tell me if this would be overtraining

It depends what RM % you're doing those 14-18 sets a day at. It also depends on if you're eating enough and getting enough sleep. Try it and if you start exhibiting signs of overtraining, take a few days off and cut back on your sets.

8-10 RM (~75% RM) is a good ballpark for 3-4 sets.

in the past (when i didn't know any better) i did full body workouts every other day as well. the thing that bothered me the most was that i couldn't lift as heavy toward the end of the session, no matter what body part i did last. it didn't have much to do with how strong i was, it was just the fact that after an hour or so of lifting, your body's muscles are already starting to break down from the compound exercises that i usually did at the beginning of the session. sessions typically last 2 hours (without cardio time).

now i lift every day and i find that i have a much better gauge of my strength. while it takes about the same time (about 90 mins lift and 30 cardio), i'm able to do more exercises for each body part. as a result i've been able to cut my weight to 170 from 180 and body fat from 13% to 10% (although i do admit it's probably also due to adaptation of circuit training) within the last 3 months and still lift more weight than i did before. i honestly think that i'm in much better shape and feel much more energetic than i did previously.

i fully agree with eason about RM and eating. make sure both are optimized to prevent overtraining.

take my experience with a grain of salt. everyone reacts differently or prefers a different routine.

my routine:
day one: chest and biceps
day two: back and triceps
day three: legs
abs are done every other day
usually 8 different exercises are done for each body part

It depends on a number of factors regarding what some people call over training and what others do. For instance the russian state circus train every day for 4 hours and are fine, whereas some poeple can train for an hour every other day and be working themsleves too hard. I think it is reasonable to say that if you are comfortable with training full body every other day then you are not unfit. But training every day for an average person (anything below proffesional athlete/ weight lifter etc. is going to be a lot of pressure on the system. I have found that the best approach to a broken down program is to train in a 2days on/ 1 off ruitine. This way you can break your program down into either 2 or 4 sections, for example doing half an hour of cardio before every weights session (thus eliminating needing to do abs as you will be building these on running etc) and then on a 2 day split doing something like legs back and biceps on the first day and chest chest shoulders and triceps on the second day, Having a days break, or a light cardio session and back on 2 days later. For a 4 day split do something like chest on the first day, back and shoulders on the second, a days break (or a very light cardio session), legs on the 3rd and arms on the 4th. It isnt wise to train every day (without a break after 2 consecutive training days) as the nervous system and muscles need time to repair and grow (thus causing larger muscles and better definition etc). If you want I can point you in the direction of some fantastic ruitines I've done in the past depending on what you want to get out of it. Another note of advice is constantly change your workout. I change mine ever 4 weeks to keep my body on its toes. The reason for this is that if you think of a builder, constantly lugging heavy things around all day, doing exactly the same moves every day, yes hes big, but hes not growing any more. Thats because his body has adapted to what it has to do and doesnt need to grow any more. Thus if you constantly change your ruitine, you trick your body into thinking it constantly needs to grow to new situations. Hope I've helped

Wouldn't it make a little more sense to train your triceps with your chest and biceps with your back since they are both secondary muscles? Seems like a waste to be building triceps during your chest workout, and then doing them again the next day. And what about your shoulders? Wait a minute. You're saying you do 16 exercises (~48 sets in total) each time you workout and it only takes you 90 minutes? And abs too? Seems fishy to me, unless you're doing them completely wrong with no rest period.

Body part splits are stupid.

Thanks for that fantastic in-depth response.

No problem.

i never really thought about switching biceps with triceps. reading this actually makes more sense to me and i think i'll try it out for a little while. as far as shoulders go, it is mixed in with my back exercises.

as to your other point, i do a circuit of 4 different exercises (so 2 different circuits for each body part per day) with very little rest in between. usually just a gulp of water from my nalgene, wipe of the forehead with a towel and back to work. also, i do pride myself in my form. i work out at a college gym and seeing these younger guys do exercises with horrible form bugs me. not to the extent of going over and saying something, but it is indeed a pet peeve of mine.

i'm curious as to the reason why you don't like splits. care to elaborate?

I don't like body part splits. They're stupid because they always include compound lifts with millions of assistance exercises. I mean, really, a whole day dedicated to shoulders? A day dedicated to chest which includes bench pressing? Bench press involves the shoulders more than the chest and the triceps even moreso. The entire lift is very dependent upon the strength of the triceps and shoulders, yet it's a 'chest day' lift. What's the point? Why not just ignore 'shoulder day' and 'chest/triceps' and just call it bench press day? The same is true for 'back/biceps day' except in reverse. You again don't need a shoulder day because if you're doing heavy rows you should be working your back, biceps, and shoulders. Why not just do more compound lifts and call the workout days 'bench/row day'? And for your lower body, you should be squatting, deadlifting, and maybe adding on good mornings. Quit wasting time with the BS exercises and just focus on a few good ones. You'll progress easier and the progression will be easier to evaluate. There's no reason why deadlift can't be done on 'chest day' or squat on 'back/biceps day' except for the cookie-cutter completeness created by making sure the body part split actually includes all body parts based on the premade template. In other words, the workout is based around the concept of working body parts isolated from each other. Any body parts lacking their own day get shoehorned in somewhere based on priority and the preconceived notion that every part should receive equal attention. Respectably Utopian, but ultimately deleterious to fitness.

Are you joking?

Do you even go to a gym other than an excuse to wear overly tight leotards to show to other people because you would get beaten up in the streets if you do that?

People don't split bodyparts due to some preconceived notion. People split because it is a way to do more and harder over a period of time. I have never heard of any present Mr Olympia contestant training as you propose, because its stupid.

Like someone pointed out, if you do heavy compound exercise for chest and deadlifts and shoulders on the same day, you would run out of energy very quick.

Based on your (lack of) logic, if I do chest, I should do shoulders, traps, triceps and biceps since they are all connected. I can tell you doing that is ignorant. I did balls to the wall bench (fear factor style BTW). After that, you would be ready to puke, your triceps would be fried. You cant do military presses because your triceps would exhaust first before your shoulders and your shoulders workout would hence not be satisfactory. BTW benching only affect your front delts. If it affects your other delts, even when you do incline bench, guess what Einstein, you are doing it wrong!!


Also, if you do squats and deadlifts in the same workout, your deadlifts would be very poor as your quads will be tighter than a virgin snatch and you would be on the verge of vomiting every time you bend down to grab the bar. And you even want to add Good Mornings? How about Good Byes? You either never practise what you preach or "˜training' means doing 1 set of squats where you are a bit short of breath and rest 10 minutes reading "˜Hello!'.

By doing logical splits, you can go all out on chest today, all out on back tomorrow and all out on shoulders the day later. You would find your weight and reps are at its optimum compared to your ass backwards haphazard mixing of steak on top of ice-cream washed down with Nyquil.

Of course there is some value in doing whole body workout in 2 sessions. But those are more for strength and size filling. Those aint no bodybuilders because that don't let you do enough "˜filler' exercises to fill our the "˜missing' parts.

^^ no ones going to read all that.. and there is NO such thing as overtraining