Training Split Strategies
Picking the Right Muscle-Building Split For YOU
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I find that one of the biggest obstacles between individuals consistently resistance training is that they don’t know where to start or what to do. In this regard, one of the first questions to answer is what type of training split–i.e. the schedule of what muscle groups and movements you will train on which day(s) during the week–you’re going to follow. Here, we’ll break down the training variables and personal factors to consider when choosing a training split, as well as how each of these comes into effect in the most common training splits.
Training Variables to Consider
We’ll start by defining what I view as the most important training variables to take into account with respect to your training split selection.
Volume Load Potential
As I addressed in Muscle Mania Part V, volume load–defined as weight x reps x sets–is likely the primary training variable driving hypertrophy. When thinking about program design, you want enough room to gradually increase your weekly training volume over time, starting with a volume load that is enough to stimulate muscle growth but not more than you can recover from. One limiting factor to this aspect of your training is that there is a threshold of volume per session, after which you no longer acquire any more gains. Though it is unclear where this cut-off lies exactly, and it probably varies from person to person, it is probably around 6-10 sets per muscle group per training session. (IV) In other words, completing any sets beyond this 6-10 per muscle group per session range creates a bigger hole to recover from but does not lead to greater muscle growth. So, once you hit this threshold, you will need to add sets on other days of the week in order to increase your weekly training volume.
Training Session Length
Though there is an argument that training session length is important in regards to how training too long in a session can lead to unfavorable increases in cortisol and drops in testosterone, I expect that this is not an issue for most gym-goers. Rather, I figure that, for most people, training session length is most important in terms of fitting lifting time into your daily and weekly schedule–we’ll cover this personal factor more below. On this point, the greater the amount of body parts you train per session, the greater the amount of exercises you will need per session. And, the greater number of exercises you need to complete, the longer each training session will be. From another perspective, including more body parts per session does allow time-saving via non-competing supersets. For example, if you are completing a full body split, you can perform a lower-body exercise while you are resting in between sets of an upper body exercise. In contrast, if you are using a, “bro-split” and only training one body part or group per session, then–though you can complete supersets using exercises that target the same muscle(s)–you cannot leverage your rest periods in between sets to complete other exercises. Nonetheless, a good rule of thumb is that training more muscle groups per session = more exercises per session = greater training session length.
Training Frequency
In general, training frequency describes how often you train a given muscle group each week; however, for our purposes here, we’ll also look at overall training frequency, or how many total days you train per week. With this in mind, for the most part, the fewer body parts you train per session, the greater number of sessions you will need to complete per week. So, though training less body parts per session results in less time spent per individual training session, it also results in greater days spent training per week. Depending on your preferences, you may want longer/shorter training sessions or more/less total sessions per week–we’ll take a look at this personal factor below.
Intensity
In terms of program design, intensity, commonly measured by percentage of 1-repetition maximum, outlines how heavy the weights you're using are relative to your strength. Be careful not to confuse intensity with effort (a.k.a. proximity to failure) which describes how hard you are training in terms of how close you go to failure, or the point at which you can no longer lift the weight with good form. Though similar amounts of hypertrophy result from heavy loads as they do from light loads–generally, anywhere within 5-30 repetitions per set is comparable for inducing muscle growth, provided you are training close to failure (~3-0 reps away from failure)–heavy loads tend to apply greater stress to your joints, tendons, and ligaments over time. For this reason, if you are training in the lower end of the 5-30 reps per set range, you may want more days of rest in between each training session to allow your joints, tendons, and ligaments to recover. In addition, for this reason, you may want to cycle your intensity across the year, spending some months using lighter loads, rather than over-stressing your body with heavy loads year-round.
Schoenfeld and colleagues’ 2014 publication, Effects of Different Volume-Equated Resistance Training Loading Strategies on Muscular Adaptations in Well-Trained Men, sums up these points regarding intensity, in that they found that individuals training with heavier loads (2-4 reps per set) achieved similar hypertrophy as those training with lighter loads (8-12 reps per set) when volume load was equated. (I) Though, individuals in the higher intensity group tended to report greater fatigue and dropped out of the study due to injury at a higher rate than those in the lower intensity group. (I) Also interesting to note, the average training session length for those in the higher intensity group was more than 3 times greater than that of the lower intensity group due to longer rest periods between sets and greater total sets required to match the lower intensity group in volume load. (I)
Personal Factors to Consider
Now that you understand the pertinent training variables to consider, we’ll explore some personal factors that impact which type of training split will work best with your lifestyle.
