FITNESS LEVEL

First, let’s take a look at your current Fitness Level. This can actually be quite tricky for some. A good rule of thumb is the following:

Beginners: 0–1 years of weightlifting experience

• Intermediates: 1–2 years of weightlifting experience

• Advanced: 2–3+ years of weightlifting experience

Now comes the tricky part! Experience is the key word here and you can not just base this answer off your “gym time”.

• It doesn’t consider quality. If you haven’t been building strength over time would you still be considered an advanced lifter just because you’ve been going to the gym for 5 years? The answer is, No.

• It doesn’t consider skill. Just because someone has been lifting weights for 2 years doesn’t mean they have great technique. Should they still be considered intermediate? The answer is, No.

• It doesn’t consider success. Training for any number of years without tangible strength or muscle gains to show for it doesn’t automatically make you intermediate or advanced.

~ In my experience, most individuals rank their fitness level one step higher than they actually are. If you want the best results for YOU, you must choose the proper level of programming. ~

Your Guide to Choosing the Best Training Split for You

One of the BIGGEST mistakes an individual can make is attempting to workout without a plan.  We are all probably guilty of this at some point.  You enter a fitness facility and just kind of roam around aimlessly, try a few machines, pick up a few free weights, and call it a day. While this may seem to fall into the category of “It is better to do something rather than nothing”, you are not going to see very noticeable results from this approach. 

Figuring out YOUR proper Training Schedule, AKA Training “Split”, is crucial to your results.

Below are 5 Training Splits, that I recommend, for maximum results!

As wonderful as it would be, no one is ever going to hand you a program or routine that will instantly transform you into having a perfect physique. This typically takes years of hard work with many bumps in the road. I can always recommend the “best” exercises, sets, reps, progressions, techniques, etc, but at the end of the day, your program has to work for you and your body, and YOU have to put in the work not only with the program but following a proper nutrition plan as well..

This will become very apparent when building your workout program. Putting together your training plan and split will revolve around your lifestyle and factors that are specific to you.

When choosing your Training Split, here are some factors that need to be considered:

1. Your Training Experience

Beginners typically require less volume and intensity in their training programs, but often greater frequency than advanced fitness levels.

2. Your Goals

Are you looking for overall fitness, maintenance, or are you looking to make a drastic transformation.

3. Your Availability

How many days can you realistically commit to strength training? Can you workout 5 days per week or is your schedule so tight, you only have a minimal amount of days to strength train per week? An important reminder on this is that each workout builds upon the previous ones so it is highly recommended you strength train at least 3 days per week.

4. Your Rest and Recovery Needs

Depending on your career, lifestyle, and ability to recover (including sleep), you may need more or fewer rest days. Remember, growth happens outside of your workouts with proper nutrition and recovery. Proper recovery ensures you do not over train.

Listening to your body is a MUST!

Some individuals have a difficult time with this.  Listening to your body must be an honest and truthful occurrence you have with yourself. Skipping workouts because you are tired, don’t feel like it, due to weather, etc is NOT listening to your body. There is a large difference between “Recovering” and “Being Lazy”.

Recovery should also include mental recharging: If you're feeling burned out from too much time in the gym, adding additional rest days can really help. Again, this shouldn’t be used as an excuse when you simply don’t feel like working out.

Adding in a special workout day, like an Outdoor Workout, is great for your mental health! It gives you a chance to change your mindset from a gym or fitness center. Personally, I head to my local park for my outdoor workouts. 

5. Your weaknesses

If you have a body part that you need to improve, do it first after a rest day when your energy stores are full. In addition, with longer splits, you may be able to add a second training session for that muscle group to better emphasize it.

Training Splits

Below are 5 common Training Splits. While there are other Splits, these are the ones that I recommend. I will begin with the easiest and progress to the more advanced. Beginners should start with the first option. Regardless of your fitness level, all individuals should consider the factors I listed above prior to selecting their split.

You will find that as you gain experience and progress towards advanced, you will see more exercises, intensity, volume, weight, etc for each body part. Greater intensity and volume require more recovery days. This is why some advanced lifters will only train one muscle group once per week.

Now, let us take a look at some of the top Training Splits and see what each one is all about!

