One last final thing. Obviously, full body splits are far and away superior to the one muscle per week "supercompensation theory". Here is how they compare and why it's superior:

Quick Example:

1 muscle per week frequency (classic BB'er split)

Monday- Chest
Flat bench-3x10
Inclines-3x10
Dips-3x10

Tuesday- Back
Pulldowns-3x10
Rows-3x10
Pullovers-3x10

Total sets per week:
Chest = 9 sets
Back = 9 sets

HST Full Body (three times per week frequency)
Using 8 rep mesocycle example.

(Monday, Wednesday, Friday)
Flat Barbell Press-2x8
Incline Dumb. Press-1x8
Barbell Rows-2x8
Chins-2x8

Total sets per week:
Chest = 9 sets
Back = 12 sets

-Basically, you are getting in the same amount of work sets per week.

However, according to Principle #2- Acute vs. Chronic Stimuli , increased protein synthesis, prostaglandins, IGF-1 levels, and mRNA levels all return to normal in about 48-36 hours. This fact is what seperates both examples from one another. With the full body, you are keeping all those growth factors elevated for the entire week. The first example has you only growing for 3 days and maintaining for 4 days.

So a very simplified explanation could be that example 1 has 52 growth cycles per year per muscle group whereas example 2 (full body) has 156 growth cycles per year. This explains why a lot of people lean towards frequency to blast out of plateaus, ect. Of course, all this gets thrown out the window once steroids enter in the picture. ;)

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