Seek Alwyn Cosgrove knowledge:
Q: I've really enjoyed your hard gainer column in Men’s Fitness. I still have problems gaining size however ...and I was hoping you could help me. My current split is:
Mon... Chest (edited for length/redundancy and stupidity)
A: I’m glad you enjoyed my column. Did you ever actually read it though? I swear I seem to answer this question at least once a month.
But I’ll answer it again.
NO BODY PART SPLIT ROUTINES!!! A body part split is an outdated approach to training. Strength Coaching legend Mike Boyle from Boston says “When someone starts talking about body part routines – stop listening – it’s a sign that they are CLUELESS”.
I agree 100%. A body part split just defies logic. Here’s an excerpt from my martial arts conditioning program (
www.martialartsconditioning.com)
“A question I am often asked is “How should I split up my body parts when I train?” Again, thank you bodybuilding. The notion that your body is comprised of several independent muscle systems that have no crossover effect is a mistake. Functionally the body is a single unit, you cannot isolate a muscle.
Consider the following example – hold a dumbbell in your right hand and raise your arm out to the side until it is parallel with the floor (a lateral raise in the fitness world!). Which muscles are working? The classic answer is the medial deltoid and the trapezius. True. But maintain this position and just touch your obliques on the left side. They are contracting maximally in order to stabilize your torso, spine and prevent you from tipping over. So the oblique has to contract so hard in order to stabilize your entire upper body, plus your arm and the Dumbbell, it becomes clear that this exercise forces more work from the oblique muscles, the TFL and the quadratus lumborum than it can from the medial deltoid! Hopefully this helps you realize that the body will always work as a unit“
For the last time:
A “hard gainer” should be doing full body workouts, three days per week hitting every movement pattern and muscle action. The main movement patterns to be concerned with are squatting, lunging, bending, pushing, pulling and twisting. The muscle actions can break this down to knee dominant lower body training, hip dominant lower body training, horizontal pushing and pulling and vertical pushing and pulling.
A recreational drug-free athlete who is having a difficult time gaining size will not grow any appreciable muscle hitting a body part once a week. He will also not recover optimally from more than 3-4 sets per exercise.
The bodybuilding advice is backwards in its logic. Hit a muscle group once a week, but hit it with 24 sets so it NEEDS a week to recover? It is senseless at best.
Stick with full body routines.
Linear Mode
