Routines...

Bodybuilding splits are something that really confuse beginners. I've always tried to play safe but this "how to split my routines for the most efficient results" kept me completely boggled down for some time. If you are not sure about the whats and whys, here goes the definition in plain english : A normal person can't work all the muscles from head to toe in a single day, so he tries to work arms one day, legs other day and so on. This stuff is normally called bodybuilding splits.

So, how do you split your routines? What are the various factors to be taken into account? As I always say, just use OTHER's experiences and YOUR common sense. Simply think of those one or two dreadful things that can happen to you when you do something wrong. You may injure yourself or you may overtrain or you may....well I leave others to you. So, when you are splitting, you just need to be sure that it won't in someway lead to those bad things. For example, lets take injury. You tear up when you put too much strain on a cold muscle. So, it seems that it has something to do with how you workout rather then when you work out. Lets take the other factor. You overtrain when you don't give your muscles enough time or food to repair and build more. So, just take care of having one or two days of rest between your workouts for EACH muscle group. Got it.

Secondly you don't want to give your muscles too much rest. I mean you must stimulate them again before they start thinking its all over and no more improvement is needed. Also giving too much rest will obviously lengthen your pace. Normally you need to give about 48-96 hours of rest (But ofcourse, that is very general and may or may not apply to your body). So, you just need to strike a balance between working too often (overtraining) and working frequently enough (to stimulate muscles for maximum gowth).

So, the problems remains to decide exactly how frequent you need to work a muscle. That depends on two factors :

1. Supplements you might be taking.
2. Your intensity.
3. The muscle you are working.

I don't particularly favour supplements so I won't be discussing them here. But still I must say that some (only some,not all) of them enhance the capacity of your body to recuperate tremendously, so you may be able to increase your frequency with them. Intensity is a pretty big factor. If you just work with a pair of dumbells and barbells at your home, then ofcourse you are not doing too much and its quite ok to workout at alternate days. If you go all out at gym with all sorts of compound and isolation exercises, then depending on your recuperation you may choose anywhere between one day to a full week's rest. Another thing you need to know is that the time a muscle requires to recuperate is roughly proportional to its size. So the larger the muscle, longer it'll take to repair itself. For example, legs contain the largest muscles in your body so if you go really allout on legs, you may rest a week before troubling them again. And your cheek muscles are the smallest, so you may work them thrice a day with 3-4 failure sets each time (ha ha). There is one more factor. When you do compound exercises, other muscles also get some workout. For example, when you do bench press, you work your triceps too. If you do biceps one day and chest the next day, you are sure to overtrain your biceps. Keep this in mind too.

So keep these little factors in your mind before deciding your splits.

Now I'll give some very basic and popular splits routines:

• Three or Four Days On : This one is really popular. If your intensity is average, you may take this one. There is no rest in between whatsoever but you are not likely to overtrain because of normal intensity. For beginners, this one really works. If you take proper diet (supplements-proteins etc) and rest and don't go overboard with your workouts, you'll see some real gains in your first 2-3 months.
• Six days On : This is really silly. I only mention it here as it seems to be quite popular in a local gym nearby. The problem is that you never get any rest (once a week!!), if you are doing something serious. If you are not, then ofcourse, you don't workout that frequent and your muscle gain is very very slow (you work four times a month and 48 times and year!!). But it may work with aerobics.
• Three Days On, One Day Off : This one is good. You get some rest and good rotation. This one is quite poplular too. Good for beginners. Again helps you get the maximum benefits for the first 2-3 months.
• One Day On, One Day Off : Very cool and efficient. You can work with all the intensity you care for. You get good rest. You see proper gains. Again very good for beginners and intermediate bodybuilders. I reccommend it.
• Other : Routines are like "2 days on, one day off, 1 day on, one day off" etc too are quite popular but there we come into the realms of serious professional bodybuilding. The routines above are good enough for amateur bodybuilders just interetsed in fit and muscular/toned body.

To design your splits just go to your trainer. He is supposed to have the relevant experience and knowledge and is the one person in the universe who can help you. The above information is just to help you understand the fundamentals working behind spits so that you can analyse and improve your own.

I normally hesitate to specify "how you split you body" because what works for me or for that matter Mr. Universe may not work with your body. If your trainer decides your splits, he'll also keep a watch over your improvement and will do any modifications required. As a beginner, you may not be able to get what you are doing going wrong or if any thing is going wrong all together. Still, I'm planning to add splits and routines of mine, my friends (those I have seen good muscle-gains by doing them) and yours (if you'd like to share) for reference and examples shortly.

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