well i am new to this forum and i have not lifted since high school football. my question is i am working out 4 days a week and i have broken it up into upper body and lower body and rotate between them everyday. i am not real sure on what i should be doing and i have heard of people only working chest, back, legs, etc. each day. again i am just going back to my football workouts for exercises. i go to the university of oklahoma so i have a ton of machines and free weights to choose from. anyway back to my main question, is it ok to lift upper body then lower body, switching off each day? i am also trying to throw in one big day of cardio during the week. anyway i will stop my rambling and thanks for any help.

chris

Are you switching every day? Like this:

M - Upper
T - Lower
W - Upper
T - Lower
F - Upper
S - Lower
S - Rest

?

Or, are you taking more breaks in there?

I think some people do okay on the upper/lower split, BFL is like that. I did it for 12 weeks and lost a lot of fat. That particular split looked like this though:

M - Upper
T - Cardio
W - Lower
T - Cardio
F - Upper
S - Cardio
S - Rest
M - Lower
etc.

That worked okay for me but I saw better progress and results from switching to a split that broke things down more (2-3 bodyparts per day). Doing this I was able to concentrate on only a few muscles at a time and work out with more intensity.

this is how i am doing it at the moment
M-upper
T-lower
W-upper
T-lower
F-cardio
S-rest
S-rest
also i am doing like 20 min. of treadmill or something similar before i lift. my goal is not to get real big, but mainly get in better shape and stronger.

chris

this is how i am doing it at the moment
M-upper
T-lower
W-upper
T-lower
F-cardio
S-rest
S-rest
also i am doing like 20 min. of treadmill or something similar before i lift. my goal is not to get real big, but mainly get in better shape and stronger.

chris

Well a beginner can work out almost any style and see some kind of results. Going from zero exercise to SOMETHING will most likely be beneficial.

It really depends on the level of intensity. Let's say you were working out each muscle with the same intensity I am working mine (very high) but you were doing your workouts as you described above - FOR ME this would be overtraining. Especially those Wednesdays and Thursdays, I would only have given my muscles 1 day to rest and recuperate.

Ok flip that, lets say your intensity is really low or moderate. Now you're risking UNDERtraining (IMO).

You mentioned wanting to get stronger. If strength and general conditioning (not bulking or dropping fat) are your main goals, you can definitely go on a training split that has you on the weights less often, say 3 or 4 days a week (splitting the muscles up differently and working each muscle out once a week). Stick to basic and compound exercises like squats, bench press, military, deadlifts, pullups, rowing, barbell curls, etc.

I'm going to get way too specific and go too far if I'm not careful. :) I have a tendency to do that. Anyway, I suggest you read through some of the sticky posts on this board and also through some other literature online. One resource I recommend to friends is MAXOT, you can read about it at http://www.ast-ss.com - click on MAXOT and sign up (it's free).

Good luck and definitely keep in touch!