The full body, muscle building routine has been around since the Stone Ages. In fact, I seem to recall seeing Bam-Bam tossing the boulderbells around with Pebbles ooohing in the background. It has been around that long simply because it works.
Truth is, nothing works better than the basics. You can split your body 19 ways to sundown and come up with the most bizarre, cockamamie 3 days on, 2 days off, 1 day on, ½ off, and whatever; yet the full body routine is still darn good.
It is good because it is simple and direct. You whack body as hard as you can, rest, whack it a little harder, rest, and so on. It does not get much more basic than that.
Basic though it may be, there can still be a lot of variety to how to actually structure the workout. Plus, the variations of the exercises involved is only constrained by your imagination. So, you do not have a bench; guess what, you can do a pullover and press on the floor.
Generally, you hit the largest, strongest muscles first and sequentially move to the smaller body parts. So, for me, I start with legs, then move to back to chest to shoulders, triceps, biceps; before finishing off with the abs.
During these full body sessions, I am not too concerned with calves or forearms.
The workout frequency is simple – workout Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You should do some cardio twice a week, say Tuesday and Saturday.
The routine:
Warm-up
- Run in place – 5 minutes
- Push ups – 1 set of 20 to 30 repetitions
- Deep knee bends – 1 set of 20 to 30 repetitions
Exercises
- Leg – Step ups with dumbbells. Find a solid crate or chair that you can step up on. It should be high enough that your thighs are at least parallel to the ground. Hold dumbbells in both hands. Be careful.
- Leg/Back – Stiff legged deadlifts with barbell.
- Back – Pull ups.
- Chest – Pull over and Press. Lying the floor with barbell past your head, reach over and pull the barbell to your chest and press. Obviously, you will only be able to lower the barbell till your arms hit the floor but that is okay. You will get good contraction on the top end of themovement. Slow movement, do not bang your arms on the floor.
- Shoulders – Standng military press. Clean the barbell up and press. Simple, basic and the added benefit of cleaning the barbell up the whole length of your body.
- Triceps – Lying tricep extensions (skull crushers) with dumbbells. Lying the floor, reach behind your head, pull over and press the dumbbells as you did with the barbell for the chest. From the top position, keeping your upper arms perpendicular to the floor, lower the dumbbells; but lower to the sides of your head, just on the chance the dumbbell collars come loose.
- Biceps – Standing Dumbbell curls. Easy, do it together or alternate.
- Abs – Superset crunches and reverse crunches.
Cool-down
- Light stretch – each bodypart for 30 seconds. No hard pull, just an easy stretch to lengthen the muscles back.
Set/Repetition Frequency
- Basic scheme is 3 sets of 12, 10, 8 repetitions.
- Last of 8 repetitions must be max effort.
- Rest between 1 and 2 minutes between sets.
- For Ab work, 3 supersets of 20 repetitions, no rest.
- Your objective from start to finish, including warm-up and cool-down, should be 45 minutes or so.
Assumptions
- You have access to a barbell, 2 dumbbells, and a pull up bar.
- You work out at home alone.
- You have no bench, no power rack, you have just the basics
This is your basic, no frills, tight budget full body, muscle building routine. You do not need to join a gym or buy a $300 bench contraption to get in a good workout.
Use this as a suggestion, a guideline to formulating your routine based on what you have available. If you have absolutely no weights, check out the bodyweight option here.
Or if you only have dumbbells – no biggie – whatever you normally do with barbells, just substitute with dumbbells.
But if you have the toys with all the bells and whistle,then you can do the more conventional movements.
Finally, keep track of what you do each workout. It doesn’t matter whether its a “training log,” a short diary, or mental notes. Always know what you did and how you felt. Later as you progress, this information will help you make adjustments to improve your workouts. Plus, it is great motivation to seek how much stronger you’ve gotten in the last 3 months!
[wp_campaign_1]
