I get asked all the time about training splits. What’s the best split for strength? Best split for hypertrophy? Should I train body parts or “movements?”
Should I train my whole body at each workout? Do an upper/lower split? One bodypart/lift per day? etc, etc.
After 22 years in the gym, I’ve seen a lot of different approaches work, and quite frankly there isn’t one best training split that suits each trainee.
What matters far more than how you organize your workouts during the week is (1) what lifts are you regularly focusing on? (2) what system of progression do you have in place for each lift or exercise?
And that says nothing about non-programming issues like technical efficiency on the lifts, your level of consistency, and the amount of effort you put into your lifts.
Usually the guy who trains his ass off 3-4 times per week, and pays attention to his own feedback from his efforts, figures a lot of this shit out for himself. I’ve noticed that the most confused trainees seem to also be very inconsistent with their training, and they don’t train very hard.
Admittedly, this is a chicken and egg conundrum. Which comes first? Lack of effort/consistency or confusion about training?
But this is an aside and a separate discussion from the main premise of the article.
Training Monday / Wednesday / Friday works for a lot of people. It fits into the structure of the week by which society operates and leaves plenty of time to recover from each workout.
Training 3 days per week leaves the lifter with lots of options as it pertains to their Training Split of choice.
The Full Body routine was extremely popular in the early decades of bodybuilding and power lifting (50s, 60s, 70s) and has made a resurgence in the last 10-15 years with the popularity of programs like Starting Strength.
However, in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, I can remember most of the big strong lifters I grew up around operated off a basic Legs – Push – Pull Split. In power lifting training this would more likely have been referred to as Squat / Bench / Deadlift.
Monday was Squat Day, Wednesday was Bench Day, and Friday was Deadlift Day. A few guys may have done a “light bench day” on Saturday, but for many years higher frequency training was not as popular as it is now.
Trends come and go in lifting, often mimicking whoever is at the top of the sport. Lifters like Ed Coan dominated that era of lifting and most of those guys trained each lift just once per week with a handful of assistance exercises.
When Westside Barbell became insanely popular in the late 90s and early 2000s, then many lifters converted to that style of training. Many lifters and coaches now made the claim that the basic 3-Day Squat/Bench/Deadlift programs DID NOT work anymore. You had to train with the Max Effort Method and the Dynamic Effort Method to get strong. Nothing else would work.
I never understood that line of thinking. Because Program X works, then Program Y does not work. The truth is that Program X and Y can both work, even if radically different, even for the same person…….if the right amount of effort and consistency are applied.
People got really strong doing ALL THREE styles of training . I watched it happen in every gym I ever trained in. Lots of big strong lifters, lots of different approaches. The only common thread was effort and consistency.
So if everything works equally, then who cares how you train? Well, I hope I haven’t oversimplified my case. I don’t think everything works 100% equally for each individual. Obviously lifters will do better with one program vs another program, so over time you have to figure out what works best for you.
Benefits of 3-day full body…..
Lots of frequency. This is the most obvious upside to training the full body 3 days per week. You get lots and lots of technical practice with your main lifts (i.e. you can squat 3 days per week) and this will help with strength especially for beginners and early intermediates. When frequency is high, then generally total volume is higher and this is usually a good thing too. With more advanced lifters, high frequency training is not always necessary, but certainly for beginners, the more often they can do each lift the better.
Limits training options, maintains focus on main lifts. When training the full body at each session, usually lifters can only get in about 3 exercises with any degree of volume and meaningful effort. More than that and sessions get very long and unproductive. The full body nature of each workout forces lifters to choose only productive exercises and no time gets wasted on superfluous assistance work that may yield only limited benefit.
Negatives of 3-day full body……
Takes time to learn how to manage volume and intensity and maintain frequency. This is especially true for more advanced lifters. You may be able to squat 3 days per week, but the amount of stress each day must be carefully managed. This takes some time to figure out and must be constantly re-calibrated in order to maintain a 3-day per week frequency. Often the difference between success and failure is only a few sets or 5-10% worth of bar weight. Many lifters will struggle to get this right, especially in the absence of coaching. This can lead to a high crash and burn rate.
And in my opinion it leads to a lot of lifters doing a bunch of meaningless “easy” sets strictly in the name of more frequency.
Limits training options and assistance work. There are points in most lifters careers, where they can benefit from broadening their base of exercises, volumes, intensities, and rep ranges. The Big 4 should always be present, but over time it’s useful to build up your work capacity on lots of different exercises. You CAN squeeze these into a full body program, but it often makes more sense to do a split routine where more time and energy can be devoted to assistance work.
Workouts take forever and get boring. Yeah…..that pretty much sums up my point.
Some lifts may suffer. Because of the workout length, a lot of people will struggle on the 3rd and 4th exercise of the day due to simple fatigue. And when each lift in your training day is of more or less equal priority, then it’s not good to always be running out of gas for the last couple of exercises. Hell, even the Press/Bench can sometimes suffer if they are routinely placed after the Squat.
This can be mitigated to a degree by a properly designed Heavy-Light-Medium routine that spreads the stress out over the week.
Benefits of Legs/Push/Pull i.e. Squat/Bench/Deadlift…….
Train hard at every session. Pile on volume and go all out. If all you have to do today is Bench, you can do a lot of Benching. You aren’t fatigued from the 5 sets of squats that preceded it, and you don’t have to conserve time or energy for Deadlifts afterward. You just bench as heavy as you can for as much volume as you can, and you have a week to let the soreness and fatigue wear off. There is something to being able to train without having to worry about crossing some sort of recovery threshold in order to Bench again 48 hours later. Train your ass off and if you overdo it a bit, it’s no big deal.
