Abbreviated Workouts Bodybuilding
Abbreviated workouts are good for any bodybuilder who is looking to change up his/her training routine. It can be used very effectively for hitting a lagging body-part which we will discuss later in this article. Basically the definition of an abbreviated routine is a training routine with a maximum of only 8 exercises', and that's the recognized upper limit.
All hard-gainers should cut this down even farther and do a maximum of 5 or 6 exercises for each workout. If you have been training hard and heavy for a few months or more the experts tell us that you should go onto an abbreviated workout for 6 to 8 weeks. It will not only increase the results that you get, even if you had not been close to reaching the point of overtraining. It gives your body a new stimulus because you are working out for less time and doing less sets and reps. With your total volume decrease you will certainly be able to feel the difference and often get a much needed break while you are doing it. Research done in the USA on bodybuilders show that well over half of them are overtraining, not getting sufficient rest and recuperation before the next workout. But the same study also looked at the form used by the average bodybuilder which was definitely lacking substance. Impeccable form comes from controlling the tempo when lifting the weight. Doing a concentric and an eccentric movement for only 1 second is NOT good form, that's cheating. Good form means that you are correctly controlling each movement with deliberation and care. Bouncing the bar off your chest when you do a bench-press is NOT good form, the same as lowering the bar to such your abs is NOT good form. If you decided to go to abbreviated workouts because you need time to work on a lagging body-part, then doing it via abbreviated workouts is a good idea. Let's assume you train your whole body three times a week but you want to concentrate on what you believe is a lagging body-part that you have recognized in your body. You would then cut out one of the three days that you train and dedicate that whole workout to concentrating on the lagging body-part.
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