Picking a workout split can be challenging and confusing. There are seemingly endless options, and every trainer and trainee claims that their chosen training split is the “best.” It can be difficult to comb through all of that information and figure out what is truly best for YOU.
And that’s the key: figuring out which split is truly best for you, your goals, and your lifestyle. No training split is universally the best. That is why I am going to take you through which factors you need to consider when choosing a split for your resistance training program. A program can look perfect on paper, but if you can’t execute that program consistently, it’s not the right program for you. An upper/lower split might work well for your friend, but if you have very different goals, that might not be the right split for you. Keep on reading for clarity on which training split will best serve you.
Factors to Consider
How many days per week can you realistically train?
Emphasis on the realistically. It doesn’t matter if a six day per week push/pull/legs split (which we will get into later) is ideal for your goals if you can only realistically get to the gym three days per week. Generally speaking, full body routines work best for those who can only commit one to three days per week to training. The more you split up your body parts, the more days per week you will need to commit to going to the gym. A full body routine requires the least days per week commitment, followed by an upper/lower split, followed by push/pull/legs or body part splits.
Think about it. If you are following a full body routine and can only train two days per week, you are still working each muscle twice per week. If you chose to follow an upper/lower split with that schedule, you would only work each body part once per week. Frequency is an important training variable. Another point to consider is that if you were following a full body routine in this situation and had to miss one day of training, you would still work each body part once that week. If you were following an upper/lower split, you would miss out on training half of your body that week!
How much time do you have to train per session?
Do you have a small block of time in your calendar each day? Or a large block of time a few times per week? This will influence your training split. If you only have a small block of time (for example, between 20 to 40 minutes) you might be better off splitting up your training. It might be challenging to fit in a full body routine in a smaller amount of time. You would also have to spend a significant portion of your time warming up the whole body. With a split routine, you would only need to warm up the muscles and joints you intend to train.
If you have a full hour or even ninety minutes to train, on the other hand, your schedule might be better suited for a full body routine or maybe an upper/lower split. This is especially true if you have large blocks of time available, but can only train a few days per week. If you have an hour or more to train, you should have ample time to warm up the whole body before your workout and enough time to stretch after your session. You’ll likely have time for multiple big, compound movements, even ones that require a lot of set up.
What are your goals?
Is your primary goal fat loss? Muscle building? Strength gain? Endurance? Injury prevention? General health? This will help to determine which training split might be most appropriate for you. Most of the specifics are outside the scope of this article, but here are a few things to think about:
Aesthetic Goals
The upper/lower, push/pull/legs, and body part splits described below work well for primarily aesthetic goals. If your goal is to lose body fat while preserving muscle or to gain muscle, any of these are great options. If there are specific lagging body parts you want to bring up, you might want to consider modifying these splits to give those lagging body parts more volume. For example, if you are trying to build your glutes and follow an upper/lower split four days per week, you might modify that split by adding a fifth glute day where you perform lighter isolation glute movements.
Strength Goals
If your goals are primarily strength focused, you still might want to break up your routine, but you will likely focus on movements rather than body parts. You might have a squat day, deadlift day, overhead press day, and bench press day. You would start each day with your main movement, and everything else you do on that day would be accessory work for that main movement.
Athletic Performance Goals
If your main goal is related to a sport or activity, such as yoga, skiing, basketball, running, or any other active pursuit and you are using resistance training in a supplementary way, your program should be tailored to your sport or activity of choice. In this case, resistance training won’t be the main focus. In most cases, it will only make sense to resistance train once or twice per week, and in this case, a full body routine with specific focus on any muscle groups, joints, or movement patterns of importance in your sport will likely be best.
These are just a few examples. Your goals might combine a few of these, or maybe you’re just training for general health and enjoyment. In any case, figuring out what your goals are should help you get a better picture of which split will work for you.
Recovery
You can only get stronger from what you can recover from. While four or five days of training per week might work well for some people, if you can’t recover well from that, you would probably do better with two or three days of training. There are many factors that can impact your recovery, including genetics, sleep, stress, lifestyle, nutrition, and alcohol consumption.
If you are a new parent who is awake multiple times in the middle of the night and still has to work a 40 hour work week at a stressful job, you might not be able to recover as well as a college student who’s only responsibility is their light course load. Exercise is a stress on the body. In the right quantity, it can be a good stress and we stand to gain a lot from exercise. But your body can only handle so much stress. When choosing an exercise routine, consider the rest of your lifestyle, not just how much time you physically have to workout.
How can you tell if you’re not recovering well? The most important sign is that you are performing worse in the gym, despite an increase in training volume or intensity. If you hit a plateau or you begin to get weaker or slower, the solution may actually be to decrease your training volume. You could do this by either decreasing your time in the gym each day or your days in the gym each week.
Training Split Options
Full Body
Full body training is as simple as it sounds: you train the whole body each day that you train. You will likely do just one to two exercises for each muscle group with this type of split. This style of training is best if you can only train one to three days per week.
The main benefit is that even if you can’t train often, you could still potentially train your whole body multiple times in a week. And if you planned on training two or three times in a given week but can only train once, at least you will end up training each muscle group once. Another benefit is that since you will only be performing one to two exercises per muscle group, the muscle you are working will always feel fresh. The downsides are that the workouts can get long. You also have to warm up each muscle group in the same workout, which can take quite some time.
Upper/Lower
An upper/lower split is a great option for anyone who has four days per week to train. An upper/lower split divides the body up into upper body days (chest, back, shoulders, triceps, biceps) and lower body days (quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves). Abdominal work can be included on either day, but is commonly included on lower body days. This is a great option for splitting up your training in a way that feels manageable. With four days of training per week, you still end up hitting each body part twice per week. Since the workouts are split, you might spend less time in the gym than you would with full body training.
Lower body days will likely feel more taxing than upper body days. Many trainees enjoy having easier and harder days in the gym, so this can be a pro or con depending on personal preference. Once you start splitting up your training this way, you want to make sure that you are relatively consistent. If you end up missing a training day, you could end up with significantly less upper or lower body training volume. Another thing to be aware of is that if you end up including a deadlift, for example, on your lower body day, your back might be sore the next day. If you have an upper body day planned with a lot of unsupported back exercises, like bent over rows, this can cause some trouble. This is where good programming comes in.
Push/Pull/Legs
A push/pull/legs split is the most I would recommend most people split up their training. In this split, you have a push day (chest, shoulders, triceps), pull day (back, biceps), and leg day (quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves). This is best for anyone training five to six days per week. You would need to train five to six days per week to ensure that you are working each muscle twice per week with this type of training split.
The benefit to training this way is that you can focus on just a few muscles during a single session. This means that your workouts might be shorter and more concentrated. One downside is that if you miss a day or two, you might only end up working a muscle once that week. This also isn’t an amount of training that everyone can recover from. If you don’t have many responsibilities and the gym is a big priority for you, this type of split might work. If you have a demanding career, are busy with kids, have other involved hobbies, or a complicated family life, this might not be for you.
There’s no “right” answer
There are a lot of things to consider when choosing an exercise routine. But at the end of the day, there’s no right answer. The best thing you can do is experiment with multiple training styles to figure out which works best for YOU.
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