PROD1GY

Which do you say is better?
1 muscle a day isolated and beated to a point where its sore as **** for a week
or 2 muscles a day, doing like 3 sets per muscle mostly compounded
I think isolation is better becausee
1) You hit your muscle once a week, despite whatever.
2) Each muscle gets more individual attention, and ofcourse all of them are trained.

powerman2000

A compound exercise for large muscle groups is always a better way to cause hypertrophy. Also, doing only 3 sets per muscle ain't gonna get the job done if you want to get big either.

You have much to learn grasshopper.

__________________
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Best BP 507 lbs *competitive*
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PROD1GY

No, here was the argument.
He has some book for 2002 that says you should train no more then 3 times a week, doing only compounds for 3 sets per body part, 3 bp's a day.
I said no, thats stupid, and I perfer 1 muscle a day, unless its 2 minors.
We got into an arguement, he scans me his gay book, where the guy makes up facts saying over 3 days a week = no growth.
It pisses me off.. theres so much bs in there..
I think 1 muscle a day is better then 2, cuz in the end of the week, all your muscles get trained, but Isolation = more intensity on each muscle.
Like if you train chest, then shoulders, your triceps arent gonna get a good workout, but in his book, chest press should already work them up..

madcow2

Isolation works for shit. The body is a unit, it is best stressed as a unit, and it adapts as a unit. If isolation worked very well all the curl boys would have huge arms yet it is the guys squatting and pulling doing a few sets for arms a week that have guns. It is no accident that all the best exercises for hypertrophy involve moving heavy loads through fundemental ranges of motion (i.e. vertical full body pushing = squat, vertical full body pulling = deadlift, horizontal torso pushing = press, horizontal torso pulling = row).

Don't think about working a muscle think about training the body. I can work the shit out of my quads on leg extension yet the beast doing full squats in the rack is going to build a much bigger body and set of quads.

As for frequency - it's really about workload where frequency distributes it. There is a lot of evidence that 1 session per week is suboptimal and that 2 should be the bare minimum. From a strength perspective (and neural efficiency supports hypertrophy gains - think about the newbie gain mechanism) frequency is crucial. That said for most intents and purposes anything over 2-3x starts running into diminishing returns (although you can still get growth going even 5-7 times a week if you program correctly so your friend isn't grasping this well as there are no absolutes).