Imagine if your weights workouts could give you a “quadruple whammy” of results:

• Burn more fat!
• Recover faster!
• Be more consistent!
• Build more muscle!

It would be awesome, huh?

Now stop imagining, because I’ve just described the benefits of full-body training!

Those of you who have used my online programs should already be aware of the massive benefits this type of training can offer, but unfortunately the vast majority of people you’ll meet in gyms around the world remain totally unaware, so let’s break it down today.

What About Volume?

Whenever I mention full-body workouts, people always ask:

“But how could I possibly give each muscle group enough work?”

I get it, because at surface level it appears there’s no way you could do enough sets for each body part when you’re trying to train them all within one workout, right?

However, all is not what it seems here, because we must remember that “volume” refers to the the number of sets PER WEEK, not PER WORKOUT. (2)

With this in mind, if you currently follow a traditional program which uses a “bro split” where you annihilate one body part per workout (e.g. chest day, leg day, back day, etc), and if you also follow the latest research regarding optimal volume, you’ll hit each muscle group with about 12-20 sets depending upon your level of training experience and you won’t re-train that body part until it swings back around next week. Meanwhile, when you switch to using full-body workouts you’ll generally have 5 sets for each muscle group within one workout, and if you visit the gym four days per week this gives you…. you guessed it… the same amount of volume for each body part!

What About Recovery?

This is the obvious follow-up question:

“Can my muscles recover properly if I’m training my full-body?”

Most people have been led to believe that our muscles need 48-72 hours of rest after each workout, but again this advice generally applies to a “bro-split”.

Full-body training doesn’t play by the same set of rules.

For example, if you blasted your chest with 20+ sets on Monday then it makes perfect sense to maximize recovery time before hitting it again, but if you only did 4-5 sets it won’t need anywhere near as much recovery time.

As a sidenote, another interesting thing which my PT clients often report after switching to a full-body training program is that they don’t feel like they need to rest as long between sets. This is a knock-on effect of the above, because people tend to fly through their workout feeling fresher and more focused when switching between muscle groups versus when pummelling a single muscle for the whole session.

What If You Need To Miss A Workout?

This is where full-body training comes into its own.

Nobody likes missing workouts (I’ve been known to trudge 5-miles through snow to get my leg workout in!) but life sometimes gets in the way, and leaves us with no other choice.

This can spell bad news if you are following a bro split because if you cancel “shoulder day” then your shoulders haven’t been trained since last week, and by the time it swings around again in your calendar it’ll be two weeks – all because of one missed workout!

You don’t have these potential problems when you’re using full-body workouts, because if you are forced to cancel a workout you’ve already trained each muscle group with 15+ sets, so nothing is skipped.

Is Full-Body Training For Beginners Or Advanced Lifters?

Full-body training is for everyone, but it offers different advantages depending upon your level of experience.

Beginner lifters (2- years) can enjoy faster recovery between workouts and this greatly reduces the likelihood of crippling DOMS (e.g. being unable to walk for four days after hitting legs). That’ll help you be more consistent with your workouts during the all-important early days when those “newbie gains” are there for the taking.

Advanced lifters (2+ years) can enjoy being able to train even harder because you’ll always feel fresh. To put this into perspective, think of how fatigued you are during the latter stages of a big chest workout, and how much more productive those sets could’ve been if they were done when the muscle was still at 100%. By staggeting your volume over multiple sessions this is essentially what you’re doing.

How To Use Full-Body Training For Fat Loss

Back in 2016, a team of researchers from New Zealand set out to test the fat loss benefits of full-body workouts. (1)

They used a bunch of experienced rugby players, and had one group of trainees following a traditional 3-day split (where every muscle is trained over the course of three workouts) and one group using full-body workouts (where they train every muscle in every workout).

Both groups performed the same volume overall (same number of sets for each muscle).

