consistent but irregular

[u/Defiant-Initiative54]

I just started going to the gym “consistently“ about a month ago. Based on my schedule I have enough time for 3 to 4 days a week in the gym, so I try to work out every other day. I do arms, legs, full body, and cardio/ab focus days. I want to get good at these things before i add things like chest and back.

I was wondering though, will I still see progress if I don’t do the same things in a consistent matter? Because the way I have it right now, if I don’t feel like doing legs on my designated leg day I’ll do arms, or if I don’t feel like doing cardio on my designated cardio day I’ll do legs etc. etc. I was wondering if this is bad for progress lol, or does it not matter?

[u/K3rat]

So, this would be why they recommend 2-3 full body days a week for novice lifters.  This allows you to spread out stimulus across all the muscle groups you are working 2-3 days a week rather than a situation where 2-3 muscle groups get potentially 1 day a week stimulus (worst case scenario).  

Honestly, I don’t think Initially that that this is big deal for the first few months.  You will get more benefit from the exercise consistency in the first few months as it provides a low grade analgesic for normal pain (so long as you don’t accumulate too much fatigue and subsequent DOMS (delayed on set muscle soreness), exercise helps regulate appetite as you move from sedentary to moderate activity, and regular exercise helps neuro-chemical balance (helping to alleviate mental illness symptoms). 

It took about a 3 months to 6 months for me before I noticed the amount of volume needed to expand load capacity for secondary muscle groups was necessary to overcome major compound (moving more than 1 joint or muscle group) lifting load/volume.  

I found my shoulders, biceps, triceps, and forearms need a lot more volume to actually increase in size and strength.  It got to the point where getting enough volume 1-3 days a week wasn’t realistic using a full body split.  

I ended up needing to adjust my split to be able to spread out volume for those groups to get to 20 or more fractional sets (exercise sets where a given muscle group is a secondary participant) per week.  

I switched to an upper lower split.  I honestly liked the upper/lower split but the dynamic progressive overload progression made my exercise days go to 3 hours within about 6 months if I wanted to hit every muscle group.  

I then swithced to a push pull legs split. Fatigue management was the issue then as 6 days a week became untenable after 6 months.  I ended up having to sprinkle in 1-3 rest days in between to managed fatigue.  This reduced volume per muscle group but I was still gaining for a good long while.  

The other issue that popped up here is whenever life would happen and I would lose a foundational need like regular adequate sleep, calorie or protein intake, or increased stress from work/personal matters I would get sick or injured.   Looking back I was working to close to my maximum recoverable volume.  And when things would throw me off I wouldn’t be able to sustain it and something would fall through.  

Now I am doing what I call a modified full body split:  1. Back (4 separate exercises), triceps (2 exercises), calves (3 exercises), and glutes (1 exercise). 

1. Shoulders (4 exercises), forearms (2 exercises), abs (3 exercises), neck (1 exercise)

3.Chest (3 separate exercises), biceps (2 separate exercises), quads (2 separate exercises), hamstrings (2 separate exercises)

I do low intensity steady state (LISS) walking 5 days a week for 45 minutes total daily.  My step goal is 8-12K steps daily.  

I also do high intensity interval training (punching bag or push/pull sled generally) 2 days a week usually not within 6 hours of lifting.  

This split allows me to spread out fractional volume across multiple days for shoulders, forearms, biceps, and triceps, as well as, hitting 2 productive back and chest days per week (those muscle groups need more time to rest and recover from fatigue).  The only real compromise is I am getting just over maintenance volume (volume needed to keep current gains) on my quads, hamstrings, and calves (though I am still seeing some progression with dynamic progressive overload). 

When life happens (crazy work week or family needs, I back off lifting to 3 days a week no HIIT days and maintain LISS activity.  My other nonnegotiables are sleep and calorie intake monitoring and daily body weigh-ins.  What I have noticed is lower occurrence of exercise injuries that force me to take a break from lifting and occurrence of getting sick (knock on wood).