Jul

2

Whole Body or One Body Part At A Time; Which One Is The Better Workout?

Filed Under Building Muscles, Time Management, Work Out 

A few months ago I talked about my four day workout.  At the time, I was splitting up my routine to work one or two parts of the body per day.  Since then, I’ve changed my routine to work my entire body each time I work out.  I’ve had a few questions from readers on which style I found best.

Whole Body Workout

A whole body workout means just that, work out your entire body.  It’s 24 different exercises and I usually do 1 set of each for a total of 24 sets.

Body Part Workout

The body part workout works one or two individual body parts per day.  I would typically do abs and back one day, legs the second day, biceps and triceps the third day and chest and shoulders the fourth day.  You can do different splits but it’s still the same idea.  I would usually do 6 different exercises and 4 sets of each one for a total of 24 sets.

Advantages of the Whole Body Workout

  • Speed - I get through the whole body workout faster even though it’s the same number of sets.  This is because I don’t have to rest as much between sets since I’m not constantly working out the same body parts.
  • Schedule Flexibility - With the whole body workout, if I miss one day, it’s not as bad.  I still workout my whole body on other days.
  • Variation - This workout keeps me more interested in the workout since I’m doing a new exercise each time.

Advantages of the Body Part Workout

  • Targeted - You’re working out a specific body part every day and you’re really targetting that part.  I seemed to be getting a better workout overall when I was consistently doing a body part workout schedule.
  • More Rest - After doing an abs and back workout, you have a week before you workout that area again.  That lets you rest that area and allows the muscles to recover.

Which One Do I Recommend?

Well, it depends on how serious you are about your time in the gym.  If you have at least three or four days to spend and a good amount of time on each of those days, you should probably go for the body part workout.  You’ll get a better workout for each body part and you’ll see better results.  However, if you’re like me and you’re trying to juggle working out into an otherwise very busy schedule, I think the whole body workout is a better option.  It guarantees you that you workout all your muscles equally, it’s quick and you’ll still see good results, if not quite as good as those of the targetted workout.

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There’s really no right answer here.  Neither workout is clearly better or worse than the other.  Try them both and stick to what works for you, but don’t be afraid to change things up and try something new once in a while.

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Comments

One Response to “Whole Body or One Body Part At A Time; Which One Is The Better Workout?”

  1. weight management on July 3rd, 2008 3:21 am

    I think it depends on what you are trying to get out of your program. If general conditioning is what you are after then an all body workout is fine. If you go down that path it is best to do 20 reps and push it out to failure on that set. There have been many studies into this. It has been said that when you do three sets youi pace yourself through the three sets, when you can get a majority of the benifit through one. It has become very popular with personal trainers as people dont like just doing a part body workout with them.

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