Many experienced gym-goers break their workouts up by muscle groups throughout the week. For example, they'll work out just their arms on Monday, then their legs on Tuesday, cardio on Wednesday, and so forth. This is called split-training. Some serious athletes even go as far as breaking up their workouts by specific muscles. For example, "shoulder day" or "glute and calf day."
While this is great for some people, it's not the best for those who are thinking about weight loss surgery or who are less than a year or so out of WLS. Instead, full-body training is the way to go. Full-body workouts are those that include working all the muscles in your body during one workout.
Here are 5 reasons to choose full-body workouts:
1. You'll save time. Not having enough time is the number one reason people have for giving up on a workout program or for not even getting started at all. Full-body workouts give you the best bang for your time. Split-routines require you to work out just about 6 days a week to ensure you hit each muscle group enough. Full-body workouts don’t require that same time commitment. Full-body routines hit every major muscle group during every workout.
2. You’ll get a decent cardio workout at the same time. Like I just said, full-body workouts include working so many muscles in one single session. This will automatically get your heart pumping and lungs going, making it work not only your muscles but also your cardiorespiratory system. With split-routines, because you’re only working out a small muscle group you’ll be resting much more in between exercises, not giving your heart and lungs the same workout as you would with a full-body routine.
3. You'll increase your functional fitness. Functional fitness is being able to do things in day-to-day life with much more ease. Things, like cleaning, carrying groceries, or walking around the mall, will be much more enjoyable when you're fit. Fullbody workouts are the best way to work on your functional fitness because like in daily life, you'll be working multiple muscles at the same time.
4. You'll burn more calories in a single workout session. By working various muscles during one workout, you'll burn way more calories than you would if you were to only workout one or two muscles. It's important for you to maximize your calorie burn during each workout to ensure your weight loss stays on track.
5. You'll avoid getting bored. Full-body workouts are AWESOME because the exercise possibilities are endless. Having so many options fights the boredom that can come with working out. You’ll never run out of exercises and you can switch up your workouts all the time!
If you’re brand new to full-body workouts, take it slow. Don’t try every exercise you know in one single workout. Aim for 30-45 minute full-body sessions 3 times per week. If you can only deal with 10-20 minutes right now, that’s totally fine. Do what you can! But start slow and steadily increase the number of exercises, sets, reps, and number of times you workout per week.
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