One day a week

p-nut

Ok so due to college timetable this year i have to cut down to just one day in the gym a week, but it aint so bad as i have rugby mondays and wednesdays with a match at the weekend.

My question is, what is the best program to follow in order to gain strength and muscle? I have been doing a 5x4/5 program, upping the weight for every set and hitting every body part once. Is this enough or should i try something different

Cheers

celestial

p-nut, check around these threads/mens health online, mens health/fitness magazines for workouts, but if you're only doing once a week and want to get max output in terms of building strength then go for all-body exercises that will also build a strong core - bench press, squats, deadlifts, pull ups, chin-ups. The first three will work all your muscles, instead of isolation exercises, which hit far less muscle groups.

You could do 3 sets of 10 reps of the above exercises, alternating barbells and dumbells for the bench press and squats.

rubadub

Some say not to go over 45-60mins in a workout, due to hormones being past peak etc. But I think if you have a long enough break you could do 2 workouts a day. I am doing this at the moment, I do about 2-3sets of 2-3 exercises in the morning, and then more when I get home. Today was squats so just did 20 reps and went. I suppose you could do 2 splits in a day

In the morning I cannot get out as many reps as I dont have much energy. I tried waking up early and eating and snoozing again- but it was too much bother and hard to sleep after eating. My idea is that I am always in post workout mode with a raised metabolism.