Going with the body part training scheme of once per week to allow for recovery is extremely 20th century…and totally bro science. 

Let’s look at chest day, for example.  That would be Monday, the International Chest Day for all gyms.  You’ll hit flat bench, incline bench, decline bench, some machines, blah blah blah...  Pretty typical for Monday’s…right?

Now…let’s talk about some cold, hard truth.  Let’s say you “destroy some chest” on Monday, then you spend the rest of the week in recovery mode…I guarantee you, without a doubt, leaving development on the table.  That could be strength, endurance, and hypertrophy. 

And…here’s why.  Protein synthesis absolutely stops within a 48 hour time frame, sometimes sooner, post training.  Taking that into account, you do the damage on Monday, you’re rebuilding on Tuesday, maybe a little on Wednesday, then…nothing until Monday again.

What if you did this instead: you hit chest (or whatever area you are focused on) Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Three times a week you stimulate growth.  Then you spend Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday/Sunday letting your body synthesize protein.  That’s a WHOLE LOT more growth…maybe not 3X, but more nonetheless.

Now, imagine doing this for those lagging body parts you have to grow!  PROGRESS.

NOW, you will have to choose 1-2 areas to concentrate on, you cannot do this for your whole body day-in and day-out.  For the general client we recommend doing a push-pull-leg split…or similar.