In the last ten to five years, health and fitness has made enormous strides into the world of the everyday person. Although many of the general population have begun to use resistance training to their advantage and benefit, not much information has been given to them about how to go about resistance training. There are many ways people in the general population can benefit from resistance training through designing their workouts. There are many different types of resistance training workout splits, but we are going to talk more about the big two: Full Body Resistance Training and Push/Pull/Legs Resistance Training.
Full Body Resistance Training
Cathe Friedrich’s workout regimens say, “training your whole body in one session can improve how your muscles function together. With a total body approach, you don’t isolate muscle groups and work them independently of each other. Instead, you work them as a unit. In this way, muscle groups ‘learn’ how to work together rather than in isolation” (Cathe pg. 1). While working through a full body workout your muscles tend to learn how to work together through physical activity. For those in the general population full body workout routines can help you to get through those everyday activities in your lifestyle.
Full body workouts can also help improve your proprioception. Proprioception is the ability to be aware of your body position and where you are in relation to another object or in space. Cathe explains, “With full-body training, you aren’t just strengthening and hypertrophying muscles, you’re training them in an integrated manner” (Cathe pg. 1). This can allow you to prevent falls and improve balance which can be more beneficial for those who are elderly.
Push/Pull/Legs Resistance Training
BoxRox Competitive Fitness says, “One of the first pros of PPL (Push/Pull/Legs) is the flexibility of focus. This means that you can follow the split regardless of if your training focus is strength, hypertrophy, general fitness, or athletic training. You can alter the scheduling and the workouts themselves to reflect your specific goals” (BoxRox Fitness pg. 1). This is a great benefit of the push/pull/legs workout routine because it fits into all areas of fitness no matter what your goals are. As well it allows for more flexibility in your training regime and allows you to improve your specific goals of resistance training without having to increase or decrease your workout load.
The next pro of the PPL workout routine is it allows your body’s muscles to work as synergists, which means they are using the surrounding muscles to work together to complete the task. An example of this on a pull day would be instead of doing isolated bicep curls you could do supinated chin-ups which allows you to hit the Forearms, Biceps, and Latissimus Dorsi (Lats) muscles in unison. Which will improve your overall upper body strength rather than just hitting one muscle group.
References
Friedrich, C. (2019, April 15). The Pros and cons of full-body training routines. Cathe Friedrich. https://cathe.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-full-body-training-routines/
Hudson, R. (2022, March 16). “How to Build Muscle – Pros and Cons of a Push Pull Legs Split Program (PPL) | BOXROX.” Www.boxrox.com, 2022, https://www.boxrox.com/pros-and-cons-of-a-push-pull-legs-split/
Nitro Cut. The Ultimate Full Body Workout, www.nitrocut.com/blogs/blog/the-ultimate-full-body-workout. Accessed 2 Nov. 2023.
Bowman, Peter. Push/Pull/Legs, 13 Aug. 2018. Accessed 2 Nov. 2023.
