Good info here but really, where should I start? A Newbie

Dnia 2007-01-14 Andrzej Rosa napisa³(a):
> Dnia 2007-01-14 Tom Anderson napisa³(a):
>> On Sat, 13 Jan 2007, Andrzej Rosa wrote:
>>
>>
>> It depends. It might be more convenient to only be working out three days
>> a week - less sweaty clothes to wash,
>
> While training at home you have no public to judge you badly if your
> gym clothes are smelly, so you can "safely" change into your sweaty
> workout clothes.
>
>> more days where i'm not worn out,
>
> With high frequency workouts you spread the load more evenly over a
> week, so you shouldn't be worn out on your gym days. Your workouts are
> also shorter, so it's not as much of stress.
>
>> etc. But then it might be less convenient - more days means shorter
>> workouts, which means getting to work or to bed sooner. In fact, i've
>> recently switched to a split routine for exactly that reason.
>
> Well, so we do not disagree here after all? Good. If OP is still
> reading he should feel less confused.

I just stumbled on Charles Poliquin opinion on exactly the same topic,
so I thought I'll paste it here:

http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do;jsessionid=5EF846388B2875C5E9F2E4...06B13DF
#v+
Total Body vs. Body Part Splits... Again

Q: Some T-Nation coaches advocate training the whole body in one
session; others usually use a body part split of some sort. The debate
is endless, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

A: I'm the first one to want to improve on any training system, but I
do not know anyone successful in the strength coaching business who
uses full body routines exclusively.

I've trained Olympic medalists in sixteen different sports, from energy
system sports such as swimming to short-term explosive power sports
such as shot put. For almost every single one of them, 70% of the time,
I've used split routines and switched to whole body routines as their
competition was nearing. Whether it's Adam Nelson who won the World
Championship in the shot put or Dwight Phillips who won it in the long
jump, they all trained with split routines.

Workouts have to be short and effective, and when you train for
relative strength you have to do a lot of sets. If you do a lot of
sets, you can't do a lot of exercises. Athletes need split training
to get adequate recovery.

Adam Nelson's split looked like this:
Day 1: Chest/back
Day 2: Legs
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Rotator cuff and arms
Day 5: Off

Adam, by the way, incline benches 525 pounds using a fat, three inch
bar.

In bodybuilding, I don't think Ronnie Coleman trains whole body
three days a week. I've never known a successful bodybuilder, even
the low set guys like Dorian Yates, to do whole body training.

The key is to recruit as many motor units as possible, and you have
to think about the law of exercise order. There have been a few
good studies done on this, but here's the Reader's Digest version:

If you have a group of lifters who do exercises A, B, C, and D in a
workout, and you have a group do the same exercises in the reverse
order (D, C, B, and A), what you find is that the first group makes
the most progress on exercise A and the second group makes the most
progress on exercise D. Basically, you'll make the most progress on
whatever you do first.

I've always found that when you get to the elite level, most
athletes do best just doing two primary exercises per workout using
multiple sets (like ten), and then training again six hours later.
Every single Olympian I've trained used split routines. I've been
in this profession for 26 years and no one has ever convinced me,
by their results, that full body routines are the only way to go.

Having coached at three different Olympics, I've had the
opportunity to talk shop with many successful colleagues. Whether
they were from Norway, Germany, or Finland, they all came to the
conclusion that split routines were far more advantageous than
total body routines.
#v-

--
Andrzej Rosa 1127R