[Live.By.Quote]

hey, i've been training for about a year now, and i am seeing great results (looking for mass) with a 4 day split, doing 4 sets per exercise 8-12 reps and about 2-3-4 exercises per muscle. i met this guy at the gym (big guy) and he told me that for muscle mass im doing it all wrong. i should be doing upper body and lower body workouts doing only 2 SETS PER MUSCLE! for example one day would be:

2 sets bench press
2 sets barbell rows
2 sets military press
2 sets tricep pushdows
2 sets barbell curls
1 set shrugs

then 2 days later you do the same thing again

should i listen to this guy? thanks

[hugegunns]

Where's the lower body workout?

[Live.By.Quote]

that was just an example, lower body would be around the same

[hugegunns]

The first thing I see wrong is you would only be doing 11 sets, that would only take like 30 mins. to complete, so I don't belive that is good advice. You really need to try and keep your sets around the 18-25 range (don't go past 25 you will begin to overtrain). If you are looking for mass stick with compound exercises.

Squats
Bench
Deadlift
Rows
Military Press
Pullovers

These are all examples of compound lifts, try to stay away from isolation lifts like

Tricep ext.
Leg ext.
Leg curls
arm curls
curls in general because their are so many to list

Leave these exercises when you get to a size you are comfortable with and then start to incorperate these exercises in when you need more tone and deffintion.

[Live.By.Quote]

thanks, so i shouldnt do 2 sets per muscle?

[hugegunns]

2 sets per muscle, No
2 sets per exercise, No
You will need more sets than this to have any kind of efficient workout. In regards to the (big guy) at your gym giving you advice, this could work for him and he probably thinks he is giving you good advice, or he is deliberately giving you bad advice, which sometimes happen. If you take any information from this thread, try to remember that for gaining mass and size stick with compound lifts and for tone and definition stick with isolation lifts, also split routines use isolation lifts and full-body workouts use compound lifts. I'm sure someone will try to make some piss-poor example of their workout to prove that last statement wrong! Hope this helps bro.

[Vidis]

You can gain mass with only one set per musclegroup. You dont HAVE to train more than two sets per muscle in order to gain mass. Thats BS! What you must remember is overtraining of muscles and CNS (Central Nervous System). If your body ain't recovering well from an workout, CNS can easily be overtrained with a crapload of sets per musclegroup. I' think you should try out what the guy told you, and use mostly basic-exercises.

[dieseld]

sounds like someone is using their "biggness" to promote themself, not the sport...i'm pretty sure that for the spilt your using i could find some big ass musclehead thats using something similar...do you think your buddy's gonna tell him that also?

"and i am seeing great results" ...thats really all i needed to see

[tim290280]

As long as you are putting strain on your muscles any program will work.

Just because what a guy at the gym said works for him is not what will necessarily work for you. There is plenty of good advice in the split training is wrong column stickied above, and also read in the training articles section.

[Nothin' but a peanut!!]

just do it man what have you got to lose
if you've stopped grwing and stronger of course otherwise id do what you're doing atm

[miniduck]

That follows the HST theory, except it's not full body. The guy has the right idea, but it's clear he hasn't done his research.

[imraan47]

sounds like they dont want to share their secretes, of course no one will. it takes me 2 sets to warm up hahha

[tyciol]

You just said you're getting great results, so do what you're doing.

That guy knows shit. Muscleheads always come up with stupid theories for what works and what doesn't.

There's just one rule, really. Do more work in less time, and recover for next time.

[drewkearns]

the title of this thread says everything lol