight training, it is essential to be mindful of both the concentric and eccentric aspects of muscle action to maximize benefits and prevent injury. The concentric phase involves the shortening of muscles as they contract to lift the weight, while the eccentric phase involves the lengthening of muscles as they control the lowering of the weight. Proper execution of both phases can significantly enhance muscle growth, strength, and overall fitness.

When performing weight training exercises, avoiding fast, jerky motions is crucial. Such movements can lead to poor form and increase the risk of injury. Instead, one should focus on executing movements with a slow, careful, and deliberate effort. During the concentric phase, this means lifting the weight in a controlled manner, ensuring that the target muscles are engaged throughout the movement. This controlled effort helps in maximizing muscle fiber recruitment, leading to greater strength gains and muscle hypertrophy.

The eccentric phase should not be overlooked or rushed. Instead of allowing gravity to rapidly return the weight to its starting position, one should actively use their muscles to lower the weight slowly. This controlled descent places continuous tension on the muscles, promoting muscle damage and subsequent growth. Eccentric movements are particularly effective at inducing muscle hypertrophy because they cause more microscopic tears in the muscle fibers, which, when repaired, result in increased muscle size and strength.

Both concentric and eccentric movements offer distinct benefits that contribute to a well-rounded strength training regimen. The concentric phase is essential for building power and explosive strength. It trains the muscles to contract forcefully, enhancing the ability to lift heavier weights over time. On the other hand, the eccentric phase is important for muscle development and endurance. The controlled lowering of weights enhances muscle resilience and stability, reducing the likelihood of injuries and improving overall muscle function.

Incorporating both concentric and eccentric movements into weight training exercises ensures comprehensive muscle activation and development. This balanced approach not only promotes muscle growth and strength but also enhances neuromuscular coordination and joint health. By emphasizing proper form and controlled effort in both phases, individuals can achieve their fitness goals more effectively while minimizing the risk of injury.

Ultimately, mindful attention to both the concentric and eccentric phases of muscle action in weight training can lead to superior results. Slow, deliberate movements during the concentric phase and controlled, muscle-driven actions during the eccentric phase should be integral components of any strength training routine. This approach maximizes muscle engagement, enhances overall fitness, and supports long-term health and performance.

The Routine

It’s overall beneficial to have a regular set of exercises. This consistency helps you master proper form and technique, reducing the risk of injury and ensuring effective muscle engagement. It also allows you to progressively increase the weight or resistance, leading to muscle growth and strength gains. Additionally, sticking to a routine makes it easier to track your progress and see improvements over time.

However, incorporating variety into your routine is equally important. Changing your exercises prevents plateaus, as your muscles can adapt to repetitive stress, leading to stagnation in growth and strength. Different exercises target various muscle fibers and parts of a muscle group, promoting comprehensive muscle development.

Variety also keeps your workouts interesting and engaging, reducing the likelihood of boredom and maintaining your motivation. Furthermore, incorporating different exercises improves overall functional fitness by developing coordination, balance, and muscle engagement in various movement patterns.

I focus on my core routine below, in the order that I usually do the sets. I don’t include all the variations because there are far too many to discuss, so I just list a few of my main ones in parentheses. Look around you at the gym and see what other people are doing and what equipment is available, and develop your own set of variations for each of the bullet items below.

This routine typically takes ~4 hours to complete. It proceeds from the largest to smallest muscle groups:

• Legs (Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Gluteus Maximus, Calves)
• Back (Latissimus Dorsi, Trapezius, Erector Spinae)
• Chest (Pectoralis Major)
• Shoulders (Deltoids)
• Arms (Biceps, Triceps)
• Forearms
• Abdominals (Rectus Abdominis, Obliques)

Legs

▻ Leg Press
▻ Hamstring Curls (Seated or Lying)
▻ Calf Raise (Standing or Sitting)
▻ Hip Adductor
▻ Hip Abductor

Glutes

▻ Hyperextensions
▻ Belt Squat Hip Thrust

Back

▻ Seated Bench Cable Row (alt: Machine-based Rows)
▻ Lat Pulldown
▻ Trap Bar Rack Pull Shrug
▻ Hyperextensions (also works out Glutes, Erector Spinae, Hamstrings and Core)

Chest

▻Bench Press (alt: Pec Deck)
▻Incline Press
▻Decline Press

Shoulders

▻ Seated Military Press (alt: Standing Military Press)
▻ Lateral Raises (Machine or Dumbbells)
▻ Rear Delt Flies

Upper Arms

▻ Standing EZ Bar Preacher Curls (alt: Machine-based curl)
▻Dumbbell or Barbell Curls (seated or standing)
▻ Cable Triceps Pushdown (alt: Dumbbell Overhead Triceps)

Lower Arms

▻ Barbell forearm curls (inner)
▻ Barbell forearm curls (outer)

Core

▻ Crunches (alt: Sit-ups or Leg Raises)
▻ Cable Trunk Rotations

Fuel!

Don’t forget a carb source! Since my gym is located above a grocery store, I sometimes need to make an escalator-run downstairs to the bread or produce section to top up the blood sugar. Buns, donuts, bananas, power bars etc. work well. Bonking while working out is no fun. Don’t stuff yourself, though :) since working out with a full belly is also not fun. Just snack enough to keep your energy level where it needs to be.

In general, you need carbs before a workout to fuel it, and protein + carbs after a workout to support protein synthesis. I usually finish a workout with a healthy protein-laden power bar like a plain Oatmeal Gold, which can be found in the refrigerated section of many a supplement store.