split routines and single factor training..

[jackass]

I notice from training at a commercial gym that there are tons of muscular guys doing split routines, who do their 'chest\bis day' then wait a week and repeat, yet everything I read from forums tells me this is supposed to be wrong. Why does this seemingly work for so many, yet it is slated by most experts in the field?
I know also that the types of people doing them are not all on roids, not noobs, not genetically gifted either so how does this explain the vast amount of people getting good results with training that is apparantly flawed?

I guess some folk will gain on thrashing each muscle group once per week then letting it recover and id estimate only around 10-15% of people are doing a full body\training movements\upper lower.

I appreciate this tends to be a more strength orientated forum, and one could argue that people in commercial gyms tend to do ok in terms of size but not strength but id argue that also as some of the guys there are strong too , and they never give any thought to periodisation\deloading etc- ive never heard a convincing argument as to why the average trainee not use split routines - anyone?

[chi]

Because effort, consistancy and progression with correct nutrition and supplementation will allow progress on any semi decent style of training and people need to focus less on the perfect this or the optimal that and concentrate on getting in the gym and working hard.

[666]

Those people who had had decent results training like that might have even better results with a few tweeks to their training.

Got to remember though, if you have a chest day, a shoulders day, a back day and an arms day then that's 4 times a week you're doing something for your upper body so that's going to grow a fair bit! Don't see many people training that way with big legs though - unless they also play rugby or something outside of gym training.

[ATZ]

I also think what you want from training comes into account in this instance. For example: I struggle during the course of a rugby season to get appreciably stronger or bigger due to the demands of training outside of the gym and playing most saturdays, therefore for me a split routine is unworkable and would quickly lead to unbalanced strength and/or muscle gains, plus I simply don't have the time to recover from more than 2-3 sessions max. Hence full body / movement based rountines work and fit my schedule better.

Thats not to say splits aren't effective either, when you think about it a movement split of Push, Pull, Legs is effectively Chest and Tris, Back and Bi's, Legs.

I agree with Chi though, hard work and consistency trumps any stressing over whther your tri's will grow more from Skullcrushers or pushdowns.

[webcore]

I agree with Ian. The ratio is illogical. No-one breaks the legs down into parts yet the entire upper body is split into peices giving muscles their own cosy days as if all should be treated equally. There's no reason why we can't work chest then back in the same day for the sake of clustering intensity making the most of our work capacity and repeating the training cycle (and getting back round to "legs") more sooner.

In my eyes people who follow splits are often just diluting intensity and delay squatting.

[Sloth]

word, there was a guy in peak today with a very large upper body, but his physique was similar to a drawing pin.

[JB]

In fairness, the guys I've met who bodybuild properly (not many like) all do splits, and do legs once a week but a really ****ing horrible session with daft volume.

Body part splits are arguably best for size, rather than strength, but with food and progression you'll get both with either.