The Power of Full-Body Workouts

By Greg O'Gallagher | October 15, 2014 |

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Benefits of Full-Body Workouts

In this episode, Tom and I have a comprehensive discussion about the power of full body workouts for rapid strength and muscle gain. Most people completely write off full body workouts as being inferior or only suitable to beginners or newbie lifters.

That said, switching to a full body routine for 6-8 weeks can trigger some of the fastest results of your life. I wouldn’t suggest training with full body routines year round, but there is something magical about focusing on the same core movements three days per week as a strength accelerator.

When you go back to your usual two or three day split, you’ll experience heightened gains.

Here is what you’ll learn in this episode:

  • How to triple your improvement with a minimalist approach
  • How to add 50 pounds to your core lifts in 2-3 months
  • The best methods for putting on strength fast (8:10)
  • Is Reverse Pyramid Training right for you?
  • How to differentiate between effective routines and the unsustainable ones
  • The best way to approach full body training

Thank You For Listening!

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Posted in Podcast, Workouts & Exercises and tagged

23 Comments

  1. Jesus on July 1, 2015 at 1:30 am

    Hey Greg, I keep trying to download the routine but its not doing anything but sending me confirmation links to subscribe to the kinobody newsletter. Can you please fix this?

    • Kinobody on July 2, 2015 at 2:19 am

      after you confirm the link you should be able to download it

  2. John on June 24, 2015 at 9:47 pm

    Hey Greg, I’d love the full body routines for begginers, but the link is broken. Could you look into that and post the link again?

  3. Mike on November 5, 2014 at 7:40 am

    Hey Greg!

    I started this routine this week and have a couple of questions I’d like to ask you:

    1) The inside of my left shoulder hurts in the top portion of the barbell overhead press (it’s probably related to a shoulder injury I had a couple of years ago). Is it OK to replace Standing Overhead Press with Seated Dumbbell Press and progress within a rep-range (i.e 6-8 reps)?

    2)I feel like 2 sets is very little for my lateral delts. Would it be OK to incorporate SPT on them? I was thinking of doing cable lateral raises one side at a time, 4 sets each side, alternating sides (so it’d be like left, right, then immediately back to left, etc…, only resting while the other side is working). Would that be fine or would it negatively impact strenght gains in any way?

    Thanks!

    • Greg on November 5, 2014 at 3:16 pm

      1) Yes that’s fine!

      2) Yeah you can do that

  4. Adale on October 18, 2014 at 3:53 pm

    Hey do you add 5lbs a week to the overhead press and deadlift or is it 5 for the overhead press and 10 for the deadlift per week? Seeing as you only do these exercises on Wednesday.

    Also do you recommend the Harbinger 30in dip belt for weighted chin ups or another brand/amount of inches?

    • Greg on October 19, 2014 at 1:56 pm

      You could go up 5-10 lbs on deadlift for sure. 5 lbs on standing press would be a stretch. I would try to either increase the reps on standing press or increase the weight. Yah the harbinger one is awesome.

  5. Jan on October 17, 2014 at 11:28 am

    Hi, you didnt mentioned your home gym workout. Is it still actual by your new knowledge?

  6. John on October 17, 2014 at 5:56 am

    Hey Greg!

    Long story short, I’ve been working out for around 1 year now but I’ve made little to no muscle and strenght gains because most of that time was unintentionally spent in a caloric deficit (I wasn’t tracking macros and was eating well under my maintenance). I’m curently doing your workout routine from Arnold’s website and I’m making slow but steady strenght and muscle gains and loving it. Once I’m done with it I’m going to try this Full Body Routine for a couple of months because I want to get stronger on my key lifts before attacking Superhero Program head on.

    I just have one question: is doing the bonus work really OK or is hit going to hinder strenght gains on the main lifts? I’d like to make strenght gains as fast as possible so if that additional work harms strenght gains I’ll drop it.

    I’ll let you know how it went once I’m done with it ;)

    Thanks!

    • Greg on October 17, 2014 at 1:14 pm

      Bonus work is fine John! It won’t in anyway hinder gains.

      • John on October 19, 2014 at 2:56 pm

        Thanks for the reply!

        Looking at this routine I thought it could be a good base for a more muscle building focused, Superhero Style routine.:

        Monday and Friday:
        Weighted Chinups (RPT)
        Incline Bench (RPT)
        Barbell Curl (RPT)
        Lateral Raises (Rest-Pause)
        Face Pulls (Rest-Pause)

        Wednesday:
        Standing Press (RPT)
        Sumo Deadlifts (RPT)
        Bulgarian Split Squats (RPT)
        Calf Raises (Rest-Pause)
        Hanging Leg Raises (SS)

        How do you think this routine would fair as far as strenght and muscle gains go? Would it be a good variation of your Superhero Program routines?

        • Greg on October 22, 2014 at 10:40 pm

          Looks good to me! I think it would be quite effective for 2-3 months. You may need to drop the sets down to about 2 per exercise if fatigue becomes excessive.

  7. Ali on October 16, 2014 at 3:13 pm

    Greg, I’m 5,11″ and I weigh 160 pounds. I was down to 156 pounds at 8% body fat (dexa scan) but I didn’t look nearly as ripped as you do at 8%, so I’m guessing lack of muscle mass was the issue. Since then I’ve been on a bulk. I’m up to 160 at 9% now and I’m considering doing something where when I hit 10%, I do a short 6-8 week cut to get back down to 8% and then resume bulking. Is this is a good approach for looking good while bulking? Or should I juggle between an even lower body fat like 6-8%?

    • Greg on October 17, 2014 at 1:15 pm

      Yeah that sounds like a good approach. That said, it should take at-least four months to go from 8% to 10%. So take it slow. If you’re gaining more than a pound of fat per month then you’re eating too much.

  8. Ed on October 16, 2014 at 11:26 am

    I’ll definitely try this.
    However, the second warmup set with only 8% of top set felt too light, so I upped it to 80%.

    Thanks

    • Greg on October 17, 2014 at 1:16 pm

      What? It’s 60% and then 80%. Where did you get 8%?

      • Ed on October 17, 2014 at 5:32 pm

        Ha ha.
        It’s on the bonus guide download (60% and 8%)
        Apparently it’s a typo…

        I was going for the “joke”

  9. Caleb on October 15, 2014 at 11:02 am

    Hey Greg,

    I purchased your Warrior Shredding Program a while back (my body fat is around 19%), and due to personal circumstances I haven’t been able to start it until now. I’m relatively week, particularly on bench press (my max being 115 for 5 reps). You mentioned that as a raw, relatively weak beginner RPT isn’t needed or even desirable. Would this full-body workout be suitable to combine with the warrior shredding diet on a cut? Any advice would be appreciate man.
    Cheers bud

    -Caleb

    • Greg on October 15, 2014 at 3:05 pm

      Yeah you could do this routine for about 8-12 weeks before progressing to the warrior shredding program. That would be a good protocol, actually.

      • Caleb on October 15, 2014 at 8:08 pm

        Thanks for the response Greg. Would it be wise to eat at a deficit on this full-body routine? Or would it be better to eat at maintenance?

        • Greg on October 16, 2014 at 12:28 am

          You could do a small deficit like 400 calories under maintenance per day if fat loss is your primary goal. Just don’t overdo the dieting.

          • Caleb on October 16, 2014 at 12:29 am

            Will do. Thanks Greg! Cheers man.



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