Enough for each muscle group

I had a session with a personal trainer on Monday and he gave me a weekly programme to work on.

Mon Weds and Fri

Mon will be chest and biceps

Weds is back and triceps

Fri is legs and shoulders

It seems good, apart from one thing.

Surely, working on each muscle group only once a week is inadequate? I'm aware that over-training can be a problem, but to work on pecs say, only Mondays, surely that is not enough.

Any views?

Thank you.

Chris

It depends upon your goals? I know many powerlifters work out one lift a week (although there is some cross over between squat & deadlifts) & some bodybuilders also work out their bodyparts once a week. For an athlete I'd say any bodypart split would be sub-optimal. Most coaches these days focus much more on movement rather than muscle to achieve maximum performance.
To really be ideal for this split I'd think you'd have to be intermediate lifter (bear in mind most people in the average gym never reach intermediate).
Looking at it, you are working triceps 3 times a week (chest, trics & shoulders all work the triceps) & biceps twice a week (bis & back both work biceps), but again it depends on your goals. It's not the sort of format I use myself these days, but I know it works for many coaches. I work towards function first. When I start a person out I screen them (after all the form filling, injury history etc etc), then I work on getting what is not working right fixed while at the same time strengthening what is working ok. I first get function then add strength. I also work on more areas than bodyparts for the 'average person', the normal person wants to look good, but also be able to do a lot of stuff to an ok level, so they want to be fairly agile, fairly fast, fairly strong & have reasonable endurance (both muscular endurance & aerobic), so I do cycles where I focus on those goals. Obviously for clients with specialist goals these can change, but I still like to get at least some of all of these into a program, even a powerlifter can do better with a little muscular endurance for example.
So, my answer would probably have to be you will probably get enough muscular stimulation, but I personally have moved away from that system of programming as I found it doesn't cover all the bases I want covered. It will make you bigger, it will make you stronger. If the person is a good trainer they may have all those facets programmed in but just not wanted to overwhelm you with information. This sort of program has worked well for many bodybuilders over the years, so it definitely works, it's just not what I want to offer the general public these days.
Also something to take into account is if you do dynamic warm-ups you can also do things like hit pecs doing push-ups as part of that warm-up...infact for some people I've seen, my warm-up has been their workout as I'm a great believer in a good warm-up session that gets you doing stuff, not ambling on a treadmill for 5 minutes.

One thing I do recommend is most good personal trainers do some form of physical assessment before they start training you - for example I use a form of FMS (functional movement screen) just to make sure you don't have any issues I need to refer to a physio, or imbalances or issues I need to fix. I'd be wary of any trainer who didn't do anything as how the hell do they know what you need to do to achieve your goals? There are many 'rep counters' out there, they get the 'Monday routine' & every client one after the other do the same routine, next the 'Wednesday routine' comes out - it's cookie cutter & you might as well go online & copy a routine from 'muscle & pump' & then invest in a speaking clock that counts 1,2,3,4,5,.... which is basically all you are getting. I'm on no way suggesting this person is that type, as many good trainers still use bodypart splits as their training base, just be sure you're getting a full service & it is PERSONAL training, not cookie cutter, number counting!

Thanks

I know there is a lot more to it than we went into. The trainer is a student in my school who agreed to trade English lessons for personal training, which is his job. We could only find one time slot so decided to do just one session, meaning we could not go too deep.

The link below is fairly similar to what I'm aiming at, and I would say I'm 40% of the way there, the reassurance I would be looking for is to know the 'once a week per muscle group' can be conducive to results like this.

I am prepared to work hard, but don't want to scupper my own progress by sneaking extra bench pressing into my non-pec sessions out of concern I'm undertraining them.

Thanks again

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=fitness+models+male&um=1&hl=en&client=gmail&rls=gm&biw=1024&bih=599&tbm=isch&tbnid=rVRTzdMa8ireqM:&imgrefurl=http://www.myfitnessstudio.co.uk/becoming-a-male-fitness-model/&docid=iuc8wbYejtqP4M&w=500&h=697&ei=R6CVTrjvF8OQswbJx_m_BQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=397&page=1&tbnh=125&tbnw=90&start=0&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=41&ty=50

I couldn't get the link to work, but it looked like you were trying to show images of male fitness models - if so a LOT of that result is diet. Certainly this routine could get you the size you need for a fitness model, but diet for it is very, very hard & sustaining very low bodyfat levels for many people while keeping muscle mass up is tricky (impossible for some). You could be lucky enough to have the genes necessary to hold a reasonable muscle mass with very low fat levels drug-free, but you may have to consider on & off 'season', basically winter you add a little fat so the abs fade a little, then summer tighten up for example.
Whether you need extra work in certain areas will depend upon aesthetics, what looks most symmetrical, you will need a good balance of training (muscular & cardio) & a diet that moves from fairly tight in the winter to ultra-tight in the summer. I hope that the diet is in place & that you are achieving 95% compliance or you will not achieve the low fat levels you're after. If you've any size at all, I'd be working mainly on dietary compliance as that will be the deciding factor if you are after the fitness model body. If you are still too small, then you may need to sacrifice the abs short term to get the muscular size, then really tighten up the diet to reveal the 'finished product'. It depends where you are right now.
It is possible to get decent abs drug-free here's a guy who was doing it over 100 years ago way before steroids



