Switching up routine + rest days please help

[Salty]

Ok so I have been doing a push pull legs core bodyweight split and worked out pretty much every day and I've been doing it for a while but I want to go back to a full body routine and am thinking of doing the advanced bodyweight workout and aim to beat Steve's time or get down to a certain time. I was wondering if i should have mandatory rest days or only when I feel sore/tired.

Thnx

[Dleffe]

Mandatory rest days, after a full body workout you have a full days rest. No soreness just means your body is used to those movements, you're still damaging the muscle to rebuild it stronger during your rest days.

[JPrev]

Why do you want to go back to a full body routine?  Not that there's anything wrong with it, just curious.  If you've been doing a split routine for a while, you'll probably have to spend a longer session during your full body routines to get a similar stimulus everywhere (need to make sure your arms don't get too tired doing both pulls and pushes, for instance).

[Salty]

Why do you want to go back to a full body routine?  Not that there's anything wrong with it, just curious.  If you've been doing a split routine for a while, you'll probably have to spend a longer session during your full body routines to get a similar stimulus everywhere (need to make sure your arms don't get too tired doing both pulls and pushes, for instance).

Most sites say that eventually you should switch up your routine/split so i thought i should go back to full body for a while or change it in some way and i don't know how to besides a full body routine. If there is another way please tell me.

PS:advanced bodyweight workout time: 20 minutes

[JPrev]

The topic you've been reading about is called variation, and it's an important strategy for continually improving your fitness.  Your body is ridiculously good at adapting - if you were to do the same activity all the time, your body would soon meet the challenge.  Now because your body loves efficiency, it'd become very, very good at that particular activity, but it wouldn't invest an ounce more effort in excess.  This is why we must always vary our activities and set new challenges if we want further adaptation.

 

Varying your training can be done in tons of ways.  In the case of lifting, increasing the weight is an obvious one.  However, there are many other equally viable methods: for instance, you could manipulate the time between sets or even reps.  In its advanced form, this could be something like rest-pause training.

 

You could also introduce variation by adding entirely new exercises.  Depending on your goals and what you're already doing, this could be the most effective way to provoke further adaptation.  So if all you'd been doing were standard presses, you could try incline presses or adding flyes.  You don't necessarily have to replace everything you've been doing.  More likely, you'll keep a couple "core" exercises and swap out / add others as you see fit.  Maybe you'll introduce new modes of exercise as well: if you've only been using bars or dumbbells, you could throw in some bodyweight forms (different modes recruit muscles differently).

 

So variation is a great way to round out your fitness and push it to new heights.  But how do you know when it's time to vary?  There aren't any hard and fast rules, but usually you should vary your training when your improvement has slowed down or stopped.  Every 4-6 weeks or so is probably a good amount of time.  You might set distinct training cycles, where you do one set of things for a few weeks (where "set of things" might mean groups of exercises or some other training focus, like strength v endurance work), then a different set of things, then back to the first set, and so forth.  This cyclic nature of training and variation over time is known as periodization.

 

OKAY, so back to the full body thing!!

 

Typically, going from a split routine to a full body routine isn't an effective form of variation.  Remember, the point of variation is to introduce new challenges to the body.  The thing about full body routines is that they're very taxing, and because all your muscles are getting worked at once, not all your groups are getting pushed to their full capability.  Think about it: if you need your arms to do pull ups and rows and chest presses and shoulder presses, your arms are going to get super tired.  At least one of those muscle groups (back, shoulders, or chest) is going to get the short end of the stick because your arms will fatigue before the focused muscles do.  In other words, full body routines will typically be limited by your synergists (the muscles that assist, but are not the primary target of, a given exercise).

 

Does that mean full body routines are inferior to split routines?  Absolutely not!  Remember, everything about training is about your goals.  Full body routines are excellent for people who can only train so many days a week.  Other people might actually prefer the overall taxing nature of full body work, as the primary adaptation they're seeking may not necessarily be top-end strength in each group, but rather a kind of muscular conditioning.

