The Motor Unit

I love full-body training. I sound like a broken record when saying this but no one can deny the benefits of a 3-day-a-week full-body routine.

• It’s ideal for putting on muscle mass and athletic training

• You hit all the major muscles in a single session, so you don’t

• You don’t have to hit the gym 5 to 6 days a week

• It gives room for conditioning

• It gives room to train any lagging muscle groups or to implement corrective exercises

• You don’t miss out on training any muscles if you skip one of the 3-day sessions like you can when you’re training the bro split

• It saves training time

I’ve covered most of the other items in one or the other form in my previous articles but the last item on the list is what I’d like to expand on this time because it’s easy to think that if you’re training full-body then it’s going to take several hours at the gym for a single session.

The full-body training routine is typically structured with 2 to 5 sets of one variation of each of the following movement patterns. I keep the rep ranges and the sets varied subject to the client’s training goals.

1. The Squat

2. Hip Hinge

3. Upper body press

4. Upper body pull

5. Hip rotations (either as a separate exercise or as one of the above patterns modified to include a rotational component to the movement)

6. Direct calf muscles-focused exercise or exercise for any lagging muscle group.

All in all, this means there are 5 to 6 exercises covering the whole body in a single session.

Now to condense the time taken to complete a weight training session further, I can train the above list of movement patterns in a circuit of singular sets of each pattern, take a break, and repeat it 2 to 5 times. I, typically, like to alternate between an upper-body pattern and a lower-body pattern like this -

1a. Squat pattern

1b. Upper body push pattern

1c. Hip hinge pattern

1d. Upper body pull pattern

2a. Calf focused/lagging muscle group workout

Break for 3 to 5 minutes and then repeat the circuit 2 to 5 times to cover the 2 to 5 sets mentioned earlier. One can also take a 30 to 60-second break when moving from one movement pattern to another depending on the weight lifted.

Here’s a bit of math to substantiate training full-body as a circuit.

Let’s take the squat pattern taken for 3 sets of 10 reps each with 3 minutes rest between sets. Let’s say 10 reps take a total of 30 seconds to complete. The total squat pattern time taken is now around 10 minutes and 30 seconds. Total work time alone is just 90 seconds. Repeat this for the other 5 to 6 exercises in a full-body training session and that takes around 60 minutes to complete the full session for just 3 sets in each pattern.

Now, let’s take the circuit order of training.

Set 1 -

1a. Squat pattern - 30 seconds work, move to 1b and break 30 seconds

1b. Upper body push pattern - 30 seconds work, move to 1c and break 30 seconds

1c. Hip hinge pattern - 30 seconds work, move to 1d and break 30 seconds

1d. Upper body pull pattern - 30 seconds work, break 3 minutes

Set 1 of the circuit takes roughly 6 to 8 minutes including breaks. Do the circuits for a total of 2 to 5 times and it takes you a total of 40 minutes on the higher end. Follow this with a workout for your calves or any lagging muscle group and you should get the whole session done within roughly 45 minutes.

The logic behind this circuit order is two-fold -

1. The rest interval of 3 minutes is for the muscles involved in that specific movement pattern. So, if you’re doing a bench press exercise after a back squat exercise, you don’t need 3 minutes to rest because your legs aren’t being worked in the bench press as done during the back squat.

2. Alternating between a lower body and an upper body pattern makes sure that your working muscles get adequate rest before being worked again.

I trust this has proved useful to you and if you’ve got questions, or you’d like to work with me do drop a comment below or reach out to me through Gmail at [email protected].

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