4 REASONS WHY FULL BODY WORKOUTS ARE PERFECT FOR ATHLETES

What’s up Gronk Fitness!

When designing your own training program, it can get pretty complicated pretty fast. Now, whether you are a professional athlete or simply someone who wishes to put on some size and strength, there’s one thing you DON’T want to achieve via your training; you do not want to tax your Central Nervous System so much that it affects your recovery, your performance in your sport or even your life.

As a result, you see more and more athletes shifting over to Full Body Workouts and for good reason. Let’s check out the four main benefits you can get by choosing to get yourself on a Full Body Training regimen.

Reason #1 – Bulletproof Strength Booster!

Especially if you are coming off of a split-type of program or if you have hit a plateau, your basic compound lifts will almost immediately start improving. That means your Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift, Bent-Over Row, Overhead Press will finally have a chance to grow.

Why? Well, the reason this is happening is because you’re constantly working on the muscle group. Since you will be training your entire body every time you hit the gym, you can potentially target ALL your muscle groups 3 – 4 times a week and get away with it because you are not performing an insane amount of volume during each individual workout.

Instead, your WEEKLY volume is about the same but at the same time, you’re letting your body know that it has to lift heavy weight on consecutive days throughout the week. In other words, you are able to lift with the same volume but potentially double or triple your training frequency, which should immediately boost your main lifts and overall strength.

Reason #2 – More Time For Conditioning & Lagging Body Parts

Because full body only has you training 3 days per week, on those in-between days, your workouts can feature more conditioning work as well as fixing imbalances or working on lagging areas.

For example, if we assume that conditioning is an important part of your training, you no longer have to do it before or after your lifting sessions. You can simply leave the conditioning work for the following day where you’ll be more likely to push yourself past your limits and actually get some results. Alternatively, you can choose to utilize these in-between days as rest and recover days. That’s perfectly acceptable as well!

Finally, many athletes use those in-between days to train their core or attack a specific function of their performance, such as jumping, mobility work or throwing.

Reason #3 – Multiple Growth Periods

If you are familiar with the anabolic window, then you know that your muscles only grow for a 48 – 72 hour window after training them. This means that if you train your back on Monday and then wait a full week to train it again, you are essentially wasting 5 out of 7 days of every single week.

Multiple studies have actually demonstrated this benefit. Image two athletes, athlete A and athlete B. Athlete A and athlete B are performing the same overall volume over the week.

Athlete A performs 15 sets of squats ONCE a week, whereas athlete B performs 5 sets of squats, 3 times a week. In the vast majority of cases, athlete B will be able to boost their muscle size, strength and performance faster and easier than athlete A!

Reason #4 – Not As Mentally Exhausting

We’ve saved the best for last! Let’s say you’re going to the gym to train your back and you’re doing 3, 4 or even 5 exercises. You might almost mentally hold yourself back on the first exercise, to make sure you have enough energy for the second and third exercise that you’re doing.

With full body workouts however, it’s a one-and-done type of thing. You hit squats, then you’re done with legs and you go over to the bench press. When you’re done with the bench you go and train your back, and then maybe do some explosive or isolation work after that. The potential is virtually limitless and your training is always interesting.

Consequently, you go in with the mentality of “I’m going to hit these 4-6 sets as heavy and as hard as I possibly can, and then I’m done with that muscle group”. That’s why many athletes are able to train harder this way and boost their performance without risking an injury or over-exerting themselves.

And most importantly, by not stressing your body out, you can focus on getting results, improving your body and your performance and of course, getting your mind right!