Based on advice, mostly from exrx.net, my program is a full-body program consisting of one exercise (1 set, 10 reps) from each of the following muscle groups: quads/glutes, hamstrings, calves, chest, back, shoulders, biceps, lower back, abs. The program doesn't get stale--whenever I stop making progress on a particular muscle group, I just change the exercise (for example, for chest, I might change from bench press to fly).
In addition, I'm doing a good amount of cardio stuff 4-5 days/week.
Nimetic and Rodney both seem to think that 48 hrs isn't enough of a recovery period for your muscles, but everything I've read (on the internet) suggests otherwise:
From
exRx.net:
Quote:
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Untrained participants (less than 1 year of consistant training) experience maximal strength gains with a average training intensity of 60% of their 1 RM or approximately a 12 RM, training each muscle group 3 days per week. Novices weight training 2 times per week may make approximately 80% of the strength gains as compared to training 3 times per week. Trained participants experience maximal strength gains training each muscle group 2 days per week with an average training intensity of 80% of their 1 RM or approximately a 8 RM.
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This suggests that novices obtain maximum gains with about 48-hrs as a rest period, while more advanced lifter get maximum gains with 72-hrs as a rest period.
From a discussion on a
Washington University study:
Quote:
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This repair and perhaps renew process seems to peak about 24 hours after a workout, when muscle protein synthetic rate was up by a hefty 109 per cent in the McMaster-Washington research. However, the McMaster-Washington scientists found that about 36 hours after a rough workout, the building process is pretty much over, and the muscles are back to routine housekeeping.
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So after 36 hours for experienced athletes, your body is pretty much done recovering.
Pretty much everything I read says 48 hours (a little more or less) is what you need for recovery. I guess the advantage doing a split program rather than a full body one is that you get to go to the gym and do slightly less work each time (1/2 your body), though the disadvantage is that you end up going to the gym 4 days, rather than 3 days a week. Is there more to it than this?
PS. I passed my test!