+ 1 Golden age vs modern bodybuilding routines
Lately i was reading lot about 70's workout routines ( the kind of body i prefere ), people as Serge Nubret (r.i.p.), Arnold, Zane, Columbu, etc and they used to train 6 days per week twice or three times each body part per week with an extreme high volume routine and light weight ( Nubret ) or heavy weight ( Arnold )..
I know as everybody they were taking steroids but not as much as nowadays and only basics..
My question is, why nowadays the pros are working out with an one day each bodypart routine if till 90's the way to go was twice per week ?
If we go further into the past Reeves was working out three times per week fullbody as people as Reg Park, Grimek, etc
What are your opinions on different frequency of hitting each bodypart ?
Are they linked to a different muscle development, or nowadays higher steroid doses makes most of the work done, so you don't need to train as before ?
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Everybody responds to training differently. Try out some of the different training principles and see what you respond best to. They are all valid training principles. Some will work for you and others won't.
56tooI still believe training each bodypart twice a week is the best route. However as one gets older your body cant recover at the rate it did in its 20s or even 30s, thus working ea. part once a week makes more sense, at least for me in my late 50s. I dont know if working ea. BP twice /wk would be better because I hven't used that schedule in years but I do know that working them once/wk as I do now with the intensity and volume I do is hard enough to recover from as it is.
Going all the way back to Arthur Jones the high intensity lower volume has been in existence. Jones trained both Sergio Oliva and Arnold for the 1972 Olympia in Florida 1 set to failure on his early nautilus machines. If you look at the photos of that Olympia they both look amazing, with Sergio being arguably in his best shape ever! Nubret was also in that show and was his usual fantastic self but could not match the size and density that Sergio and Arnold had. Mike Mentzer built a great physique using the Jones principles in the 80's. Then came Dorian Yates and pretty much put to rest if you want to build world class physique high intensity low volume is the most efficient way to go. That being said you can build a nice body with high volume training, and most of us hobby body builders can't or won't train with the intensity necessary to make the most of this type of training. Still I see many people that don't leave enough rest time and are overtraining. Training each body part once a week would work far better for most! A wise man once told me better to do less than more!
Judd81Never heard about Jones training Arnold.. Yes he did train Oliva on 72' but till the year before all of them were doing high volume classic routines ( so they built their bodies )..
Mentzer admitted he built his body with high volume and he started training with Jones only after 71' after been placed 10th at the Mr America won by Casey Viator..
Yates body changed completely when new drugs went into bb as gh and insulin, before that you can see how his body was..
Back in the 70's or before they didn't even know what overtraining was, as if you see most of the bodybuilder of 50's used to train fullbody 3xweek and still got great gains..
Can you explain this ?
Great gains and body's for sure. Reg Park and Steve Reeves were fabulous. There size today wouldn't even have them win regional contests. Also symmetry was more important in there day than it is now for the worse of the sport now as far as I'm concerned. And yes I do believe that the slin and hgh have something to do with the way routines have progressed. I do know that my own body has progressed much faster and the gains have been better with 1 body part per week. Now as 56 said above I also am old(55), and find that more rest makes me feel better and the gains are better. I have seen guys build great physiques doing the whole body 3 times per week but that also limited the volume. We are not all the same, some folks will respond to higher volume, more often better than others. Logically though it makes more sense to me to give the muscle enough time to fully recover and rebuild!