Skip to main content

Full Body Training: Exhaustion or Exhilaration?

     When training with full-body workouts, a couple of options are best when designing your workout program.  First, you can use a "heavy-light-medium" system of training—a lot of the full-body workouts here at Integral Strength reflect this option.  Or, second, you can use a system of training where none of the workouts are "all-out"—rather, each workout is more of a "practice session" for the various exercises.  In this second option, the workout sessions aren't necessarily not hard, but they are not "intense" either.  You stop each set a couple reps shy of failure, and you never do so much work that you can't train the muscle group—or the lift—48 hours later.
Bradley Steiner's Tips
     Years ago in IronMan magazine, sandwiched between all of the glossy pictures of steroid-bloated bodybuilders and the various pics of semi-nude (though admittedly beautiful) women, there was real training advice.  Bill Starr had monthly columns that, once you read a few dozen of them, allowed you to become a semi-expert in the field of real training.  Stuart McRobert had articles that were all pretty darn good—the advice was practical, no-nonsense stuff.  I had articles that, not to be too self-promotional, weren't half-bad.  And, of course, there were also plenty of articles on full-body, basic workouts from a number of other writers/trainers who peddled such practical wisdom as what was found once-upon-a-time in the "golden age" of bodybuilding yore.  Amidst all of this, Bradley Steiner wrote a column—not to mention quite a few additional articles—for decades in the magazine.  And his advice was as bare bones as it came: nothing but the basics, full-body workouts only, limited amount of sets and reps, keep it simple—that sort of stuff.
     Steiner's workouts would fit in the second category of full-body workouts discussed above.  In one of his articles in the mid '90s, he had this to say about the "indicators" that reveal whether or not one is training correctly:

  • You feel comfortably and pleasantly tired when your workout session is done.  You feel as if your mind and body have been renewed.
  • You feel energetic—not as if you have the strength to train again, but as if you'd do it again if you could.
  • You feel positive about your training.  You're deeply satisfied with the session you've just finished.
  • You're buoyant, almost high, about an hour later.
  • You're relaxed when it's time to go to bed.  You sleep deeply and well, and you feel good when you wake the next morning.
  • You feel absolutely super on the day following a good workout.
  • When you train right, you enjoy it.
  • When you train correctly, you find that you make steady progress.
  • And, finally, you feel exhilarated, not exhausted—and that's a good way to feel.
Steiner's advice, obviously, is still sound as ever today.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Marvin Eder’s Mass-Building Methods

  The Many and Varied Mass-Building Methods of Power Bodybuilding’s G.O.A.T. Eder as he appeared in my article "Full Body Workouts" for IronMan  magazine.      In many ways, the essay you are now reading is the one that has had the “longest time coming.”  I have no clue why it has taken me this long to write an article specifically on Marvin Eder, especially considering the fact that I have long considered him the greatest bodybuilder cum strength athlete of all friggin’ time .  In fact, over 20 years ago, I wrote this in the pages of IronMan magazine: In my opinion, the greatest all-around bodybuilder, powerlifter and strength athlete ever to walk the planet, Eder had 19-inch arms at a bodyweight of 198. He could bench 510, squat 550 for 10 reps and do a barbell press with 365. He was reported to have achieved the amazing feat of cranking out 1,000 dips in only 17 minutes. Imagine doing a dip a second for 17 minutes. As Gene Mozee once put it, “Modern bodybuilders couldn’t

Classic Bodybuilding: Don Howorth's Massive Delt Training

Don Howorth's Formula for Wide, Massive Shoulders Vintage picture of Don Howorth in competition shape. I can't remember the first time I laid eyes on Howorth's massive physique with those absolutely friggin' awesomely shaped "cannonball" shoulders of his, but it was probably sometime in the late '80s and early '90s, when I read about him in either IronMan Magazine  or MuscleMag International .  IronMan  had regular "Mass from the Past" articles written by Gene Mozee that had a couple of articles about Howorth's training*, and he was also mentioned fairly regularly in Vince Gironda's column for MuscleMag  not to mention in some of the articles of Greg Zulak for the same publication. There is no doubt that genetics played a big role in just how fantastic Howorth's delts looked, but to claim Howorth's results were just because of genetics or anabolic steroids - as I've read claimed on some internet forums - is a l

Classic Bodybuilding: The Natural Power-Bodybuilding Methods of Chuck Sipes

Chuck Sipes as he appeared in the pages of the original Ironman Magazine. For a while now, I have wanted to write a piece on one of my favorite bodybuilders of all time: Chuck Sipes. I had relented in doing so until now only because there are so many good pieces that you can find on the internet just from doing a cursory search. But I finally figured, you know, what the hell, you can never have too much Chuck Sipes. Also, in addition to my own memories and thoughts on Sipes' totally bad-a training, I've tried to find some of the best information from various sites, and include a lot of that here. For those of you that don't know much about Sipes, he was one of a kind. I know that's a bit cliché, and I've used such terms before when it comes to other "classic bodybuilders", but there was nothing cliché about Sipes, so it's completely true in this instance. Don't believe me? Then read on. First off, he was natural. In fact, he was one of the l