Full-body training is one of the best kept “secrets” of the gym.

Seriously, over the years I have used this style of training with hundreds (maybe even thousands?) of men and women to help them melt body fat and add slabs of size and strength to their frame – but if you walk into most gyms you’ll see that barely anyone seems to be doing it!

Classic Full-Body will show you just how effective it can be.

This is an alternate version of my popular Classic Size program; where the original plan uses a “bro split” (chest day, leg day, etc) this version has you training every muscle in every workout. I’ll explain how it all works below, but I want to begin by giving you my word that once you’ve seen the results you can achieve with this kind of training, you’ll be telling everybody about it!

Program length: 8 weeks.
Frequency: 5 workouts per week.
Session breakdown: Every workout is a full-body workout, with 2 muscle groups receiving a little more focus than everything else on the day.
Rep ranges: Low, moderate, and high.
Muscle Buster techniques: Dropsets, rest pause.

Workout Calendar

This is an 8-week program, and you’ll be training x5 days per week:

• Monday: Full-body (chest and calves focus)
• Tuesday: Full-body (back and triceps focus)
• Wednesday: Full-body (shoulders and abs focus)
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Full-body (biceps and traps focus)
• Saturday: Full-body (quadriceps, hamstrings and calves focus)
• Sunday: Off

I’ve pencilled in your recovery days for Thursday and Sunday, but you can shuffle these if you wish.

If you have a week where you cannot train five times, one of the benefits of full-body workouts is that everything has already been trained so no body parts get left behind by unexpected days off (unlike a “bro split” where if you miss leg day then your legs remain untrained for two weeks).

The Benefits Of Full-Body Training

Full-body training is just as effective as any other form of training, and in certain situations it’s even better!

As mentioned above, I’ve been using this style of training with clients for the last 22 years now, and I’ve always found that it’s a great way to help beginner lifters stagger the total volume for each muscle across several workouts.

Doing so generally leads to more consistency during the early days when it’s most important, because 1) you never really obliterate a muscle to the point where you can’t walk, and 2) your workouts are packed with plenty of variety.

It’s also pretty awesome for fat loss results. A 2016 study showed that having trainees move from a traditional 3-day split onto a full-body split led to an additional 4% improvement in fat loss – despite the fact they were still doing the same number of sets for each muscle over the course of the week! (1)

How the fuck?

Well, the researchers believed this was because trainees were able to work harder, due to the reduced number of sets for each muscle and the fact that they always felt fully recovered.

Training your whole body also gives you an opportunity to tap into the benefits of high frequency training. I use this technique in some of my other programs, where I’ll have you training a muscle group more than once per week (e.g. MuscleMania where you hit chest on Mondays and again on Thursdays). Research shows that “spreading the load” of your weekly volume in this manner can improve muscle mass by as much as 10% – even when you do the exact same number of total sets. (2)

Questions About Volume And Recovery

Okay, let’s talk about volume and recovery:

“Can I still hit each muscle with enough volume to make it grow?”

The answer is YES.

It’s important to remember that “volume” refers to the number of sets each muscle receives over the course of a week, not in a single workout.

Research shows us that we need 12-20 sets in order to strike the “sweet spot” where results are maximized and we don’t reach a point of diminishing returns, so that’s precisely what we do in this program. If you go back to the original Classic Size plan you’ll see that each muscle receives 13-15 sets per week in the form of a “bro split” (chest day, leg day, etc), so in Classic Full-Body we achieve this same amount of volume via five full-body workouts. (13, 14, 15, 16, 17)

“How can my muscles recover if they’re being trained in every workout?”

People have been conditioned to believe that muscles need 48-72 hours of rest after a workout.

That may be true in the case of a high volume bodybuilding-style workout where you hammer your chest with 15+sets in one workout, but if you’re just hitting your chest with 7 sets and then 2 sets on all other days then the muscle doesn’t need anywhere near as much recovery time! (6)

A Solid Support Structure

Full-body training is the centrepiece of this program, but there’s also a couple of other variables which sit under the surface which take elevate your end results even higher.

Let’s look at them now!

• Classic linear periodization

We’re going to use the classic linear periodization model to dictate when you switch between high rep phases and low rep phases.

This is a structure which has been used by bodybuilders and strength athletes for several decades, and it’s awesome for building size and strength! (3, 4, 5)

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