Can add in lots of assistance work. Again, we have plenty of time and energy after just one main lift to start the day with and we aren’t worried about overdoing it for another workout in 48 hours.
Workouts are short and focused. Again, we’re only focused on that ONE main lift today. ALL of our physical, mental, and emotional energy revolves around completing our target sets/reps/weight today on that single lift. No holding back. That has some power in my opinion. As an added benefit, if we’re sick, or pressed for time due to school, work, or family, we can do the Karwoski workout – Squat and Leave.
If you do any assistance work, the benefit is that it requires very little warm up for each new exercises and there is generally less rest between sets for assistance work so you can get in a lot of exercises. With full body routines, each new exercises requires it’s own time to warm up (which can take a while if you are hitting big numbers) and generally more rest time between sets for primary barbell exercises.
In full body routines we can usually get in 3 (maybe 4) exercises at a slow pace. In the power-building routines I can usually squeeze in about 6 exercises due to the faster pace (little to no warm up sets and short rest between sets).
Higher enthusiasm for training. I find that when there is variety in training, there is more enthusiasm for training. Split routines usually have more variety than full body routines which get monotonous. Plus the attitude of attack! attack! attack! for that one main lift, brings some aggression to the training session. And in the back of your mind you know you have to get it right today, because you only hit this lift once this week. Better get it right…today! I find that may trainees that train full body all the time start to approach their training like work rather than play.
Better for mass and physique. You can get big on either plan, but in my opinion, it’s easier and faster on a split routine. My best growth has always come from doses of higher per session volume on a given body part rather than spreading that same dose of volume around to 3 days per week. Plus, growth is easily stimulated with higher rep training and techniques like drop-sets, rest-pause sets, and some isolation work for all the smaller body parts. It’s just too much of a pain in the ass to try and do this in the context of a full body routine.
I know the science behind stimulating MPS with more frequency, etc, but I don’t think the research squares 100% with what works best in practice for physique oriented training. In fairness, I think the optimal training frequency for hypertrophy is more like 1.5 times per week which is what I recommend in my Power-Building Routine
Downside of Legs/Push/Pull i.e. Squat/Bench/Deads……
Frequency is low. Main lift volume likely lower. This is hands down the biggest drawback to this type of training, and it’s a big one for a lot of trainees. Some guys will just struggle to move their lifts on a 1x/week frequency, even if per session volume is very high. Some guys lose the “groove” very easily and a few lighter and/or medium sessions spread through the week are necessary to make progress on the heavier days. And if you NEED a lot of training volume to move your lifts you can get more training more frequently. For instance, my Classic Heavy-Light-Medium Program has 12 sets of squats per week during the first 6 weeks of the program. 5 on heavy day, 3 on light day, and 4 on medium day. You just can’t squat for 12 meaningful sets in a single workout.
Later lifts will suffer. Lets say on a Heavy-Light-Medium program you want to Bench on Monday, Press on Wednesday, and Incline on Friday. On the 3-day Legs/Push/Pull Split you might wind up doing the same lifts, but all back to back: Bench -> Incline -> Press. Obviously you won’t be able to Press very much when it’s 3rd in the sequence. For pure hypertrophy purposes, it can still work pretty good to train with less weight in a pre-fatigued state provided volume is still high. But for maximal loading, you are making a significant trade off here.
A Comparison of the Two Splits
Typical Full Body Intermediate Program
Monday: Squat 5×5 / Light Bench 4×5 / BB Rows 5 x 8
Wednesday: Light Squat 3×5 / Press 5 x 5 / Deadlifts 3×5
Friday: Medium Squat 4×5 / Heavy Bench 5×5 / RDL 4×5
Typical 3-Day Legs / Push / Pull (Power-Building Routine)
Monday: Leg Day / Squat Day
- Low Bar Squats 3 x 5
- High Bar Squats 2-3 x 10
- Goodmornings 3 x 10
- Leg Extensions 2 x 15
- Leg Curls 3 x 10
- Calf Raises 3 x 25
Wednesday: Push Day / Bench Day
- Bench Press 3 x 5
- Incline Bench Press 3 x 8-10
- Cable Fly 3 x 12-15
- Press 3 x 8-10
- Side Delt Raise 3 x 15
- Dips or Tricep Extensions 3 x 15
Friday: Pull Day / Deadlift Day
- Deadlifts 3 x 5
- BB Rows 3 x 8-10
- T-Bar Rows 3 x 10-12
- Lat Pulldowns 3 x 10-12
- Rear Delt Raises or Shrugs 3 x 15
- Bicep Curls 3 x 15
So which is best for you?
Here is what I always say. If your current approach is yielding the results you want, keep doing that. Rule #1 of programming is don’t change what isn’t broken.
However, if your current program is leaving your frustrated, with little to no progress, then do the opposite of what you are currently doing. You don’t have to train exactly according to what I laid out here. These are just examples for illustrative purposes.
If your current full body plan is leaving you bored and worn out and without progress, reduce the frequency of the main lifts for a while, build on some new exercises and see what happens to your enthusiasm and in turn your strength.
And the converse is also true. If squatting 1x/week isn’t getting you anywhere, jack up your volume and frequency and see if that can’t get you going again.
In my Baker Barbell Club Online Coaching Program, I have two “tracks” for trainees to choose from. At any one time they can follow the Basic Barbell Track or the Power-Building Track. Some guys do one or the other exclusively, others switch back and forth every few months. Both plans work, which is why they’re there.
Give both approaches and honest try and see what works for you.
