How to Split Up Your Work Outs

Ever felt confused on what to do when you go into the gym? Which muscles to train together? How many times a week to train each muscle? For many people, this lack of direction can be the obstacle holding them back from getting in the gym in the first place. In this article, I’ll break down some popular and great ways to go about picking your workout split. For those that don’t know, your workout “split” is essentially how you define one cycle of training each major muscle group or how you plan your workouts for a week.  

Before we break down these workout splits, there is something you should know first. The workout split that works best for you will really be the one you enjoy the most. The reason for this is that when you compare different workout splits with weekly volume equated, there really is no difference. By this I mean that if your overall work done in a week is the same, there likely won’t be much difference. For instance, say you were doing 10 sets of 10 reps for each muscle group in the week; it really won’t matter how you split up your training by much, so best to go with whichever way makes training most enjoyable to you.

Full Body

The simplest way of going about this would be doing full body workouts for each of your workouts. This would essentially mean doing a movement for chest, back, shoulders, quads, glutes and hamstrings. When you’re doing this, you’ll want to make sure the moves you are doing are compound movements, which simply means there’s movement across two joints. An example of this would be a bench press (movement across the shoulder and elbow joint) as opposed to a triceps extension (elbow joint only). This would ensure you cover other muscles such as your triceps and biceps without having to spend extra time training them. When you deploy this type of training, you will want to train every other day at most. This is because you generally need at least 48 hours of rest before training a muscle group again.

A few reasons you might want to do this are as follows:

1.     You are newer to the gym

2.     You have a limited amount of time available to spend working out each week

3.     You are training for other factors apart from hypertrophy or strength (such as endurance training or practice for a sport) that also require time in the week

An example of a workout would be as follows:

1.     Stiff Leg Deadlift

2.     Dumbbell Bench Press

3.     Leg Press

4.     Lat Pulldown

5.     Glute Bridges

6.     Shoulder Press

Upper/Lower Split

This type of training involves training the muscles of your upper body on separate days from your lower body, and you will alternate which one you train with each workout. Generally, this type of split will have you training 4 days a week to allow for adequate rest.  As opposed to full body workouts, this will give you time in each workout to put more volume into the muscle groups your training. When deploying this type of training, you can go about this in a few different fashions: you can train two days in a row and then take a rest day; you can alternate training days with rest days; or do a combination where you train two days in a row, take a rest day, training day, rest day, training day, rest day, repeat.

A few reasons why you might train this way:

1.     You want to train more days in a week than you are able to with full body workouts

2.     You want to progress up from full body workouts

3.     You want to have more exercise variety in your workouts than full body workouts

An Example of an upper body workout:

1.     Lat Pull downs

2.     Flat Dumbbell Bench Press

3.     Dumbbell Rows

4.     Incline Dumbbell Bench Press

5.     Dumbbell Lateral Flies

6.     Rear Deltoid Flies

7.     Triceps Rope Pushdowns

8.     Dumbbell Curls

An example of a lower body workout:

1.     Leg Press

2.     Leg Curls

3.     Leg Extensions

4.     Stiff Leg Deadlifts

5.     Hip Thrust

6.     Seated Calf Raises

Push/Pull/Leg Split

In a Push/Pull/Leg Split, the training days are as follows. On a pull day, you train all upper body muscles that are responsible for pulling. This essentially means everything on your back including your latissimus dorsi, traps, rear deltoid, as well as your biceps. On a push day, you train all muscles that are responsible for pushing meaning your chest, shoulders, and triceps. Then on your leg day, you train everything on your legs including your glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves. The leg day here means that same thing as your lower body workouts in the upper/lower split. I have found it wise to do this in the order of pull->push->legs. This is because there may be slight overlap in the muscles used on your pull and leg days, so having the push day in between to separate them may help you perform better. Most people do this split in this fashion: pull day, push day, leg day, rest day, repeat. However, if your body can handle this much training volume, you may even train six days in a row (pull, push, legs, pull, push, legs, rest day, repeat).

Why you might choose this split:

1.     You want to add a little more volume into your upper body than you are able with full body workouts and an upper/lower split.

2.     You want to train more days in a week than you are able to with an upper/lower split.

An example of a pull workout:

1.     Lat Pull downs

2.     Barbell Row

3.     Rear Deltoid Flies

4.     Shoulder Shrugs

5.     Biceps Cable Curl

6.     Dumbbell Hammer Curls

An example of a push workout:

1.     Flat Dumbbell Bench Press

2.     Dumbbell Shoulder Presses

3.     Incline Dumbbell Bench Press

4.     Lateral Flies

5.     High-to-Low Cable Chest Flies

6.     Triceps Rope Pushdowns

7.     Overhead Dumbbell Triceps Extension

An example of a leg workout:

1.     Barbell Back Squat

2.     Stiff Leg Deadlift

3.     Hip Thrust

4.     Lunges

5.     Leg Curl

6.     Standing Calf Raises

The notorious “Bro Split”

The bro split is the way many people start off when working out in the gym. In this split, you are training each muscle group on its own. This means having a chest day, back day, shoulder day, arm day, and leg day. Most people using this split will do these workouts in the order listed, take a rest day, and repeat. As you can see, there is much more volume in your upper body being done than in your lower body.

*Personal Disclaimer: I am not a huge fan of this workout split. One reason is that many people benefit from training muscle groups twice in a week as opposed to once, which is not possible in a bro split. Further, I just don’t think it makes as much sense as the other splits. For instance, your shoulders are the smallest group of muscles you are looking to train and your legs are the largest group of muscles you are looking to train; yet, they both get their own day? Truthfully, your shoulders do not need the same amount of volume as your legs, so I personally believe that is an ineffective way of training.

Why you may choose this split:

1.     You have a small amount of time in a day every day you can allocate to working out

2.     You want a much greater amount of upper body work than lower body work in your training

An example of a chest workout:

1.     Flat Dumbbell Bench Press

2.     Decline Bench Press

3.     Low-to-High Cable Flies

An example of a back workout:

1.     Pull ups

2.     Barbell row

3.     Chin ups

4.     Dumbbell shrugs

An example of a shoulder workout:

1.     Shoulder presses

2.     Rear deltoid flies

3.     Lateral Raises

An example of an arm workout:

1.     Triceps Rope Pushdowns

2.     Cable Rope Curl

3.     Triceps Skull Crushers

4.     Dumbbell Curl

5.     Dumbbell Overhead Triceps Extension

An example of Leg Workout:

1.     Hack Squats

2.     Stiff Leg Deadlifts

3.     Bulgarian Split Squats

4.     Leg Curl

5.     Glute Bridges

6.     Calf raises

Conclusion

Remember, when you are wanting to pick a workout split, the most important aspects are picking one that you enjoy the most and can fit the best with your schedule. It is much more beneficial to be consistent with a subpar training program than inconsistent with the perfect training program.

In addition, it is totally possible to combine these workout splits. For example, you could train in the following way: Pull day, Push Day, Leg day, Rest day, Upper Body day, Lower Body day. This could be a good way to keep your workouts different and keep yourself looking forward to them.