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You can train every muscle in your body with just three workouts a week. But if you try to cram every exercise into every workout, you can turn a smart full-body plan into a three-hour recovery nightmare.
It happened to me when I trained using Steve Reeves' Mr. America routine. Twenty-two exercises. More than 56 sets. Three days a week. It took me about three hours to finish one workout.
Steve built one of the greatest natural physiques of all time. He knew you don't need to train six days a week to build a balanced physique. But you don't need the volume of his contest routine either.
Let's look at how to keep the best of old-school full-body training, cut out the excess, and build a three-day plan that fits life after 50.
Reeves trained his full body on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, leaving a recovery day between workouts.
That weekly structure makes sense, and with busy lives, if we miss one workout, we still hit our full body at least twice a week. The mistake is thinking full body means every muscle needs to be worked from every possible angle every workout.
Full body means you train all major movement patterns—a hinge, a squat, a push and a pull. We can do different variations of these throughout the week— as there is overlap in related exercises.
Here's the simple way to build each session.
First, choose a squat pattern. That could be a full squat, split squat, leg press, or any variation you prefer.
Then we want a hinge movement. Romanian deadlifts and hip thrusts are a couple of my favourites to develop the lower body posture chain.
For the upper body, choose at least one push and one pull. You can do different push and pull exercises each workout through the week, alternating 2 different A/B workouts, or even adding a C workout instead of forcing horizontal, vertical, and every other possible variation into one workout.
You can stop there for an absolute minimalist program or add two or three accessories for muscles that need extra attention—arms, hamstrings, lateral delts, calves, or abs.
That gives you about 6 to 8 exercises, not 22.
For exercise order, start with compound movements. For newer lifters, it's good to do squats first when you're fresh. It reduces the odds of you skipping them towards the end of your compound exercises if you feel tired. Another option is to do your weakest or highest-priority body part first.
After multi-joint movements, do your isolation exercises. Leave any core work until the end so you're not too fatigued to stabilize properly during the main workout.
Workout A starts with a squat pattern, then a dumbbell chest press and elbow-in row—emphasizing the lats. Finish with a hip-hinge and two or 3 isolation movements.
Workout B starts with a Romanian deadlift, then a shoulder press and an elbow-out row for more rear delts, middle back, and traps. Add a split squat and a couple of accessories.
Beginners can alternate A/B workouts to perfect those exercises before adding a C workout.
Which could start with an incline press if upper chest is a bit of a weak point. Then a knee-dominant leg exercise, a vertical pull, and a lower body posterior chain movement. Choose isolation exercises to complete and complement the workouts.
For most exercises, start with two or three working sets. You can go up to 5 sets on some exercises, but there are diminishing returns to adding more sets.
As a beginner, your priority should be perfecting the movement pattern of each exercise and learning the right weight to use. If you're in doubt: start light and work your way up. By starting lighter, you avoid severe muscle soreness and allow your body time to get used to training.
Steve Reeves trained in the traditional hypertrophy range of 8 to 12 reps. This is a good range, but other ranges have advantages too. 12 to 16 is a great place for beginners to start. The weight is lighter, and it's easier on the joints. 5 to 9 reps puts an increased emphasis on strength with muscle growth. Stay in the same rep range long enough to see progress, but occasionally mixing it up provides a fresh stimulus.
You won't build muscle without progressive overload. You do this by adding a repetition. More weight. Improving form. Or increasing the range of motion.
You don't have to take every set to failure like Steve Reeves did, but you do need to train close to failure—between one to three reps. I like to take my last set of an exercise to technical failure, which is the last rep you can do with good form to ensure I'm training in that muscle growth range.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38595233/