Are Full Body Workouts Really Optimal?

H

Hyper7

New Member
After setting up a routine based on the HST sample, I found that the full body workouts 3 times per week were too taxing and mentally draining. Although I was reluctant to tamper with the program due to the immense research that has obviously gone into producing the method, I made the decision to switch to a 4 day push/pull split working in 4-5 exercises each session:

Monday A
Tuesday B
Wednesday Off
Thursday A
Friday B
Saturday Off
Sunday Off

Now I look forward to each workout and feel more mentally refreshed. I find that my lifts are executed with greater intensity and focus. I personally found facing 8-9 lifts in a full body workout just too daunting. I have also read that brief workouts of around 30 mins were demonstrated to be better than longer workouts because testosterone levels can fall by as much as 80% by pushing only 15 minutes beyond this time frame.

I realise that to the HST purist, the workouts should probably not be changed, but I hope that I am successfully adapting HST principles here to my own limitations in terms of recovery and CNS capacity.

I consider myself a student amongst many here and would welcome any comments or advice form those with similar experiences.
 
First, who needs to do 8-9 lifts to get a full body workout. One compound Push/Pull/Leg routine works the whole body in 3 exercises and for me, a 50 year old is easily doable through the 10s. Around the 5s a split giving a day off between body parts works better for me at least for strength gains.

I’m not sure if there are any HST “purists” since the basic principles can be adapted to a huge variation in routines. If you’ve found that a Push/Pull split works best for you then go with it and share your experience with others. I find that changing my routine during the cycle, by moving from full body when the weights are light to a Leg/Pull/Push split when the weights get heavy works best for me. As with all things YMMV.

Cheers,
Dean
 
grunt11 said:
I’m not sure if there are any HST “purists” since the basic principles can be adapted to a huge variation in routines. If you’ve found that a Push/Pull split works best for you then go with it and share your experience with others. I find that changing my routine during the cycle, by moving from full body when the weights are light to a Leg/Pull/Push s
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It would seem that HST lets you tweak pretty much anything...

HST calls for chronic, progressive, mechanical load. Continue until you reach your maximum lifts and cannot progress anymore. Then take 9 - 14 days off for a Strategic Deconditioning, and start over.

Are full body workouts more productive than many of the various popular splits? Maybe. Do compound lifts give a better bang for the buck than isolation exercises? Probably, but that is not what defines HST.

One of the nice things about an HST cycle is that it runs for 8 weeks plus an SD. Run a cycle your way, then run another cycle another way. Change your exercises; change your workout days; change the number of days you workout each week.

I've never done two cycles the same. However, I have learned which exercises are the most profitabel for me; those are the ones I keep coming back to.
 
My concern here was with muscle group training frequency. Now I am only training each group twice per week instead of the three times as outlined in the program. I'm not sure how critical this is going to be in the long run, but I figure that balancing the ratio of stress or (muscle trauma) to recovery capacity is the key to growth as opposed to rigidly following a certain number. This of course is a highly individualistic consideration. I believe that there is a fine line between sufficient frequency to promote a response and sufficient recovery to allow the body to repair itself. If this balance is out, then the body's protective response i.e "growth" will surely diminish- Just thinking out loud here.

I'm interested in why the three times per week was used for the program. Are there any studies which show this to be more advantageous than twice a week? Obviously there is a point of diminishing returns, otherwise frequency could be pushed to extremes like, 6 full body workouts per week.
 
Actually, there might not be a point of diminishing returns. It seems that more than 3 times a week might actually be slightly better.

Anyway, it's difficult to explain to you why three times a week might not be working for you without seeing your exercise selection and volume.
 
Totentanz said:
Actually, there might not be a point of diminishing returns. It seems that more than 3 times a week might actually be slightly better.
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I'd like to understand this concept of frequency better. You mention that more frequency could be advantageous. I'd be interested if you could explain this some more as I'm struggling to square it with my current understanding - which could very well be faulty!

