These splits are recommended for healthy adults with muscular hypertrophy (muscle growth) as their goal. If you are seeking a routine for any other purpose other than growth, for example fitness, mobility, or weight loss, please contact me for a more specialized routine for your needs.

A workout split is a term given to how you split up your workouts. What days you do what muscle on. For example, doing biceps back and legs on Monday, and doing triceps shoulders and chest on Thursday is a workout split. I will give you some sample workout splits, some of which I have used myself, and tell you how to make your own workout routine. Coming up with workout splits isn't really rocket science, once you understand the basics you can create your own.

Before you decide which split is best for you, you need to know a few things. First, how many days are you able or willing to lift? What days are they going to be (Some people must have weekends off, and for some, they are more flexible with their days). Beginners should lift from 2 to 4 days a week; intermediate 3 to 5 days would be nice and advanced would be around 5 or 6. So what is your level of training, a beginner, intermediate, or advanced (over 18 months)? Pick a routine that fits your level of training and schedule.

One rule when making splits is to make sure that the split is not going to lead to over training. For example, your chosen split routine may call for you to work your triceps on day one and then come back on the next day with a chest workout. The chest workout will indirectly hit your triceps again, and since your triceps will not be fully recovered from your prior day's workout, your chest workout will suffer and you will do more harm than good to your triceps! This theory holds true for your back and biceps as well. Almost every back exercise works the biceps secondary. So, you would need to come up with a split that would not be hitting your biceps the day before your back. Remember, these are just 2 examples. You need to pay close attention to the order of which you hit body parts so as not to have any conflicts and pay close attention to how your body is reacting. Muscle soreness and tightness are indications that a muscle group is not ready to be worked again, directly or indirectly.

Another rule of thumb is that as you reduce the number of body parts you're working in a single day, you should increase the number of exercises you're doing for that body part. Meaning, an advanced body builder who is only working his chest one day a week, as his only body part for that day, will do far more sets on his chest (maybe up to 20 sets) than a beginner who is working his chest, shoulders and triceps on the same day. His chest may only need 3 to 6 sets on that day not to tire him out before his other body parts that need to be done.

The training splits presented here are arranged from beginner to more advanced, starting with the full-body routine. Take notice that when you begin to see fewer results from your efforts, sometimes small changes in your current routine, like substituting exercises or adding reps or more weight, can provide adequate stimuli to prevent a training plateau. Oftentimes, though, you need to move from your current routine/split to a new and improved one. When you're trying to get continued maximum results, you must continually make changes in your training routine. Your body does a great job of adapting to new stimuli, and as soon as it does, progress, for the most part, stops. To minimize adaptation, you must make changes often.

For example,if you've been doing a full-body routine for awhile, try a two-day split. If you've been following a 2 day routine, try one of the three-day splits, and so on. Here you'll find details on some of the most popular and effective splits. Remember, these are just a few samples and not splits you have to use. There are endless possibilities. It all depends on how many days you have time to workout in a week, where you are as far as your experience, and also what your goals are.

Side note: The type of cardio and how much and how often would depend on many variables including your goals, age, body type and composition, etc.

Full Body Routine

If you're new to exercise, have very little experience, or are simply in a major time crunch, start with the full-body routine. It's great for general, overall muscle conditioning. Nothing gets overworked, you get plenty of "off" days for recovery and you work each muscle 2-3 times per week. Full-body training is also very efficient, as your entire body is worked in one session. This way, if you can make it to the gym only once or twice a week, at least every muscle group has been trained. Ideally, aim for 2-3 workouts per week on average.

To design your full-body routine, choose a compound exercise (one that uses multiple joints, like the bench press or leg press) for each muscle group and do 2-4 sets of each exercise. Want to make this routine harder? Try combining two or three exercises at a time into a superset or giant set. A superset means doing one exercise for one bodypart (for example, biceps) and immediately moving to a different exercise for the opposite bodypart (for example, triceps) without resting. A giant set combines three exercises for different bodypart's in succession without rest. The most common way to use this routine is on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday split. Don't feel compelled to follow this exactly though. As long as you skip at least a day between and do 2-3 sessions per week, you'll do great.

Here is how to do a 2 day split:

After your master the full-body routine, take your training to the next level by splitting your upper body and lower body into different sessions. As the name implies, you'll do an upper day (chest, shoulders, back, arms) and a lower day (quads, hamstrings/glutes and calves). One other variation that I like on this split is to put your shoulders on your lower day. This makes the upper day not so overwhelming (you can do this particular split as long as you remember to have at least one day of rest between your workout days so as not to have your shoulders right before the day you hit your chest). The chest re-hits your shoulders and you will cause shoulders to over-train. ( Most chest exercises use a lot of shoulders). Also. you will also not be able to chest press as much because your shoulders are exhausted from the prior days workout.

You can use this split from a two-times-weekly routine all the way to a more advanced four-times-weekly routine. The most common method is the every-other-day approach, where you train three times per week and pick back up where you left off the following week. Three days per week is a great way to start. Move to four days per week after following this routine for 4-6 weeks. Include abs at the end of either workout.

Here are some 3 day splits

Side Note: Remember, Biceps should not come before back day without a day of rest in between. Triceps should also not come before chest or shoulder day unless you have a day rest in-between.

Split example #1 Chest/ Shoulders                       Back/ Triceps                             Legs/Biceps

Split example #2 Chest /Triceps                          Back biceps                                Shoulders/ Legs

Split example #3 Chest/Biceps                            Back/Triceps                               Shoulders/Legs

 

Here are a few 4 day splits for people with intermediate to advanced experience with the first split being the most popular 4 day split.

Chest / Triceps                      Back / Biceps                      Shoulders / abs                 Legs

Chest / Back                          Shoulders / Abs                   Biceps / Triceps               Legs

Chest / biceps                        Legs                                    Shoulders / triceps           Back

 

5 Day Split Workout for advanced

Legs                        Chest                         Back                   Shoulders                 Arms