Both groups used the same exercise (leg press, barbell squats, lying leg curls, calf raise, bench press, bent-over barbell row, wide-grip lat pulldown, shoulder press, and biceps curls) and both groups performed the same total volume overall (same number of sets for each muscle over the entire week).

Interestingly, the trainees using full-body workouts lost significantly more body fat (a whopping 6% reduction versus 2%)!

The two groups of trainees also had similar gains in size and strength, which not only showed us that it was superior for fat loss but also that it was just as effective in other areas.

And finally, the researchers claimed that the more experienced and stronger a trainee was, the better the results they saw, doubling down on what we said above about experienced lifters being able to benefit from switching to a full-body program from time to time!

How To Use Full-Body Training To Gain Size

The muscle building process is largely the same no matter which training split you use.

By that, I mean if you are consistently striving for progressive overload (increasing the weight or the number of reps over a period of time) and pushing your muscles towards the point of failure, your body adapts by growing bigger and stronger to handle the workload.

Interestingly, several studies show that full-body training will produce at least the same amount of muscle growth as a bro split, and in some cases it can be even better! (3)

Norwegian researchers have also shown that full-body training enables us to capitalize on an often overlooked muscle building pathway:

• High frequency training

As the name suggests, this is where we hit each muscle multiple workouts in the same week.

It’s a technique which is traditionally associated with heavy duty bodybuilding programs (e.g. Arnold’s two-a-day program from the 1970s) where you’d let the gym take over your life for a while and have two “chest days”, two “leg days”, two “back days” (and so on) per week.

Having short blocks like this can really ramp up muscle growth because it increases the number of times your body experiences the muscle recovery process, where key muscle building hormones (testosterone and cortisol) and spiked, which creates a superior environment for building muscle.

Unfortunately, most people simply cannot do this type of training because a) a busy work and family life forbids them from spending all that time in the gym, b) they can’t eat enough food to recover from this amount of exercise, c) the risk of injury dramatically increases, and d) they’re not pumped full of “vitamin S”.

Interesting, huh?

So you’ll be delighted to hear that full-body training enables you to tap into the benefits of this high frequency training model because, even though you’re not following such a schedule-eating workout plan, you are still in fact hitting each muscle group several times across the whole week and triggering that same hormonal response. Boom!

So what do these benefits look like?

Well, at the 17th Annual Conference for the ESS (2012), Norwegian researchers showed that switching a group of powerlifters from their regular 3-day split to a 6-day split (the same total sets, just in shorter and more frequent workouts) led to an astonishing 10% spike in muscle growth! This is even more impressive when we consider that a) they are elite level lifters so it’s very hard to make such gains, and b) they’re not actually doing any more volume than they already were! (4)

A properly structured full-body workout program will help you unlock all of the benefits I’ve shown you above:

• You’ll hit each muscle with just the right amount of volume to maximize results!
• It’ll “spread the load” to ensure your recovery game is always top notch!
• Your sets will become even more productive because the target muscle feels fresh!
• You’ve minimized the damage an unplanned skipped workout can cause!
• The additional muscle building benefits of a high frequency training model are unlocked!

Put simply; full-body training totally rocks! Here’s a selection of my favourite programs:

Further Reading:

If you enjoyed this blog, then you’ll probably also like reading these.

>> How To Train To Failure
>> High Reps Vs Low Reps
>> Why I Ditched “Clean Eating”

References:

1. Crewther B. T., et al. The effects of two equal-volume training protocols upon strength, body composition and salivary hormones in male rugby union players. Biol. Sport (2016).
2. Hammarström D., et al. Benefits of higher resistance-training volume are related to ribosome biogenesis. J Physiol (2020).
3. Schoenfeld B. J., et al. Influence of Resistance Training Frequency on Muscular Adaptations in Well-Trained Men. J Strength Cond Res (2015).
4. Raastad T., et al. Powerlifters improved strength and muscular adaptations to a greater extent when equal total training volume was divided into 6 compared to 3 training sessions per week. Book of abstracts, 17th annual conference of the ECSS (2012).