Body Part Routines Are A Joke...‏

A full body workout or ody oart routine? This is a view point from Vince DelMonte, Author & Creator, No Nonsense Muscle BuildingMen's Fitness Magazine Contributor

1. No transfer to reality.

Legs one day, back one day, chest one day, arms one day... why don't we have another day allocated to face muscles and another day for just finger muscles ?! You've probably heard the saying, "Form follows function." The way you train will determine the way you look but it will also determine the way you perform and live life. Yes, many people have improved the way they look with cosmetic oriented training -- bodybuilding -- but it has little to no transfer to functional living. I am assuming that you also want to be fit and be confident knowing that you have muscular strength, power, speed and eendurance. Let me clarify, I'm not against "split routines" where you split up "movements' to different days like squats, pull ups, over head presses one day and then deadlifts, bent over rows and bench press another day.

2. Hormonal response.

Science has shown that the more muscle one uses during a training session, the greater the amount of testosterone and human growth hormone that is released into your body. These are the two MAJOR hormones responsible for building muscle mass. Doing exercises like squats, presses, rows, DB swings, and snatches is like shooting testosterone and hGH through a powerful fire hose into your body! Doing a body part workout like biceps and triceps is like shooting testosterone and hGH into your body with little dinky squirt gun.

3. Training length.

Bodybuilding programs usually prescribe 12-24 sets for ONE muscle group. That's insane! Bodybuilding programs are like saying, "Go sprint a marathon!" It's impossible. Consider this. If I'm doing 12-24 sets on one muscle group then I can only train at 60-70% of my one rep max. Do you think that's actually intense? No! Where are the gains coming from? Where does the strength increase occur? That's why people do these marathon body part workouts for up to 2 hours. And when you train longer then (about) 60 minutes, hGH and testosterone hormones drop and cortisol, a catabolic hormone, begins to rise (leading to muscle LOSS). I will even go as far as to say that body part workouts tailor to wimps because the workouts are easy. They barely make me sweat.

4. Bone and joint strength

Again, science would tell you the only way to strengthen your skeletal structure including your tendons, ligaments and bones is HEAVY lifting. This requires multi-joint movements like deadlifts, cleans, presses, chin ups, rows and squats. Body part programs are filled with isolation exercises like leg curls, extensions, side raises, cable flys etc. These are all exercises that put the weightat the end of a long lever. This puts minimal stress on your skeletal structure because it's difficult to lift even if you're using a "heavy" weight. The only way to build NEW muscle mass on your body is to lift heavier and heavier weights and you can not do that by doing exercises that waste your energy and do not maximize strength gains.