5 Best Workout Training Splits

Written by Garett Reid | NSCA, CSCS, CISSN, M.S.E.S.S

Fact checked by Tyler DiGiovanni, BSBM

FACT CHECKED

Published On: December 27, 2024

There's a good chance you're making a massive mistake in the gym that's sabotaging your gains; you're not using a program! Planning your workouts to track your progress is the most powerful tool and is actually a necessity to make consistent progress.

Now, the foundation of your program is the training split you use. It tells you what muscles you'll train on what day and how often – it's your blueprint to building muscle. The only issue is there are quite a few to choose from. We're going to go over the most common types and see what the best training split is for different situations.

SFS Hypertrophy Program

Prepare to maximize your gains with our exclusive 12-week hypertrophy training program. Have the program customized to your personal needs with one of our expert...

View Now

What Is A Training Split?

A training split is how you organize your workout routine by dividing muscle groups or types of exercises across different days. This tells you what muscle groups to work together and how often.

While a simple concept, they hold a ton of value and are essential for success. Here are just a few reasons you need to use one.

Fatigue management and recovery¹
Maintain appropriate levels of volume
Simplify your training and provide specific goals for the day
Ensure full-body training
Provide structure

There are quite a few different splits to choose from, as we'll go over them below. While some are more beneficial than others in certain situations, keep in mind that any structure split is better than none!

What Are The Muscle Groups?

Before we go further, we need to first go over the muscle groups and how they might be divided. Keep in mind that muscle groups may be divided by location (upper, lower) or function (push, pull). Some body parts are always trained together, so they'll be listed together

Quadriceps - Lower body, pushing
Glutes & hamstrings - Lower body, pulling
Chest and shoulders - Upper body, pushing
Back - Upper body, pulling
Biceps - Upper body, pulling, arms
Triceps - Upper body, pushing, arms

When it comes to core, you can actually put these on whatever training day you think it's appropriate or fits best.

The 5 Best Workout Training Splits

We'll first go over the 5 primary splits that are used in the gym.

Afterwards, we'll review some different variables that can affect what training split would be ideal for you.

We'll also provide some sample plans just to help visualize how a plan might look. This will let you see what muscles are trained together on specific days along with the exercises.

1. Full Body Training Split

Full-body training splits are exactly as they sound; you train the entire body every session. Another way to think about it is to train each muscle group every session.

Since you're training every body part, the full-body training split should only be used when training 2-3 days a week. This is to ensure you have an adequate amount of recovery in between your sessions, as a general rule is to never train the same body part two days in a row.

As you're training each muscle group, this means you'll only use 1-2 exercises per muscle group. Further, as you must make the most out of your time in the gym, full-body workouts generally rely on compound exercises.

A very basic full-body workout training split might split the sessions like this.

Session 1

Session 2

Bench Press
Rack Pull (Knee)
Hip Thrust
Bent Over Row
Lunges
Dumbbell Overhead Press

Session 3

Deadlift
Seated Barbell Overhead Press
Hack Squat
Cable Row
Dips

An effective tactic is to use a form of periodization with these sessions known as daily undulating periodization.² This means you'll use a variety of loads to train each muscle throughout the week.

2. Upper/Lower Training Split

An upper/lower training split divides your body parts into upper and lower bodies and trains them in separate sessions. You will then alternate through these sessions during the week.

This type of split obviously works perfectly with a 4-day training frequency. However, some people like this split but want to train 5 days a week. This is definitely possible as you could add a day of accessory work such as;

Core
Isolation Work
Conditioning

As we hinted above, this works well for some who follow a strength-based program, as it allows rest between training the lower and upper body parts. This is a favorite split as it really allows you to focus on what you're training.

Here's how a simple split might look.