In my limited understanding, a biological system can only protect itself, in our case by inducing hypertrophy and strength gains, when it has sufficient reserves to repair and super - compensate from the last threatening stimulus. Basically we weight train to induce damage to the biological system in order for it to grow back larger and stronger than before. This process however, cannot be successful if the stress or stimulus applied is chronically greater than the body's ability to recover. Obviously, as you say, both training intensity and volume become critical markers of this sequence. A walk through the park induces far less damage and therefore adaptation, than 5 sets of squats for example. Once "sufficient" stimulus (whatever this may be) is reached, is there any value in further stressing the system?

Between the extreme spectrum of homeostasis and death, the curve of maximum stimulus and maximum adaptation must somewhere meet. I also suspect that this curve is different in every individual. If I shovel gravel for a job twice a week, my hands will develop callouses to protect the skin. If I shovel gravel 6 times per week or more, it is likely that my hands will not have sufficient recovery time to adapt and protect from the stimulus applied and injury that is, loss of adaptation will result. I know this illustration is perhaps a little clumsy and does not address many of the complexities of weight training but I'm just trying to get my head around the issue of frequency or be it paralysis by analysis!

Any further thoughts on this issue would be appreciated.
 
Three times per week was suggested (as I hope I recall correctly) because some studies have shown that it only takes about 36 hours for the body to recover. On the other hand, Dan Moore had at one time posted some studies showing that two workouts per week were as effective as three.

I figure that balancing the ratio of stress or (muscle trauma) to recovery capacity is the key to growth as opposed to rigidly following a certain number
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Let me say once more: there is nothing "rigid" about HST. You wanna follow the three times weekly recommendation? Fine. You prefer twice a week. Also fine. I, too, sometimes find that taking an extra day between workouts can be helpful. HST is about chronic, progressive, mechanical load; it is not a rigid, cookie cutter program.

Once per week per muscle group, like so many 'mainstream' body building programs, is probably less than optimal. Many more times than twice or thrice, I suspect, may also be less than optimal.

Not only do your muscles need to recover, but your CNS (central nervous system) needs time to recover as well. For many folks, the CNS takes a bit more time to recover than does the musculature. That is at least one of the reasons that exercising to failure is not recommended.

Try it three times weekly; see how that works for you. Then try twice weekly; see if you like that better. Feel free to mix and match, so long as you maintain a chronic, progressive, mechanical load.
 
Try doing a forum search using the keyword “frequency” and you will find there are many discussions relating to your question.

Here is an explanation of training frequency as it relates to HST by Blade:

http://thinkmuscle.com/forum/showthread.php?12712-Training-Frequency

Here is a very concise explanation of various principle behind HST:

http://thinkmuscle.com/forum/showthread.php?19280-HST-Summed-Up-By-Lyle

Several other threads also discuss the different variable involved with some quoting or linking to related studies.

There is also a good discussion of frequency in the “Pimp my HST” ebook linked on this post:

http://thinkmuscle.com/forum/showthread.php?16166-PIMP-MY-HST-E-BOOK&highlight=pimp

There is also a good long running discussion of various HST principles in this thread:

http://thinkmuscle.com/forum/showthread.php?9777-Customizing-HST&highlight=pimp
 
Thanks for this. I have spent a couple of hours sifting through the wealth of information here already. Looks like I need to do some more reading.
 
I hear ya. I think I spent the first two week on this board just reading various threads and the links in them. Kind of hard to grasp at first since some of it flew in the face of all the things I learned 15-20 years ago when I was lifting before. However, based on the gains, both hypertrophy and strength, that I’ve made in the first two cycles about 4 months total I’m convinced.

A couple more things to look into that I’m finding very useful to manage fatigue allowing me to train with greater frequency are Max-Stim and Myo-reps. Do a search for those here and on the internet and see if they might be for you.

Cheers,
Dean
 
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