By When it comes to going to the gym, there is no real right or wrong answer here, unless you think that going once per week will be effective – that’s definitely NOT going to be my answer here LOL.
To determine the best solution, as yourself these following questions, taking the time to answer them as honestly as possible: –
- What are your goals for training in gym?
- What time frame can you allocate to working out?
- Which days’ work best for you in terms of your lifestyle and work?
- Are you better equipped to get to the gym in the morning, or the afternoon?
- What are your plans regarding diet, because diet is 80% of your results?
When you have answered these questions, you will have a rough schedule outline, that can determine what days, times and what goal you want to achieve (not to mention the food aspect too – which is key here).
The reason we go through these steps, is because when a client comes to me, they really have no idea whatsoever what they want to achieve, therefore, it makes it hard to pinpoint an end goal. I highly recommend having some kind of goal to make your efforts worthwhile, and also give you the motivation to keep going.
When training for muscle mass.
For the best results when training for muscle mass, I recommend splitting body parts through the week. For instance, legs on Monday, biceps and triceps on Tuesday, rest on Wednesdays, back and shoulders on Thursday, cardio on Friday, rest on Saturday, yoga, Pilates or foam roller on Sunday (or this can be another cardio day). This is a very rough work out split, and you can change the days as you want. I personally train my weakest link twice a week. For me, this is legs. I will perform a leg work out on Wednesday, focusing on squats, and then again on Saturday, but focusing on deadlifts. Why do I do this? well, genetically, I’m a bit of a slow developer on the glutes and hamstrings – never mind the quads as they seem to grow no matter what. But from me telling you this very fact, you can instinctively pick up that I’m dominated by my quads, and very weak on the glues and hamstrings. Because I get injuries via my hips and back, it makes more sense to me in training the weakest link once per week, to increase the strength and size of those body parts. You can do the same thing in your training.
I find that splitting really helps me to narrow down muscle groups and get the best out of my work out for that day. Full body workouts don’t work for me. These are best saved for those who need to lose body fat or are not interested in heavy lifting
Remember too that splitting body parts does cause stress to the nervous system, so you will need to allocate rest twice or three times per week. Listen to your body and allow it to rest when needed.
I also prefer the 5 days on, 2 day off, or 4 days on, 3 days off approach which has been made popular by Lee Haney. He would smash the muscles from different angles with tri sets. This was made possible with split training. I highly recommend reading up on his methods, as they have proven to be very beneficial for me, and many others. Tri sets are great for smaller muscle groups, such as biceps and triceps, back and shoulders. For legs, I suggest allowing longer resting time – especially if you are prone to injury or have imbalances.
For fat loss
I would still approach my training as above, but would add some HIIT training in between lifting weights, I would only add HIIT as a last resort, if I needed to lose some body fat. If you don’t need to, please save your energy for weights – you will benefit more from this long term.
Hopefully this has answered your question and provided you with some tips on how to train a little bit more effectively. There are so many variables, depending on your goals. If you appreciate this, why not stick with my ranting via my website or join me on fb and insta social. Please feel free to upvote this answer if it has been useful in some way to you.
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