 

So let's get back to you and your goals.  I don't know what your split routine looks like currently, but I'm pretty sure it does more for each of your muscle groups than a 20-minute full-body routine would.  If your goal is to keep getting generally stronger, a 20-min full-body routine would, I think, decrease your overall strength (though it might improve your conditioning to some degree).  If you wanted to switch to full-body to save training days, I'd probably budget 40-60minutes and put some careful thought into the session itself (which exercises in what order with how much rest in order to give each muscle group its time to shine).

 

Personally, I'd probably vary things within my splits rather than switch to a full body routine, unless I needed to spend less days per week in the gym.

[Salty]

The topic you've been reading about is called variation, and it's an important strategy for continually improving your fitness.  Your body is ridiculously good at adapting - if you were to do the same activity all the time, your body would soon meet the challenge.  Now because your body loves efficiency, it'd become very, very good at that particular activity, but it wouldn't invest an ounce more effort in excess.  This is why we must always vary our activities and set new challenges if we want further adaptation.

 

Varying your training can be done in tons of ways.  In the case of lifting, increasing the weight is an obvious one.  However, there are many other equally viable methods: for instance, you could manipulate the time between sets or even reps.  In its advanced form, this could be something like rest-pause training.

 

You could also introduce variation by adding entirely new exercises.  Depending on your goals and what you're already doing, this could be the most effective way to provoke further adaptation.  So if all you'd been doing were standard presses, you could try incline presses or adding flyes.  You don't necessarily have to replace everything you've been doing.  More likely, you'll keep a couple "core" exercises and swap out / add others as you see fit.  Maybe you'll introduce new modes of exercise as well: if you've only been using bars or dumbbells, you could throw in some bodyweight forms (different modes recruit muscles differently).

 

So variation is a great way to round out your fitness and push it to new heights.  But how do you know when it's time to vary?  There aren't any hard and fast rules, but usually you should vary your training when your improvement has slowed down or stopped.  Every 4-6 weeks or so is probably a good amount of time.  You might set distinct training cycles, where you do one set of things for a few weeks (where "set of things" might mean groups of exercises or some other training focus, like strength v endurance work), then a different set of things, then back to the first set, and so forth.  This cyclic nature of training and variation over time is known as periodization.

 

OKAY, so back to the full body thing!!

 

Typically, going from a split routine to a full body routine isn't an effective form of variation.  Remember, the point of variation is to introduce new challenges to the body.  The thing about full body routines is that they're very taxing, and because all your muscles are getting worked at once, not all your groups are getting pushed to their full capability.  Think about it: if you need your arms to do pull ups and rows and chest presses and shoulder presses, your arms are going to get super tired.  At least one of those muscle groups (back, shoulders, or chest) is going to get the short end of the stick because your arms will fatigue before the focused muscles do.  In other words, full body routines will typically be limited by your synergists (the muscles that assist, but are not the primary target of, a given exercise).

 

Does that mean full body routines are inferior to split routines?  Absolutely not!  Remember, everything about training is about your goals.  Full body routines are excellent for people who can only train so many days a week.  Other people might actually prefer the overall taxing nature of full body work, as the primary adaptation they're seeking may not necessarily be top-end strength in each group, but rather a kind of muscular conditioning.

 

So let's get back to you and your goals.  I don't know what your split routine looks like currently, but I'm pretty sure it does more for each of your muscle groups than a 20-minute full-body routine would.  If your goal is to keep getting generally stronger, a 20-min full-body routine would, I think, decrease your overall strength (though it might improve your conditioning to some degree).  If you wanted to switch to full-body to save training days, I'd probably budget 40-60minutes and put some careful thought into the session itself (which exercises in what order with how much rest in order to give each muscle group its time to shine).

 

Personally, I'd probably vary things within my splits rather than switch to a full body routine, unless I needed to spend less days per week in the gym.

Could adding reps to sets be a way of switching things up because I'm aiming to eventually get a 1 arm chin up and I'm doing pull-ups with increasing amount of reps on "pull" day.

My routine is push/legs/pull/core

Push day is one armed push ups dips and handstand push-ups

Core is basically front lever training

Legs is pistols, tuck, and jump squats + lunges at the end