Ultimate Guide To Workout Splits - Organize Your Training Better

Introduction

Workout splits refer to different ways of dividing your training throughout the week. This is most commonly planned according to body region, movement, specific body part, or by lift. For example, you can perform upper body exercises on Monday and focus on the lower body on Wednesdays. However, workout splits can also become more specific depending on how advanced you are and what your goals are. 

The main benefit of splitting your workouts is that it ensures your training is structured in a safe and effective way. This means that each muscle group is trained a few times a week with at least 48h between training sessions of the same muscle group. This allows you to progressively overload the muscles, while reducing the risk of injuries or overtraining.

This post explains the basics of workout splits, and provides several different variations for structuring your own weekly routine.

The basics of workout splits

There are several ways to divide your training throughout the week. The most widely used workout splits are the whole body split, upper body/lower body split, push/pull/legs split, four-day training split, and the five-day training split.

Which one of these suit you the best depends on a few factors; your training background, possible injuries, personal goals and motivational status, available time, and rest/recovery need. As a general rule, you should perform one or two exercises per muscle group, two to three times per week. However, this is also heavily dependent on which type of split you choose. 

In traditional linear periodization, training programs are divided into three phases; microcycle, mesocycle, and macrocycle. A microcycle is the shortest training cycle, typically lasting a week. A mesocycle consists of several microcycles and determines the training target for this specific period (e.g. strength, power, endurance, etc.). A macrocycle refers to a long-term “seasonal plan” that consists of several mesocycles. A macrocyle starts with higher volume training (more repetitions and sets) and gradually grows in intensity (more resistance and less repetitions) as the program progresses.

Progressive overload is achieved by gradually increasing the load or training volume. One training block usually last for ~4 weeks (or 6-12 weeks for beginners) before transitioning into a new routine. However, there are also more modern methods that follow nonlinear (undulating) periodization, where exercises are varied more frequently. 

The whole-body split is especially useful for beginners because of its relatively low volume. Thus, the initial strength adaptations come via the nervous system as your body learns to activate more motor units (a motor neuron and all the muscle fibers innervated by it). This also produces strength gains relatively quickly. As you continue your training, your muscle fibers will also increase in size, further increasing strength. 

Upper body/lower body split

The upper body/lower body split is another common way to divide your weekly exercises. In essence, it separates exercises for different body regions on different days of the week. For example, you can have two upper body days (chest, back, shoulders, arms) and two lower body days per week (quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves). 

Because training the entire body is separated over two days, the upper body/lower body split also allows for a higher training stimulus on each training session (more exercises per muscle group per session). For example, you can train the same muscle group with two exercises that utilize a different angle or resistance.

A common way to structure an upper body/lower body split is performing three to four sets of two exercises for a specific muscle group. You can also add more variety by focusing on muscular strength (higher resistance, lower volume) on the first two days of the week and hypertrophy (less resistance, higher volume) on the following training sessions.

Due to this higher intensity, your body also needs more rest before training the same muscle groups again. Most studies state that you need at least 48h before training the same muscle groups again. However, waiting for over 72h and you will start to lose some of your strength gains.

Push/pull/legs split

The push/pull/legs split is another way to divide your weekly training over three days. However, instead of focusing on specific body regions, the focus is on a specific movement. As the name suggests, this split consist of a push day (chest, shoulders, triceps), a pull day (back, biceps), and a leg day (quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves). You can also incorporate abdominal exercises on any of these days.

Focusing on multi-joint movements also allows you to simultaneously train multiple muscles (e.g. pectoral muscles, deltoids, and triceps during bench press). If you want to increase training volume, you can increase the number of sets, or perform three exercises per movement. You can also vary the number of repetitions throughout the workout to have a different training result. For example, performing high-resistance compound exercises first for strength improvements.