Total body or split muscle workouts, which is best for fat loss?

You’ve decided that you want to get serious and committed to your goals of achieving a body that you look great naked in.
 
You are dialing in your nutrition and you are seeing results. You’ve decided to stop doing the elliptical for an hour 5 days a week and start strength training.
You decide to start seeing what others in the gym are doing.
The next day while on the elliptical (we’ve got to spy okay?), you have a perfect view of the weights area.
First, you don’t see a lot of women over there. You see more of them doing cardio with you or on the machines floor.
Then you see this one woman. Ohmygah, she looks amazing! She’s really lean and has a 6 pack! “She has to be a figure competitor”, you think. You lock in on her. She’s going back and forth working her chest and triceps (chest press, rope triceps, chest fly, triceps kickbacks). “Cool”, you think, “I’ll do that”.
Then another woman walks over to the weights area. She also looks amazing and strong. She’s lean, but not as lean as the other woman. She also has a 6 pack and looks really balanced. This woman walks over to the squat rack and starts doing pushups, then barbell squats. Then she does rows and a barbell deadlift. Holy crap she’s sweating like crazy and working hard!
 
Now you’re confused. You have two women with equally amazing bodies doing different types of workouts. What should you do?
You just want to lose some body fat and look good in a swimsuit.
Sound familiar-ish?
 
 
I’m here to help you out.
 
If you are looking to lose body fat, get in shape and look good in a swimsuit, total body workouts like woman #2 are your friend.
Here’s why total body workouts with compound movements are best:
 

1. You burn more calories. Because you are working many muscle groups at once with compound movements (ex squat, pushup), you’re going to burn more calories than just doing bicep curls or even chest presses alone.
2. You don’t have to workout as much. When you do total body workouts, you can easily get away with strength training only 2x a week. You can’t do that with split workouts because you need to hit muscle groups at least 2 times to get the benefits of muscle growth and strength. Most who do split muscle workouts go to the gym 5-6 times a week (chest/tri, back/bi, legs, abs then 1-2 more workouts on their trouble groups) While you can work a muscle one time a week, you’d have to have a lot of volume and intensity in that one workout to make it last. When you’re going for fat loss, this isn’t the most efficient way to do things.
3. Workouts take less time. When you do compound total body workouts, you can easily get in a great workout in 15-30min. Whereas with split muscle workouts (chest, tris one day, bicep and back another), it takes longer to effectively work individual muscle groups.
4. You burn more fat. With doing compound exercises 2-3 times per week you tax your muscles more which also leads to burning more fat as your body has more times to recover from the tough workout
5. It mimics everyday life more. In everyday life, we use our body as a whole. Look at any athlete or person who just wants to be able to function better, as they get older. Doing things like squats, deadlifts and rotational exercises are mimic every day life and teach your body to work together including your core more than doing incline bicep curls ever will.
6. You won’t have to do much (or as much) cardio. Total body workouts are TOUGH. Whenever I have male clients, they hate them because they are physically taxing and so different than they are used to working out (split groups). Because of this, your heart rate stays elevated for a longer period of time and you are exerted more which means that you don’t have to do the long cardio as much to burn calories like you would with split muscle workouts.

 
So long story short, if you are looking to lose 20+ pounds, want to decrease body fat faster, are short on time to workout per session or number of workouts per week, want to have a more athletic body, and are even newer to exercise, total body workouts are best for you.
 
Now that doesn’t mean that split muscle workouts don’t have a place.
 
These workouts were made popular by body builders and figure competitors/fitness models that are looking for more focused and specific muscle and strength gains. These are the folks that typically are at their body fat goal, but they are looking for symmetry, body shaping, and really hone in on their trouble spots.
If you would like to mix things up, you can easily do 2 times of full body workouts and then have another workout focused on 1-2 muscle groups that you want to hone in on.
Remember, you won’t see those muscles to their fullest extent until you get rid of the body fat covering them, so be sure to get your nutrition down and add in some (but not a ton of) cardio.