Most bodybuilders do a full body workout in their beginner stage, and as they get stronger, they swap it out for a more “advanced” split routine. But full body training has its own place in bodybuilding, and it’s not just for beginners.
Some training experts say you need to train each body part separately, once a week. Others argue the benefits of full body workouts are far greater, since you’re training your body as a whole, integrated unit — especially if you lead a busy lifestyle. You simply won’t find the time to train each body part separately the way bodybuilding magazines and internet articles suggest, and even if you did, it would be tiresome and boring.
In the old days, the pre-steroid era, full body workouts were the standard. Famous bodybuilders like Reg Park, Steve Reeves, Marvin Eder, Casey Viator, and even Arnold all trained full body. So why would you do full body workouts when more advanced split routines exist? Here are the real benefits.
1. Muscle Balance
Have you ever seen the guy in the gym who only trains his favorite muscle group? Take the kid who trains biceps curls so hard that his bench press is nearly the same weight as what he curls. Or the guy who constantly blasts his chest and only remembers his back or legs every once in a while.
A full body workout is efficient because it puts emphasis on training the entire body in one session. This kind of training lets every body part develop at the same rate, and it’s genuinely beneficial for building both strength and muscle mass, assuming your nutrition is in check.
2. Faster Strength Gains, Backed By Research
If maximizing strength is your goal, you need exercises that let you use the most weight while engaging the most muscle at once. Big compound movements like the deadlift, squat, bench press, and overhead press — and their variations — are the prime examples of full-body movements that build strength across your whole body.
This isn’t just a claim we’re making. A 2000 study compared training once a week against training three days a week at equal total volume, using 25 experienced subjects split into two groups. The first group trained once a week — 3 sets to failure per session, 3–10 reps per set. The second group trained three days a week — one set to failure per day, same rep range, same total weekly volume.
Same volume, different frequency — and the three-day group came out ahead on both lean muscle mass and 1-rep max strength. When total training volume is equal, spreading it across more sessions per week wins.
3. Faster Muscle Gains From Higher Training Frequency
With a regular split routine, each muscle group typically gets worked about 4 times a month (unless you’re training 6 days a week). With a full body routine, that same muscle group gets trained around 12 times a month instead. If your volume isn’t excessive and your diet is in check, that’s a signal to grow sent to your muscles three times as often — which adds up to faster progress than a standard split.
Isolation exercises like biceps curls or leg curls are genuinely great for hypertrophy — but mostly for lifters who are already experienced. Unless you’ve already built a solid strength base, isolation work is usually a poor use of your time. It also doesn’t make much sense to expect your legs to grow if you’re only training them once a week — the frequency is simply too low. With full body workouts, and assuming you’re using appropriate weights and rest, you’re hitting any given muscle group two or three times a week, which gives your muscles a much bigger demand to grow into.
4. Lower Overtraining Risk
At roughly one exercise per muscle group, you cut down your chances of overtraining. It’s still possible to overtrain on a full body routine, but compared to a split routine — where you’re doing multiple exercises per muscle group, plus supersets, drop sets, rest-pause sets, and so on, all in one session — the odds are a lot lower.
5. Built Around Compound Exercises
The exercises in a full body workout are mostly heavy compound movements, and for good reason — since you’re not doing three, four, or more exercises per muscle group, the movements you do pick need to activate as much total muscle mass as possible.
6. Greater Glycogen Depletion and Faster Fat Loss
When it comes to burning fat and depleting glycogen levels, full body routines aren’t in the same league as split routines. A full body session burns through a lot more total energy than training just one or two muscle groups.
Training your whole body in one session also means a lot of microtrauma happens at once, which triggers the release of more muscle-repairing hormones to fix the damage. That creates a genuinely favorable hormonal environment for building muscle.
7. More Time-Efficient For Busy Schedules
If you’re juggling a demanding career or family obligations, it’s simply not realistic to train each body part separately throughout the week. Most people run into this exact problem and never carve out the time for it.
Instead of rearranging your entire life around your training schedule, pick a relatively short full body workout built from the most effective exercises. You’ll burn a lot more calories in one full-body session than you would dedicating an entire session to just one muscle group.
8. Keeps You Focused on the Basics
Most people spend roughly an hour in the gym, warm-up included — and once you factor in how much of that hour goes to gym selfies for social media, actual effective training time is smaller than you’d think. Social media isn’t going anywhere, so the best defense is a workout style that doesn’t leave room for distraction.
That’s exactly what full body training does — it keeps you focused on basic compound movements like bench presses, squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, chin-ups, and sprints. Sometimes just getting in, doing the basic lifts, and triggering a real physiological response is the best option you’ve got.
Full Body Workout Example
Workout A
Bench Press — 3 sets, 8-12 reps
Behind the Neck Press — 2 sets, 8-12 reps
Barbell Rows/Chin-Ups — 3 sets, 8-12 reps
Squats — 3-4 sets, 8-12 reps
Curls — 2 sets, 8-12 reps
Triceps Extensions — 2 sets, 8-12 reps
Calf Raise — 3 sets, 15-20 reps
Crunches — 3 sets, 15 reps
Workout B
Incline Bench Press — 3 sets, 8-12 reps
Lateral Raises — 2 sets, 8-12 reps
Leg Press — 3 sets, 8-12 reps
Deadlifts — 3-4 sets, 8-12 reps
Curls — 2 sets, 8-12 reps
Triceps Extensions — 2 sets, 8-12 reps
Calf Raise — 3 sets, 15-20 reps
Crunches — 3 sets, 15 reps
Bottom Line
Full body workouts improve training efficiency by cutting unnecessary exercises and relying on basic compound movements to make you stronger and more muscular. They train your major movement patterns several times a week, across varying intensities and rep ranges, to engage as many muscle fibers as possible. When you’re pressed for time, full body training is the most efficient path to real muscle stimulation — and real gains in both size and strength.
Full body workouts rock. People say that they are for beginners, but if you use them right I think they are providing real benefits.
Full-body is very effective workout and they are for beginners/intermediate people – the problem is no one seems willing to concede that’s what they are. While the net provides a ton of fitness knowledge, the downside is rookies using advanced techniques and supplements when they spend an hour a week at LA Fitness.
I agree, with that. I will add that even advanced trainees can benefit from full body workouts as a change of pace from time to time. Many advanced trainees including the legendary Reg Park (who used to bench press 500lbs) are using full body workouts.
How many times a week should you do this routine?
Usually 3 times a week
Up to the individual. Ensuring enough recovery and rest is accomplish. 3 days are for the average. But those intermediate and advance. 5 to 6 days is also possible. Look up at the late Leroy Colbert workout routine on google and youtube. Check Jeff Nipard 5 days workout also. These people will give you the example of full body anabolic workout. Even p*rnstar Johnny Sin does Fullbody workout.
Enjoyed your article however you haven’t mentioned what weight to start off with and then progress from that weight.
There are the individuals still believe to their sets to failure which can lead if not carefull for injuries .
However the most important is diet eating correctly.
As a rule you can start a weight that you can do 13-15 reps with. And do 10 reps with it while leaving 2-3 reps in the tank. As you progress in strength you can slowly increase your weight and follow the same principle.
When training full body and higher frequency you can’t afford to go to failure every workout and on every exercise, because you risk injury and overtraining in a short period of time.