Schedule
Your weekly schedule plays a large factor in selecting a training split, in that it plays a major part in dictating how many days you will go to the gym per week. Moreover, your schedule determines how much time you are able to spend at the gym each training session. Ultimately, consistent training over time, or lack thereof, will make or break the results you reap from your training; consequently, assuring that following your training split is feasible within the limits of your daily and weekly schedule outside of the gym is paramount.
Passion for training
In addition to your schedule, the degree to which you enjoy training plays a role in determining your weekly and per-session time commitment for your split. For example, if you love lifting and prefer to visit the gym almost every day–whether it be for stress-relief or as a hobby–you probably don’t want to go with a full-body split that limits the days you will be in the gym. On the other hand, if you dislike training, you may prefer to spend minimal days per week going to the gym and opt into that full-body split that only requires 2-3 trips to the weight room per week. Furthermore, if you are in this camp, you may dislike spending longer stretches of time at the gym at once, making shorter or moderate-length, though more frequent, sessions worth your while.
Desired Results
Your desired results are another factor to take into account, in that optimizing muscle gain will require large amounts of weekly volume load over time; whereas, the minimum effective dose for what I feel most consider reasonable or even substantial muscle gain demands much less volume load. This factor comes into play when choosing a training split because, as mentioned above, greater training volume eventually requires greater training frequency. So, if you are looking to maximize your gains, you will need to increase the times per week you are training each muscle group sooner or later. Contrarily, if you are satisfied with solely maintaining your muscle mass or achieving a majority of your potential muscle gains, then you won’t need to utilize this increase in frequency to meet higher weekly training volumes.
At this point, you have a grasp on the key training variables and personal factors to take into account when picking the right training split for you. So, let’s take a look at the most common training splits to choose from: Body part split, Upper-Lower, Push-Pull-Legs, and Full-body.
Body Part Split (a.k.a.) “Bro-Split”
The body part split, commonly referred to as the, “bro split”, is so named because it entails training one body part per training session. This generally means breaking your training week up into something like one day for each of the following: chest and triceps, shoulders, back and biceps, and legs.
Of all the training splits, this option offers the lowest weekly volume load potential since your training frequency is cut to one or maybe two days per week to train each muscle group. So, if you are looking to max-out your gains over time, the bro-split will eventually be insufficient for hitting the training volume you need to continue progressing. On the other hand, this split requires the shortest training session length, as you will only need to complete 1-3 exercises per session. In addition, since you are only training each muscle group once per week, you will have the greatest amount of rest days between training sessions for a given muscle group; consequently, in theory, you may experience less joint, tendon, and ligament strain when using heavier loads over time.
In my opinion, the body part split best suits those who value training almost every day, want short training sessions, and are satisfied with missing out on maximal gains due to limited weekly volume potential. Of note, you can still work in an extra day or two for one or more muscle groups, allowing you to top off your weekly volume load for those select body parts. As I discussed in Muscle Mania Part VIII, this could be useful in the context of targeted volume cycling, where you rotate through periods of higher and lower volume for different muscle groups. And, this is particularly useful if you have lagging muscle groups that you want to improve.
Upper-Lower
The upper-lower split consists of breaking up your training days into those training your upper body and those training your lower body. One benefit of this approach is that there is high volume potential, as you could, in theory, train each muscle group 3 times per week (3 upper and 3 lower days). However, you will likely not be able to max out your training volume per session if doing so, as you may not recover enough with only one rest day in between hitting upper or lower body. Also, this may limit the intensity you can use, as one day off from upper or lower may not be enough for you to recover from training hard with heavy weights. One work-around here is to cycle which days you are using heavier loads, so that–out of 3 days per week each–you only use heavy loads once per week each for upper and lower days.
The other option would be to use high volume per session and only train four times per week (2 upper and 2 lower sessions) to enable greater recovery between sessions. This extra recovery time will also provide more wiggle room for training with higher intensities over time without creating too much wear and tear on your joints. Either way, you can accumulate 12-20 sets per muscle group per week using moderate, rather than long, training session lengths, since there will be more exercises than a bro-split but less than a full-body split. In addition, you can cut down a significant amount of time utilizing non-competing supersets with push and pull movements; however, if doing so–especially with compound movements–you may decrease the amount of weight you can use due to accumulated fatigue if you do not rest appropriately between sets. Of course, if you’re shooting for the minimal effective dose, one upper and one lower day per week will do the trick.
