Being a parent or working all the time essentially means your schedule is always changing. One week you're able to hit your workouts religiously each morning. The next week you're only able to get in two to three days if you're lucky. Routines often get thrown out the window. If you're on a typical upper/lower workout split where you work the upper half of your body one day and work the lower half of your body on another you could easily feel off-balanced during a hectic week. This is the same for push/pull/leg splits as well.
If week-to-week consistency isn't a guarantee – which it isn't for most people – full-body workouts make the most sense. Here are the reasons why.
Guaranteed to Hit Every Major Muscle Group
The main idea behind full-body workouts is that you hit every major muscle group each day you work out. This plan ensures a balance between all of the muscle groups and nothing starts to lag just because it's on a day you typically have meetings.
Less Damage to Muscles
Most of the time there's only one main exercise per major muscle group which allows the muscle to get an adequate amount of stimulus without having to go to the point of severe damage or DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). Many times we think when our muscles are sore it's because they're growing and that is true to an extent, but it's mainly a sign of overuse. Slight soreness after a workout is normal, but intense soreness often results in missing workouts or generally hating other activities.
Builds More Strength
When the goal is to build muscle size or strength, the key elements are intensity and volume. Since we have minimal muscle damage from day to day we can increase both our intensity and volume for each workout. The full-body workouts allow a person to distribute the additional volume and intensity across the week evenly to get to their goals even quicker.
Increases Testosterone Benefits
With an increase in muscle stimulus due to the additional volume you'll be able to achieve, you'll also be able to experience additional testosterone benefits. Testosterone is often associated with men and they typically have a lot when compared to women, but women also have more testosterone. Surprisingly, women have more testosterone in their bodies than estrogen. This hormone is essential for building muscle and having the right hormone balance needed for optimal metabolism.
It's Time Efficient
One of my favorite reasons why full body workouts are my preferred style of workout is because it's time efficient. I can complete a lower body exercise and with a short rest go directly into an upper body exercise. My lower body gets its required amount of rest while I'm doing the upper body work and vice versa. I save a ton of time doing these supersets and because I'm only doing one to two exercises per body part I can be in and out of the gym in under one hour.
Flexibility at the Gym
The hassle of going to a crowded gym is that your machine of choice will probably always be used. Well, with full-body workouts this won't stop you. You can always just choose another movement for that body part or move on to the next body part. You have so many options because there are tons of options for each body part so an occupied machine won't slow you down.
Continually Engaging
Just as we alluded to in the last highlight, the options to mix and match a workout are endless. There are a few main movements that should be a part of any good workout week and with this type of plan, you have many opportunities to include them. '
Since having Beckett and running Pretty Healthy Family, we've noticed how hard it is to be consistent with our workouts. This is why we both have transitioned to full-body workouts each day we decide to do resistance training. The workout we're both currently on is here and it's a good one. It's based around all of the goals our clients tell us they want out of a workout plan and is flexible enough to achieve it on a few days a week.
If you haven't tried a full-body workout plan, give it a try and let us know what you think.
I want to try a full body workout plan to see if work for me.