Train A Muscle A Day Vs. Training Muscle Groups
I am often asked if I train muscle groups per day or a muscle per day. For me I train a muscle a day. What you will find, and what I will say over and over is this…. I do, as you should do as well, what works best for ME.
There are several factors that you have to take into consideration when you decide on your training style. One is time and this is huge. How many times a week you can actually get into the gym and how much time you have while you are in the gym will help you determine a schedule that works best. You may not have the option to get in to the gym every single day and therefore grouping muscles together to train is a better solution.
Another factor that you want to consider are your goals, your end results. What you are training for? Are you training for weight loss, muscle building, both? For me, my schedule is quite different as I am at a point where I am working on specific muscles that I need to tweak for better competition results (i.e. shoulders, glutes and back). I do not train chest at all. I get enough of a chest workout through my other muscle training routines and am not looking to target my chest therefore I do not train it. Again this is definitely not for everyone!!
I also find that I hit my bi’s and tri’s enough when I train back and shoulders with my trainer (prepping for a show), and therefore may not train arms as much so that my shoulders and back will be even more predominant come competition time, arms will lean out due to depletion and therefore my overall aesthetic comes in better for figure. I also specifically targeted my glutes for the last month and half before showtime and didn’t train the rest of legs at all. Again this is what I have to do and most certainly would not recommend this for everybody!!!
When I am prepping for a shoot my workouts will change in that I may group certain muscles together and do a mini-circuit training to also burn more as I may need to come in lean for a shoot but not necessarily stage ready and still very feminine. I also have certain “water push” routines I like to call them that draw the most water possible out of your muscles to give you a leaner, drier look 
If you decide to do a muscle a day it is pretty self explanatory as to how you could do it: chest, back, shoulders, bis/tris (or you can also separate them every other week to change up your routine: bis one day, tri’s another) and legs. Some people also like to train calves separately than the rest of their leg workout and pair it with lower back and perhaps abs one day. Again these are all options and just ideas to keep the body guessing and working hard!
If you decide to pair muscle groups together you should stick with a push/pull routine. For example you could pair chest and bis together, back and tri’s, you could also pair shoulders and tri’s together. I would always just do legs on a day by themselves and do lower back with legs as well as an option. If you know that you only have a 3 day week for the gym you can pair chest/shoulders/tri’s on Day 1, chest and bis on Day 2 and then legs and lower back on Day 3. Again, all of these are just options/ideas to perhaps incorporate into your current routines or give you a definitive starting point if you are just beginning.
I will leave you ladies with this…change and switching things up is always key!!! Another option is one week do a muscle group a day,the next week train muscle groups together, etc. etc. Just make sure that you are capitalizing on the time that you DO have in the gym in the BEST possible way!!! It is better to give 45 minutes of hardcore, push it to the limits, give it all you got workout time then an hour and half of semi-intense, mediocre workout time. In the end your body will benefit from the 100% you give every time you step foot in that gym and you will find yourself smiling more and more!