I’m currently using an upper-lower split because I find it offers the best combination of high volume potential and shorter training session length when you are only able to train 4-5 times per week. Also, if you want to designate 2-3 days towards endurance training, an upper-lower split is useful because it allows for significant volume load in only 4 days per week.
Push-Pull-Legs
The push-pull-legs split divides your training into two upper body days–one for pulling motions that target the back and biceps and one for pushing motions that target the chest, triceps, and shoulders–and one day for lower body training. This breakdown enables moderate-high volume potential, as, if you cycle through push-pull-legs twice per week, you can utilize a high per session volume because you will have two full rest days before hitting those body parts again. This higher frequency push-pull-legs option also offers fairly short training sessions even with higher volume loads per session, as it involves almost as few exercises per session as the body part split. If you think about it, the only difference between push-pull-legs and the body part split is that you include your shoulders training during your push day. In my opinion, this makes the most sense, since you’ll be hitting your shoulders during a chest and triceps day anyways through pressing movements.
Another plus to push-pull-legs is that you will always have 2 or more rest days before training a given muscle group again, so intensity and per session volume are less of a concern as compared to other splits. Though, if you look at things from the zoomed-out perspective and think about training over several months and years, you may still want to use one heavier and one lighter load day for each component of this split to decrease the stress on your joints, tendons, and ligaments. Or, you can always cycle through several-month periods of heavier, moderate, and lighter intensities.
One context in which I feel this option is useful is if you’ve been using a high-frequency and high-volume split–such as a 6-day upper-lower split–and feel that fatigue is building up. By changing to a 6-day push-pull-legs option, you can maintain high-volume with even shorter training sessions and extra rest days in between training sessions for a given muscle group. This extra recovery time may be especially useful for your lower body, as I find individuals generally need more recovery time for their lower body than their upper body, particularly when using higher volume loads and/or intensities. Also, if you want to minimize the days per week you’re in the gym but upper-lower sessions are too long for your schedule, a 3-day push-pull-legs split generally requires shorter training lengths and still has you in the gym for less than half of the days of the week.
Full-Body
Lastly, we have the full-body split, which trains all of the major muscle groups each session. There is moderate volume potential here, since you can train each muscle group 3 or even 4 times per week. However, volume potential is slightly limited because the large amount of exercises you need to cover the whole body each session cuts down the amount of sets you can complete per exercise without spending several hours per training session. Though it is possible to complete these longer sessions, it is likely suboptimal, as the more sets you complete close to failure the lower quality the sets will become over time. In other words, there is likely a difference in quality between the first few sets and set 10 in a training session, and that difference widens with the more sets you complete. For this reason, it is probably logical to front-load your priority muscle groups at the beginning of these sessions, so you hit those muscle groups while you are fresh. This is generally a good idea regardless of the split you’re using, but it is especially useful in the context of a full-body session.
Though the training length for a full-body lift is longer due to greater number of exercises to cover all of the pertinent muscle groups in the body, since you can train each of those muscle groups 2-4 times per week, you do not require as many sets per muscle group per individual session. On the contrary, if you’re shooting for the minimum effective dose, you could get away with 1-2 longer training sessions per week.
In terms of intensity, a higher frequency approach could lead to joint, tendon, and ligament issues if you are training with higher loads; however, this higher training frequency also allows you to split up the load throughout the week. In other words, you could rotate which muscle groups you are using lower rep ranges for throughout the week–i.e. lifting heavy once per week per muscle group and using lighter loads for that muscle group on the other day(s) in the week. On the other hand, a lower frequency approach of 1-2 full-body days per week provides nearly maximal recovery and a lot of flexibility in terms of higher intensity training as a result.
In my opinion, the full-body option offers the greatest value if you are tight on time and satisfied with the minimum effective dose. For most people, one 1-1.5 hour session per week offers meaningful muscle maintenance and even growth, as well as health benefits, making the full-body option unparalleled in terms of bang for buck (II, III). Also, if you are prioritizing your endurance training, 1-2 full-body lifts per week allows you to maintain your strength and hypertrophy gains while leaving most of the days of the week for endurance sessions.
So, what?
As I’ve found with resistance training in general, when it comes to choosing a training split, the old adage that, “methods are many, principles are few,” reigns true in that all of the options above are efficacious–they CAN work for building muscle. The question is whether or not they are effective: whether or not they work for YOU. In this regard, it ultimately comes down to finding the one that fits your schedule and your liking the best. And, as is my preference, you can always rotate through different options depending on the context of your lifestyle changes or if one split is simply going stale and you want to spice things up with something new. Now, if you’re interested in a second or third opinion, check out the content below for more on training splits.