Upper 1

Rack Pull (knee level)
Overhead Press
Bent Over Row
Dips
Rope Upright Row + Face Pull
Lateral Raise + Bicep Curl

Lower 1

Squat
Hip Thrust
Leg Press
Goblet Squat
Calf Raise

Upper 2

Bench Press
Chin-Up
Seated Dumbbell Press
Chest Fly + Reverse Fly
Lateral Raise + Triceps Pushdown

Lower 2

Deadlift
Hack Squat
Romanian Deadlift
Walking Lunges
Calf Raise

3. Push/Pull Training Split

Another popular training split for a 4-day training frequency is a push/pull split. This divides the muscle groups into functions with the following muscle groups.

Pushing - Quads (squats), chest, shoulders, triceps, calves
Pulling - Glutes, hamstrings (deadlifts), back, biceps

As you see, we have squats with the pushing muscles and deadlifts with pulling. Now, technically, these movements will train your entire lower body as it's impossible to isolate your lower body pushing and pulling muscle with compound exercises.

Realistically, this means you're training legs 4 days a week, so you need to be mindful and adjust the intensity.

One way to deal with this is to change the intensity of the exercises and primary muscle groups that day. This is how it would look.

Pushing 1 - Lower body (heavy, strength) / Upper body (moderate, light, hypertrophy)
Pulling 1 - Upper body (heavy, strength) / Lower body (moderate, light, hypertrophy)
Pushing 2 - Upper body (heavy, strength) / Lower body (moderate, light, hypertrophy)
Pulling 2 - Lower body (heavy, strength) / Upper body (moderate, light, hypertrophy)

On the heavy/strength for a muscle, you'd focus on your big, compound movements. Then, on the second training day with moderate/light/hypertrophy, you'd focus on more accessory work and isolations.

Again, you can pair this with a 5th training day focusing on weak points, core, conditioning, or other areas of interest.

Here's an example plan:

Pushing 1

Squat
Overhead Press
Hack Squat
Dips
Leg Extensions + Triceps Extension

Pulling 1

Rack Pull
Romanian Deadlift
Bent Over Row
Nordic Curl + Face Pull
Leg Curl + Bicep Curl

Pushing 2

Bench Press
Front Squat
Landmine Press
Bulgarian Split Squat
Calf Raise + Lateral Raise

Pulling 2

Deadlift
Chin-Ups
Hip Thrust
Seated Cable Row
Step-Ups + Bicep Curl

4. Push/Pull/Legs Training Split

A push, pull, and legs (PPL) training split has become popular over the past few years. The muscle groups are training together as such;

Push - Upper body push
Pull - Upper body pull and deadlift
Legs - Lower body

Many people report really liking training splits, which seem to work with strength and muscle hypertrophy.

Right off the bat, you'll notice that this lines up for 3 sessions during the week. This doesn't mean you have to train 3 days a week. In fact, most people who use this split will train 4, 5, or even 6 days a week.

For these, you'd just rotate through the 3 sessions; it would look like this for training 5 days a week.

Monday - Push
Tuesday - Pull
Wednesday - Rest
Thursday - Legs
Friday - Push
Saturday - Rest
Sunday - Push

Regardless, here's how the sessions might look.

Push

Bench Press
Overhead Press
Dips
Chest Fly + Lateral Raise
Bicep Curl + Triceps Pushdown

Pull

Deadlift
Chin-ups
Bent Over Row
Seated Cable Row (Unilateral)
Face Pull + High Pull
Bicep Curls

Legs

Squats
Hip Thrust
Hack Squat
Romanian Deadlift
Lunges
Leg Curl + Leg Extension

5. Body Part or "Bro" Split

The "body-part" split, also known as "the bro split," is one of, if not the most popular type of training split, or at least it was.

You used this training split if you trained in the '90s or even early '00s. As the name implies, this training split involves training a specific body part during an entire session.

There is some variation on what muscle groups to work together, but a basic training split would look like this;

Chest
Legs
Shoulders & Core
Back
Arms & Core

The idea is to concentrate on a specific body part every session, train it with the highest intensity, and "cause as much damage" as possible. It was believed that more damage to the muscle would result in greater growth. We know this isn't exactly true, but it's still used heavily today, especially by bodybuilders.