Above is Maxick

or Otto Arco from the 30's



This was before we knew anything about nutrition, before there was any convenience like protein powders. Really the average gym going should be BETTER than these guys with all that we know about physiology & nutrition...but I've yet to walk into the average gym & see guys or gals who are better than the old timers

Hi

Low body fat is probably going to mean a lot of work for nothing, I have some body fat but only light coverage and I don't think it'll shift without concerted effort, and in essence I wouldn't really want it to. The link I posted was of a lad with next to no body fat so on that basis I was misleading you. What my aim is, is to develop the muscle mass to look as he would with clothes on, rather than off, so losing the half inch of natural coverage part hiding my abs is not priority.

It's nice to know the weights programme will help achieve my basic aims.

Thanks for all the great information.

Chris

Just out of curiosity what would you consider an intermediate weight lifter? I've heard some people say that when you can lift a combined total of 800lbs with bench press, deadlift and squats. But I think this just applies to power lifters. I guess those working on agility, flexibility or just bulking may have other factors besides just the total lift.

As far as just working one muscle group a week I find is more benificial for athletes. For example I do kickboxing and I find it really hammers on my legs and shoulders. So I generally do my back (upper and lower) on monday, the class on tuesday. Then Chest and Biceps on wednesday and class on thursday. Then I have friday, saturday and sunday to do my leg day and chest and shoulder/tricep day. That way these muscles get adequate rest over the weekend.

It depends how you define lifters. If you define purely by strength, I'd steer clear of a set number & go by bodyweight % on some lifts - assuming they use those lifts-there are guys like Indian wrestler who are damn strong, but practice bodyweight squats & have main strength moves like heavy mace swing & partner lifting (& wrestling of course!). I one day actually want to make it out to some of the old wrestling schools over there & spend a day or two trying to keep up with the S&C stuff those guys do in the real old style physical culture places that still exist there, it would be awesome (but I might not manage to keep up!). Anyway that's off the track. I'd say strong would be 1.5xBW Bench 2xBW squat, 2.5 x BW deadlift (you can reverse the last 2 if necessary as some are strong squatters while others are stronger DLers) for someone who uses those lifts. I'd also include BW military press (strict!) if you do overhead stuff (many throwing athletes do not, so it wouldn't count). Yes, you can add speed (I'd stick with the idea of shorter stuff like 40 yards/metres rather than 100+ metres), agility is hard to quantify, vertical jump is a pretty good leg power indicator, but depending upon the sport that could have a difference - so I'm not sure if a weight/height jumped might not be more honest?
That is for strength, but there is also another way to categorise how 'advanced' a person is, this especially holds true for people wanting to coach ,sell product online etc like many do, & that is how much they know about training. For example you can be strong as hell, or have a 6-pack, or big as a house & yet know very little about training people. There may also be people who can train within their field (say a powerlifter can train other powerlifters, or to narrow it even more a steroid using powerlifter may be able to train another steroid using powerlifter), but often they cannot train outside their field. Ideally, what I call an 'advanced' trainer tends to be middle to bottom of the field in their lifting class not a champion, they have worked hard for years & made decent gains, but not stellar, they have terrible genetics, they aren't that robust naturally, but may have developed some robustness. If you go to an ex-Mr Olympia I can write out your training right now. It will be 5-6 days a week bodypart split with a volume that will kill a non-drug user. That isn't the fault of the person, it's what they know & what they've seen work within their peer group. They have no experience outside of that. That is NOT to say all bodybuilders do not know how to train people other than bodybuilders, obviously many will, but in this example our ex-Mr Olympia big & strong as he is would be classed as an intermediate in terms of his knowledge-base. You have:
beginner - knows what they read in "Big & buff" magazine
Intermediate - knows quite a bit within one field, but little outside of that
Advanced - has experience working in several fields & can do a reasonable job of planning stuff for the vast majority of athletes

To become advanced you have to either have tried a lot of different training protocols yourself or have worked with people from many different fields.

Some athletes work well with once a week per bodypart, others work well with several times a week. The split (if you need a split) depends upon your recovery & can change depending on season & specific goals (you can train for hypertrophy, max strength, conditioning etc each of which will tax the body slightly differently), so the splits can change (also stress & other factors can play a part as well) - generally without seeing an athlete personally or at least working honestly with a person you often have to just say, "If that appears to be working for you, then stick with it" & that's the best answer I can give to that one. I 'could' suggest some stuff, but basically if things are going well & you are improving then it's the thing to stick to. A couple of usual stuff related to training, like a decent warm-up (I am using right now foam roller, stretch, then activation & mobility all before warm-up), but that's about the best anyone could do from the limited contact we've had on a messageboard.

hey Pete, this may look odd but I wanna built a little muscle even though I'm a lady. As a single mom I wanna stay fit for my 3 children. how will I start then?

This board is closing down, if you pop over to http://www.veganbodybuilding.org/forum/ & ask again (I know it's a pain, but trust me the new board is LOADS better!) I will go into as much detail as you need to get you started.