Split or Full Body Routines - Which is Best for Beginners?
Split or Full-Body Routines: Which Is Best for Beginners?
The question we put to IFBB pros and bodybuilding legends Dexter Jackson, Dennis Wolf and Branch Warren was: do you believe that bodybuilding beginners can make good progress on a split routine where they train one or two body parts a day with multiple exercises for each, or would most be better off starting on full-body routines done every other day where they just do a few basic compound movements? It seems we don’t see many beginners doing full-body routines with the basics anymore.
Dexter Jackson
Even for a beginner, I don’t see the point in trying to work the whole body at once. I am a firm believer in using the barbell basics, especially for beginners and intermediates. The way I would have a beginner train is to do three days on, one day off, splitting the body into pull, push and leg days. I would do the pull day first so that you aren’t deadlifting and squatting on consecutive days. So day one would be deadlifts, chins, barbell rows and dumbbell rows. Day two would be flat bench, incline bench, dips and skull-crushers. Leg day would be day three, with squats, leg presses, stiff-leg deadlifts, leg curls and calf raises. This way, every body part would get hit twice a week, or technically twice every eight days. A beginner could stick with that routine for anywhere from two to six months and build a good base, before splitting the body up into more days and doing more exercises for each body part.
Dennis Wolf
When you are just starting out, you need to spend a little time just learning all the basic exercises. Too many guys start out on machines, which is wrong in my opinion. Free weights force you to learn balance and coordination, so you should start off with those— using light weights, of course— learning how to do bench presses, squats, deadlifts, barbell rows and military presses. You need to learn how to feel the muscles work too, before you go off and start doing a split routine of one or two body parts at a time. I would never advise a beginner to start training the way I or the other pros do now, after we have been training for 10 or 20 years. When I started out, I divided my workouts into three days a week, and I would train every other day or more often. So on Monday I did chest and arms, Wednesday was back and delts and Friday was legs. When you are starting out, you get very sore and you need more time between workouts. As time went on, I split the body up into more training days and would train four or five days a week. My body could handle more work, and I was able to put more effort into each body part. That’s a good way to do it.
Branch Warren
When you’re a beginner, you’ll make progress on just about anything as long as you’re training hard. I started off as a teenager doing a full-body workout, just because I didn’t know any better. I was looking to see all the different exercises the big, older guys were doing, and I would do those. It really didn’t occur to me for a little while that I probably shouldn’t be doing all of them every time I went to the gym. It would take me well over two hours, maybe more like three. But I still think it’s a really good idea for beginners to do a routine that’s made up of just a few basic lifts so they build a base. It shouldn’t take more than around two months of that before you’re ready to move on to more of a standard split where you train just a couple of body parts at a time.