1. Full Body Split

Training every major muscle group in a single workout is usually the domain of beginners, most often characterized by a single exercise per body part for just a few sets. One of the primary reasons the volume is kept intentionally low per muscle group is that the primary adaptations made by beginners come via the nervous system. You teach your body to activate and utilize more muscle fibers, rather than realizing physical gains in fiber size and strength. This requires greater frequency, and since the volume of work is so low, this workout should ideally be repeated three times per week, with 48 hours between workouts.

Be forewarned, though, that you don't want to let a week go by in between workouts like this. If you wait too long, you won't build upon your previous workouts, which can place you back at square one.

Another reason volume and intensity are kept low for the newbie is to minimize next-day muscle soreness. Muscle soreness can be very discouraging for a beginner. Beginners should first go with the Full Body approach. This will help them become more familiar with equipment and also allow them for better recovery so they are not overly sore.

SAMPLE

Day 1: All muscle groups—1 exercise, 3 sets, 10-12 reps

Day 2: Rest

Day 3:  All muscle groups—1 exercise, 3 sets, 10-12 reps

Day 4: Rest

Day 5: All muscle groups—1 exercise, 3 sets, 10-12 reps

Day 6: Rest

Day 7: Rest

2. Upper / Lower Split

The volume of work (number of sets and reps) done on each body part is low when following a whole-body split; the next step up is a split in which you cover the entire body over two days, and perform two exercises per muscle group. This is typically done by separating the body into upper-body muscle groups (chest, back, shoulders, arms) and lower-body muscle groups (quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves, abs).

By increasing the volume of work done on each body part, you can hit a particular area from more than one angle while increasing the intensity of your training. In our sample workout, you'd do 6 sets—3 sets of 2 exercises—for each muscle group.

You can train in two different rep ranges; the first is geared more toward strength (choose a weight in which you fail at 6-8 reps), and the second is on the upper end of the hypertrophy scale (a weight you can lift for 10-12 reps).

Because you're doing a bit more volume for each body part, you'll need more rest days before repeating the same workout again.

SAMPLE

Day 1: Upper-body muscle groups—2 exercises each, 3 sets, 6-8 and 10-12 reps

Day 2: Lower-body muscle groups—2 exercises each, 3 sets, 6-8 and 10-12 reps

Day 3: Rest

Day 4: Upper-body muscle groups—2 exercises each, 3 sets, 6-8 and 10-12 reps

Day 5: Lower-body muscle groups—2 exercises each, 3 sets, 6-8 and 10-12 reps

Day 6: Rest

Day 7: Rest

3. Push / Pull / Legs Split

Further progression as you gain experience allows you to do more volume for each muscle group, enabling you to train the entire body over the course of three days, not two. Although one can pair muscle groups in many ways, one of the most popular (shown below) is to do all the pushing muscles together (chest, shoulders, and triceps), all of the pulling muscles together (back and biceps), and then leg exercises. Abs can actually be done on any of these days.

The primary reason to link pushing muscles is that, with multi joint exercises, several body parts are already being called into play. For example, when bench pressing, the pecs, delts, and triceps work together. So, when training pecs, you might as well finish off the shoulders and triceps. The alternative—doing chest on Mondays, shoulders on Tuesdays, and possibly triceps on Wednesdays—doesn't allow enough recovery, since some of the muscles would be called into play on consecutive days.

Adding a third exercise per muscle group is the easiest way to add more volume, ensuring you can again work the muscle from a different angle for more complete development. Here, too, you can use multiple rep targets, most often doing lower reps and compound movements early in the workout for each body part when you're fresh.

You can do this workout twice over the course of the week (six workouts a week, as shown), or do it once (the first workout on Monday, the second on Wednesday, and the third on Friday). When doing it twice, you can also add a rest day every fourth day (three days on, one day off), so that you're technically doing the three-day split twice over the course of eight days, not seven. Of course, that depends on your schedule and need for rest.

