3 Days Per Week Full Body Workout Routine

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About the 3 day full body routine

Gym Geek's full body workout routine consists of 3 training sessions per week that see you work all your major muscle groups in each session. Full body workouts are an effective way to build and strengthen your chest, back, shoulders, arms, legs and core.

This style of strength training is not only a great way to build muscle but, combined with cardio exercises, can improve your overall fitness and health.

Full body workouts are beneficial if you have a busy schedule and a limited amount of time to workout. You can use this routine to maximize your results from just a few hours in the gym each week.

A full body workout typically lasts between 45 to 60 minutes. This duration includes warm-up, the actual workout, and cool-down stages.

For beginners

If you are a beginner looking to lose fat, maintain a healthy weight or to build muscle, full body workouts are a useful way to approach your strength training routine. Because most beginners start training 2-3 days a week, it allows you to work all your muscle groups multiple times per week, without the risk of overtraining.

This frequency allows for adequate recovery periods between workouts, which is crucial for muscle repair and growth. The major limitation here is the amount of rest time you need to allow between workouts. Muscle repair is what causes your muscles to grow stronger and bigger, and this process takes up to 48 hours after working out.

Starting a strength training program is a good way to burn more calories. Engaging in regular exercise increases your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). Training all your muscle groups in a single session naturally consumes a lot of energy, leading to an overall increase in your calorie burn.

While full body workouts are a good choice for beginners, advanced lifters may benefit from training 4 or more times per week. As your strength and endurance improves, you will find it difficult to sustain a full-body workout because of the rest and recovery time needed.

Split workout routines are more suitable for advanced lifters, since they focus on different muscle groups on each day of the routine. This allows you to hit each muscle group with a high frequency, while still ensuring 48 hours of rest between hitting the same muscle group again.

Goals of the full body workout

Improving general health

Working out 3 times per week can improve your overall cardiovascular health, as well as improve your body's physique. This workout frequency is manageable for beginners, but still provides comprehensive and balanced development of your muscles.

The Physical Activity Guidelines recommend that healthy adults do at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity each week.

Strength training builds muscle mass, increases metabolic rate and increases bone density. Cardio complements this by promoting heart health, helping with weight loss and weight management and improves you overall fitness level.

So regular strength training, when combined with cardio exercises like running or biking, can help improve your cardiovascular health.

Muscle growth and strength gains

By working all your major muscle groups in each workout session, full body workouts are an efficient way to build muscle and increase your strength.

Improved strength can help in other exercises, everyday activities and will create a solid foundation for if and when you are ready to transition to a more intense split workout routine.

Efficient training

If you can only spend 3 days in the gym per week, a full body routine makes the most efficient use of this time because it targets multiple muscle groups of each day. A well-designed full body workout routine saves you time, while ensuring balanced muscle growth.

References

MacDougall, J. D., Gibala, M. J., Tarnopolsky, M. A., MacDonald, J. R., Interisano, S. A., & Yarasheski, K. E. (1995). The time course for elevated muscle protein synthesis following heavy resistance exercise. Canadian Journal of applied physiology, 20(4), 480-486.

Mifflin, M. D., St Jeor, S. T., Hill, L. A., Scott, B. J., Daugherty, S. A., & Koh, Y. O. (1990). A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 51(2), 241-247.

Pratley, R., Nicklas, B., Rubin, M., Miller, J., Smith, A., Smith, M., … & Goldberg, A. (1994). Strength training increases resting metabolic rate and norepinephrine levels in healthy 50-to 65-yr-old men. Journal of Applied Physiology, 76(1), 133-137.

Almstedt, H. C., Canepa, J. A., Ramirez, D. A., & Shoepe, T. C. (2011). Changes in bone mineral density in response to 24 weeks of resistance training in college-age men and women. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 25(4), 1098-1103.