A few people with have a rough idea of what training splits/programming involves and why they can be important to a person’s progress. Your program intensity and type will vary depending on your experience and goals. I’ll cover the main training splits people follow and how they can benefit you.
Fully body
As implies you complete total body exercises normally 3 days a week to make sure you get adequate recovery, as remember a certain muscle group will need a minimum of 48 hours to recover properly. This can suit someone who maybe can’t visit the gym recently but can spend a bit of time when they get there. You can have days where you focus on specific body parts and still do full body e.g. chest day full body (bench, cable fly's, pull ups, squats) it’s a full body day but it’s chest focused.
Upper/Lower/Legs
Compared to full body you can begin to increase the volume in upper/lower splits as frequency is enhanced. You have shorter workouts because of this and less recovery days, ideal if you don’t want to spend an eternity in the gym. You could also pair muscle groups together to help how we athletically perform e.g. chest & triceps, legs & glutes etc. (this is what I do).
Push/Pull/Legs
Very similar to the upper lower because normally muscles that work together are also grouped similarly (triceps and chest will be both push).
Bro Split
You can’t deny the bro split could work to builds muscle. What builds muscle is progressive overload and a high protein diet which if done then you know you’re going to build muscle. But more often than not people don’t plan the program properly and can end up overlapping muscles so you don’t get the adequate rest & recovery. So for example they do chest on the Monday and then shoulders on the Tuesday. Now when you’re doing bench press your shoulders will be active to help stabilise the weight. So doing shoulders on Tuesday’s means they won’t have enough time to rest, you’ll perform worse and more likely to injure yourself. You also end up spending more time on upper body muscles and neglect your legs.
I feel what’s important with any of these programs is the placement and sequence of exercises so you get the most out of your workouts. I’ve talked about how important rest and recovery can be, I’ve had my fair share of injuries so overtraining is something you really need to watch for. If someone’s plan works IT’S NOT THE PLAN. It could be a range of reasons why it’s working for them, they could be choosing better exercises than you, they could be resting properly and eating well, they could just be consistent with it and reaping the benefits. A good bro split could work in comparison to a badly planned push/pull program. Shock horror. A person’s program really should be their program not a generic one to follow, yes that’s what you start with. 100%. As a beginner to follow along someone else’s recommended by someone who know’s what they’re doing is ideal. But everyone has a specific weakness or goal they want to work. They therefore need to change a program to adapt to their need, if they have a weak chest then they need to work that twice a week, if they want bigger quads then that need’s doing twice a week. You get my point, people’s time is limited so they need to spend time on what their priorities are.
This doesn’t mean you’ll find a perfect program and repeat that till the day you die, you still need to switch it up to keep you on your toes. You may find you’re not making any progress but you’ve been told you should be doing it because of studies. Do something different and change, experiment a bit, you need to find what works for you. Yes for beginners an online program is a good start but it is by no means the final destination.
That’s my blog post for today, hope you enjoyed it.
Thanks
Cameron
Additional Sources
Jeff Nippard - My Experience With Full Body 5x/Week Training Split (Good and Bad!)
Athlean X - The Best Workout Split for MAXIMUM Muscle Gains
Athlean X - The Single Best Workout Split? (MUSCLE GROUPING)