weight lifting question

I am trying to get into a routine of lifting weights, but I don't know how often to lift.  I am in the process of trying to gain muscle mass, and I'd like to know which one of these routines would work best:

routine 1:

lifting three times a week (MWF), working out every major muscle group. (back, arms, legs, chest, shoulders, abs)

routine 2:

lifting one or two major muscle groups a day.  For example, monday would be biceps/back, tuesday would be legs/abs, wednesday would be chest/triceps and friday would be shoulders.

So, routine 1 works the biceps, for example, three times a week, and routine 2 only works the biceps once a week.  I would assume that working a muscle group 3 times a week is better than 1 time a week, but I've read (can't remember where) that something like routine 2 really helps the muscles.

Does anyone know what i should do?  keep in mind that I'm not trying to lose weight, I'm trying to gain muscle.

I'm doing Routine #2 right now.

Monday: Chest/Biceps
Tuesday: Shoulders/Neck
Wednesday: Back/Triceps
Thursday: Legs
Saturday: Cardio only

I heard you have to do a major muscle group followed by the corresponding secondary muscle group. I don't know, I'm still pretty small...

IMO, beginners should stick to whole-body routines (MWF is fine), and concentrate on the big-muscle multi-muscle lifts:  squat, deadlift, bench press, standing press and pullups (with a variety of grips, adding a weight belt if/when you can do more than about a dozen in a set).  An untrained body will get the biggest gains in the least time from such demanding lifts.

Split routines (working different parts on different days) are an advanced technique, one of many ways to increase intensity.  But you almost certainly don't need that kind of intensity at the start.  The time to increase intensity is when you stop making progress with a whole-body routine.  That's also the time to start introducing small-muscle isolation exercises, like bicep curls.  The biceps are relatively small muscles, and work spent on them is much more productively spent on growing larger muscles at the start -- besides, if you haven't been doing them, you'll probably find that pullups/chinups exhaust your arms first anyway, despite that they're primarily aimed at back muscles.

BTW, all the things you've read are right ;-)  At the start, your muscles will benefit from getting worked 3x a week.  But when your muscles have been trained to the point that this level of intensity  no longer makes progess, you need to increase intensity to shock them into further growth.  But increasing intensity on a muscle also means the muscle needs a longer time to repair itself between workouts, so split schedules become increasingly necessary.  Some advanced lifters need a whole week before they can hit the same muscle again.

You can go months, maybe even a year, with whole-body routines before progress stalls.  In general, the more progress you make, the quicker you'll stall on any fixed routine.  That's one reason splits get fancier and fancier (fewer body parts per day, but more exercises and sets per body part) over time.

FYI, here's a good article on the usual effects of different rep/load schemes.  Probably best to pick a primary goal, and do most workouts in "the right" rep/load range for that.  But you need some workouts in the other ranges too, because different components of muscle respond best to different ranges, and all components contribute something to total size.

I have the same goal as you do and I have been told to work out 3 times a week. The routine I have:

Sunday      &nb sp;               &nb sp;              
Bench Press      &nbs p;       & nbsp;      &nbs p;       
Lat Rows
Incline Bench Press
Lat Pulldowns
Decline Bench Press
Bent Over Rows
Squat
Leg Extention
Calf Raise

Tuesday
Biceps Curl
Triceps Extention
Shoulder press

Thursday
same as sunday


I previously did this workout for 4 weeks with lighter weights and more cardio to lower my body fat %

I am now doing this workout for another 4 weeks with heavier weights to gain mass, and i now do cardio about 2 times a week for 20mins.

After those four weeks, i am looking to start split routines.

From what i have learned, it is important to only do cardio a maximum of 3 times a week less than 30 mins per session for gaining mass, as more will negatively affect muscle from growing towards your standards.

Food is important too. Eating more calories than you burn is what you want to do...i believe it is 40% protein 40% carbs and 20% fat (mostly unsaturated which come from nuts, oils, fish, etc.)

Eat 5-7 small meals a day to keep your metabolism running at its full potential.

All this information is what i have learned from other far more experienced people (im only 16) So please...dont need much thanks for this =)

Bodyscience and tgpish are the two people that I like to hear from on this site. They are well educated on this so try talking to them.

thanks guys.

that is a great website tgpish!

Ya, there's a lot of good info on that site!  I'm not sure whether it's actually what it claims to be, or is really a joint marketing scheme for the ebooks promoted there, but there's tons of free info there regardless.

BTW, I have Venuto's ebook promoted there, and it is in fact excellent.  When you get to the point of needing to lose fat while preserving your muscle gains, I don't know of a better guide anywhere -- it covers every effective idea I ever learned about that (except for certain illegal drugs, which I don't take or recommend either).  But you won't have to worry about that for at least two weeks ;-)

tgpish is totally spot on!