Body Building is a sport of making the muscle bigger, stronger, healthier and proportionate. The physiology of muscle building or the muscle hypertrophy is purely scientific which is based upon the gradually increasing resistance to which the muscles keep on exerting during the exercise. The muscles grow only when the muscles get optimum rest to recover after the appropriate exertion and exhaustion due to exercise.
Physiologically the muscles once exerted with optimum load need recovery of at least 48-72 hours to get stronger enough to do the same workout with better power and strength to improve every time. Keeping in view this scientific fact, either we should train complete body on Mondays and repeat it on Thursdays and take complete rest on the other 5 days of week. Then the muscles with get 72 hours to 96 hours rest. It will be great but slightly tough if we train whole body on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and take rest for the other 4 days of the week.
It looks slightly difficult to choose the number of exercises on one single day for all muscle groups. Due to this we may be neglecting our few muscle heads which get trained by various exercises from various angles. On the basis of this, it will be great to divide our body in various parts on the basis of functioning of the muscles of the body. This dividing means the splitting of various body parts for better training and consecration on the isolated muscles. This is known as split system of training where we divide our body parts/muscle groups for better exercise effect on the training muscle and giving them sufficient rest to grow bigger, stronger and healthier.
Following could be the various split system.
1. Upper body and lower body.
2. Pushing muscles and pulling muscles.
3. Trunk and limbs.
4. Pushing muscles, pulling muscles and legs.
All the above split plans are good and have their advantages and disadvantages.
1) Upper body and lower body:
When we do upper body on day 1 and lower body on day 2 then we need lot of time on the upper body on day one and less time on day 2 on lower body. If somebody want to reduce body fat it will be great to add cardios after the leg work out on the 2nd day. For off season one should have every 3rd day a rest day and when the competition comes closer one can do all 6 days training completing every body part 3 times a week and taking the 7th day rest day.
2) Pushing muscles and pulling muscles:
It is the best combination of training with a scientific basis that when the pushing muscles work the pulling muscle stay and rest and vise-verse. On day one we can do the chest, shoulders, triceps, upper abs, quadriceps etc. and on day two we can do back biceps, lower abs, thigh biceps and lower back. The system is good but as far as the legs are concerned it is difficult to bifurcate the leg muscle groups and pulling and pushing and this may lead to over training of the leg muscles.
3) Trunk and limbs:
This is another variation of split plan when we perform chest, back and shoulder on day one and arms and legs on day 2. This is a good variation plan but leads to over training for smaller muscles of the arm and shoulders.
4) Pushing muscles, pulling muscles and legs:
The best of the split system and the ultimate plan for advanced and senior intermediates to divide or split the body in 3 parts that is upper body pushing on day one, upper body pulling on day two and lower body day three. This is the system which gives the monitored dose of training and rest to the muscles properly exerted to grow bigger and stronger. It will be great to perform 3 day on and one day rest and again 3 day on and one day rest. If your are to gain size and weight you should have every third day a rest day and two days training one day rest will keep on rotating every third day. This will give rest to every body part rotationally for better recovery and preparing the muscle for the next training days.
---Dr. Randhir Hastir
