Today I was at the gym hitting legs and when I was in the locker room I remember bumping into a guy I knew. He just finished his training session and I was about to start mine, but we were just sharing a few words with eachother. He told me how he was so psyched up because he just started this new program and he was making some progress. I asked him “what program are you following?” and he gave me a name that I forgot before he even opened his mouth, my memory is terrible.
The name of the program wasn’t important to me. What was important was the goal of the program, that’s what I was curious about because if you have a goal then you need a plan that relates to your goal. So I asked him, “What is the objective of the program bro?” and then he told me something that had me quiet for a minute.
He said that the goal of the program was to pack on size mostly in the chest, back and legs while simultaneously getting a lot stronger, build explosive strength and also jump higher.
Whats wrong with this approach?
The big problem when you try to do too much at once is that you basically become a jack of all trades and a master of none. This is like if an athlete played soccer, football, basketball, badminton and volleyball all at once, he will obviously suck at them all because he/she isn’t concentrating enough on one thing, the focus is just everywhere.
My Philosophy
In my opinion, the simpler the program is then the easier it is to keep track of progress. If the person from the locker room were to tell me that he was doing a lower body specialty program specifically to add some size to his thighs then that would make sense because that’s a more focused goal and he will most likely achieve that goal because its do-able, but when you are also asking for a back+chest specialization on top of the leg specialization with the intention of also increasing your vertical and building explosive power then you are planning to fail because there is just too much going on at once, you have to prioritize.
Can I only prioritize one thing in a program?
First off, it depends on how many days per week you have, 6 days per week is a lot different than 3 days per week. I would personally say that you shouldn’t prioritize more than 2 things in a program because once you start prioritizing 3 or more things then the focus goes everywhere and its hard to keep track of everything and psychology and mentally it is a bit overwhelming as well. The legs are already composed of a lot of muscles so if you were to also prioritize something else in your program then make sure that its something small and not big like your back, the biceps would be a wiser option, but nothing more than that.
While you could prioritize two things in your program, I am a big advocate of doing one thing and doing it well. If I were to do a lower body specialization program then I Would be hitting my lower body 2-3 times per week and everything else would still be getting hit, but there would just be a bit less emphasis on other muscle groups like the chest..etc
CONCLUSION:
In the end, this is just my opinion and you could do what you want, but I know that when I do a specialization program for a muscle group that I want to bring up, there is always a significant difference after 12 weeks.