There are about 8,675,309 workout routines that you can try. One of the most effective types of routines I have found in the first 14 years of my training career is total body training. A full-body workout will stimulate all of your muscle chains sufficiently to elicit a powerful physiological response.
The Principles of Total Body Training
- Train every muscle group 3 times per week.
- Select one exercise per muscle group, per day.
- Hit each muscle group from a different angle or intensity in each workout.
- Never go to absolute failure on any exercise; leave one rep in the bank, except sometimes on the last set.
- Keep workouts under one hour, not counting warm-ups and stretching.
- Change everything up after two months.
Why Might This Be the Most Effective Form of Training?
- High frequency (how often you train any given muscle) means more chances to recover and grow stronger/bigger.
- Low daily stimulus (# of exercises and sets per day for any given muscle) lowers your chances of overtraining.
- Avoiding training to failure also lowers the chances of overtraining.
- Hitting muscles from all angles each week strengthens stabilizers and is proactive injury prevention.
- Avoid muscle adaptation by changing up the whole routine after 2 months.
Let’s take a few minutes to example one of the better full-body workout routines I’ve written. The next time you want to change up your routine, try this for a month or two.
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