I seriously started going to the gym in my first year of university in 2015. My routine was probably similar to most people when I started, which is to train a specific body part each day. Therefore, I had a day for chest, back, shoulders, legs and arms.

This was working well the first few weeks, but then the university workload started increasing, with exams and coursework building week by week. This led to my workouts suffering, where I would miss a day or maybe not workout to my full potential. As my routine was to train a specific body part each day, it meant that I sometimes would miss training a certain body part that week. Of course, I knew this wasn’t sustainable, so I ended up switching my routine to full body workouts 3 days a week. As a result, I produced amazing results and 6 years later, I am still following the same routine today.

Firstly, what are full body workouts?

Full-body strength training are workouts designed to work the entire body. They can consist of actual full-body exercises or a combination of exercises for different body parts performed in a circuit. In other words, you target more than one muscle group at once in each exercise.

Benefits

• Achieve greater fat loss:Research published in the journal of Biology of Sport reported that people who did full-body workouts three times per week lost more fat than those who did training splits. By targeting more than one muscle group at once, you will burn more calories, which in turn will burn more fat.
• Build more muscle mass:By working all the muscle groups three times per week versus one or two times with split-body training, muscle protein synthesis occurs more frequently, which triggers muscle growth.
• Gain more strength:Total-body workouts may also lead to greater strength. A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that well-trained men who did full-body workouts had slightly greater muscle gains than those who followed split-body routines.
• Efficiency:You can get more done in less time. Full-body workouts can be between 30 to 60 minutes. If you miss a session for some reason, you’ve at least worked all your major muscles once or twice.
• Recovery time:You’ll have more time to recover between sessions than if you were working one muscle group every day. This helps your body build muscle and avoid fatigue.
• Good for beginners:Some of the best full-body workouts are comprised of a handful of exercises that are generally easy to understand and follow. With time they also become easier to execute.
• You can do full-body workouts from home:Equipment requirements for whole-body training are simple, so you could get your workouts done from home with some basic weights. No gym membership required.

Ultimately, do what’s best for you

I know this post is about the benefits of the 3-day, total body workout and how this has worked for me. However, the important thing to remember is to do what works best for you. Personally, I find that the three-day body workout works best for me due to the reasons mentioned above. However, if you enjoy going to the gym every day and feel like you don’t need much recovery, why not increase the frequency to 4 or 5 days a week? In fact, here is a great video by fitness YouTuber Jeff Nippard, who actually explains the benefits that high frequency training can have.

Ultimately, I hope you have found this post useful and it has given some insight into the frequency and routine of training. I think the great thing is that there are options for all of us. As long we can find what works best for us, then hitting the weights and exercising is only going to benefit us, no matter what workout plan we go for.