Regardless, due to its nature, a bro split requires a high training frequency to train every body part weekly. This means you must hit the gym 5-6 days a week.

Training Variables That Affect Determine Your Training Split

Now that we've discussed the different training splits, we want to discuss some important variables that could affect which training split is best for you.

Training Frequency

Training frequency refers to the number of times you want to go to the gym every week and has a massive effect on the best training split for you.

Your answer could be anywhere from 1 to 7 days. However, under normal conditions, we think that 3 to 5 days is ideal for most.

Now, if you are very limited on time or just want to train to support other goals, you could get away with training for two days. On the flip side, more experienced lifters or bodybuilders could also do six days a week.

Regardless, the most important thing is being honest when you decide, as this will significantly influence your training split.

For example, if you say you're going to the gym 5 days a week, you'll get a training split optimized for training 5 days a week.

However, if you only go 3-4 days a week, that program would be suboptimal and you would do better with a split designed for 3 or 4 days a week.

Training Goal

Training for strength or muscle growth may affect your training split, specifically what muscle groups are worked together.

For example, if you're a bodybuilder, you probably want to hit the gym more frequently. This means you need a training split that accommodates this. A full-body split would not be ideal unless you're simply limited on time.

On the other hand, a strength athlete would probably do better with an upper/lower or push/pull split. Now, above we went over some of the nuances with these but the fact remains these work really well.

This is secondary to training frequency, but it's still a factor to consider.

Training Level

Your training level or age could also affect what a good training split is for you to use.

If you're a beginner, there's no reason you need to be in the gym 5 or 6 days a week. Therefore, you should stick with a training split better suited for training 3 or 4 days a week.

On the other hand, if you've been in the gym for a couple of years and still want to make significant gains, you'll probably need to increase your training frequency. In this scenario, a full-body training split would not be ideal.

At the same time, maybe you've been in the gym for a few years. However, you've hit a point where you just want to maintain your progress. In this scenario, you could get away with training just 3 days a week.

Age

Another factor is your age. When you're young, your body runs at optimal levels and can recover relatively easily, assuming you're eating properly and getting enough sleep.

However, as we age, this ability can begin to decrease, and you may need to decrease the frequency of the number of times you hit the gym. As your frequency decreases, it can affect what training plan you use.

With that said, there is nuance to this and all the other variables.

What Is The Best Workout Training Split?

Now that we've discussed the different training splits, the next question is: What is the best training split?

We can't answer that as it's 100% dependent on your personal situation. With that in mind, with no other information, we find that a 4-day split using a push/pull or upper/lower split works great for a lot of people.

If you wanted, you could add a fifth day for arms, isolations, core, or conditioning. This would allow you to concentrate on those larger movements during the initial four days and then smaller accessory work and isolations on the 5th day.

What's The Best Training Split For Training 3 Days A Week?

Now, if you're limited on time, a full-body split works really well, so long as you follow some basic rules;

Keep at least one rest day in between workout sessions
Alter training intensities and loads for muscle groups during the week
Be sure to hit every muscle group.

What's The Best Training Split For Beginners?

Another common question is what's best for beginners.

First, we need to clarify what a beginner is;

Have you ever been to the gym?
Are you active and athletic outside the gym?
Are you coming back from a long hiatus?

These things can slightly affect the answer. That said, if we're talking about someone who has just started training, we think a 3-day, full-body split works great.

Training three days a week creates plenty of time to recover from the workouts. Also, because you're not in the gym as much, you won't waste time on fluff; you'll simply concentrate on your primary movements.

Pick The Right Split For You

You now know your options and what factors can affect the right one for you. Spend some time to look at your situation and your goals. Pick one you think works best and run with it!

In reality, any of the above options could be a good workout split for anyone so long as they train with intensity. Therefore, make an informed decision but don't stress too much on if it's the best for you. Choose, get in the gym, train and you can adjust if needed!