SAMPLEs

Day 1: Chest, shoulders, triceps—3 exercises each; 3 sets; 6-8, 8-10 and 10-12 reps

Day 2: Rest

Day 3: Legs—4 exercise; 3 sets; 6-8, 8-10 and 10-12 reps

Day 4: Rest

Day 5: Back, biceps—3 exercises each; 3 sets; 6-8, 8-10 and 10-12 reps

Day 6: Rest

Day 7: Rest

OR (more advanced)

Day 1: Chest, shoulders, triceps—3 exercises each; 3 sets; 6-8, 8-10 and 10-12 reps

Day 2: Back, biceps—3 exercises each; 3 sets; 6-8, 8-10 and 10-12 reps

Day 3: Legs—4 exercise; 3 sets; 6-8, 8-10 and 10-12 reps

Day 4: Chest, shoulders, triceps— exercises each; 3 sets; 6-8, 8-10 and 10-12

Day 5: Back, biceps—3 exercises each; 3 sets; 6-8, 8-10 and 10-12 reps

Day 6: Legs—4 exercise; 3 sets; 6-8, 8-10 and 10-12

Day 7: Rest

4. Body Part Split

Here's a split that shows you're getting serious. With fewer muscle groups trained per day, you're able to increase the volume and intensity of your training—factors that are important to continued progress. The four-day split is most commonly done over the course of a week (meaning you get three days of rest), but it can alternately be done following a four-on/one-off or four-on/two-off progression.

An efficient way to group body parts here is to pair a large muscle group with a smaller one, such as chest and triceps (again, both pushing muscles). Because the triceps are already working during many of your chest exercises, you simply hit them afterward. The same reasoning goes with back and biceps.

Alternatively, you can pair muscle groups that target opposing actions, such as chest with biceps and back with triceps. In this case, just make sure you insert a rest day or leg day between those workouts so you're not training a particular muscle group on consecutive days (i.e., doing back and triceps on Monday and chest and biceps on Tuesday).

When pairing a larger and smaller body part such as chest and triceps, it is crucial that you train the larger muscle group first. The smaller the muscle, the faster it will fatigue, making it harder to train the larger muscle afterward with a substantially heavy weight. With this in mind, you wouldn't train triceps before chest, because the triceps assist the chest in pressing actions. If your triceps are highly fatigued by the time you get to your chest exercises, your ability to push heavy weights will be severely limited.

With the higher volume and intensity, rest days take on even more importance. That's something most individuals learn the hard way, because sometimes you get so caught up in the routine that rest days feel like you're doing something wrong. A great balance for me is an active-rest day. For example, I'll take my dogs on a long walk, or I'll do something different like foam rolling or yoga. That way, I still feel active but my body gets a break from the normal high-intensity training.

SAMPLE

Day 1: Back, biceps—4, 3 exercises, 3-4 sets, 6-15 reps

Day 2: Chest, triceps—4, 3 exercises, 3-4 sets, 6-15 reps

Day 3: Rest

Day 4: Legs—5 exercises,  3-4 sets, 6-15 reps

Day 5: Shoulders—4 exercises, 3-4 sets, 6-15 reps

Days 6: Rest

Day 7: Rest

5. Bodybuilding Split

This advanced-level split essentially allows each body part its own training day, enabling you to increase volume and intensity to maximum levels without having to worry about leaving anything in the tank for a body part to follow. Each muscle group is trained when it's rested, so there's no pre fatigue to limit your volume and intensity.

With this type of split, you can hit a muscle hard and be out of the gym in an hour or so. In addition, rest days are reserved for the weekend, though you can shift rest days anywhere during the 5-day workout split depending on your schedule.

Be especially careful when arranging this kind of split; doing chest on Mondays, shoulders on Tuesdays, and triceps on Wednesdays can result in inadequate recovery. That's why, in the split shown, these key muscles are separated by 48 hours. The same reasoning goes for back and biceps. (In fact, in this example split, the biceps and triceps are paired together.)

You can adjust this kind of split even further by adding rear delts to your back day since they're commonly recruited in rowing motions. Such subtle changes with the split is the domain of the advanced bodybuilder who has a better grasp of the finer elements of training.

SAMPLE

Day 1: Chest—4-5 exercises, 3-4 sets, 6-15 reps

Day 2: Back—5 exercises, 3-4 sets, 6-15 reps

Day 3: Shoulders, upper traps—4-5 exercises, 3-4 sets, 6-15 reps

Day 4: Legs—5-6 exercises, 3-4 sets, 6-15 reps

Day 5: Biceps, triceps—3-4 exercises each, 3-4 sets, 6-15 reps

Day 6-7: Rest

Training Tip

The splits here don't include smaller muscle groups like abs and calves, nor do they include cardio. The smaller muscles recover very quickly and can be done every other day. Your best strategy is to tag them on to the end of your workouts, simply alternating which you do.

Now that you are armed with the proper knowledge, let’s move on!