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What split has worked best for you?


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As a longtime lifter, I've tried almost every split you can think of:

 

1 bodypart a day

Upper/lower

Chest/Legs/Back

 

And so on - 2 day or 3 day splits, etc, etc.

 

So far, I haven't found out what works best for me, and was curious as to the preferences and experiences of others on the board.

 

Thanks!

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i used to do a 3 day split - chest/back/legs - although i never trained my legs seriously. it was ok but didn't work out really well. i think at that point it was more about my nutrition and regeneration than about my training that i didn't make the progress i wanted to.

 

right now i'm training with a 5 day split and it seems to work out really well for me. if you have the time and the motivation it's worth a try.

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im feelin the four to five day split right now. i used to do full body every other day with moderate weight and i gained muscle and trimmed down but after like 7 months it got stale and my muscle growth plateaued

am cardio- pm upper pushin

abs hiit

am cardio- pm upper pullin

am cardio- pm legs

rest or just cardio or hiit or if im feeling saucy and my pushin is feeling rested i start all over again.

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The split program I'm doing now is for strength rather than volume but I've got some definition as well as volume out of it. It's 3 days long, then one day for a break and start again. I really like it even though the sessions are long. If I'm not well fed that day my performance goes down at the end but that doesn't happen very often

 

1) Chest, back, biceps, triceps

2) Shoulders and legs

3) Glutes, obliques and calves

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For me, it's been best focusing on 3 main days -

 

1. Squat (leg) day

2. Lower back (deadlift) day

3. Upper back day

 

All my workouts typically revolve around those as bases, with shoulders, chest and arms added in where they fit best at the time. I'll put a rest day between each day in the gym, so it usually goes squat day, rest, upper back, rest, lower back, rest, then either upper back or repeat depending on how well I've recovered from the lower back workout. The main groups I base off of are those that are largest / can take the most abuse, because I've found it a waste for me to devote entire days to small muscle groups. For other additional parts, I won't do chest on the same day as shoulders because they interfere with each other too much to be at my peak for both on the same day, and if I do arm work, it is done last of all in a session and is usually 2-3 sets tops (never saw any more benefit from doing 10 sets than by doing 2-3). Though, I don't do much for arms since pulling movements (rows, deadlifts, pull-ups, etc) will work the biceps to some degree, and pressing movements (overhead, benching) will work the triceps considerably as well. Due to this, I might do a few sets of arm work every 2nd or 3rd week, but not much more often than that as my arms don't require much direct work to grow and/or maintain. Triceps will be more important to build for overall size as well as sheer power, since they'll be important muscles in the 2nd half of any bench or overhead press.

 

Otherwise, I've found that working antagonists such as upper back/chest, biceps/triceps, quadriceps/hamstring specific movements have been decent for me as well, too. I've even gone to doing single part per day workouts done 5-6 days/week, but in the end, it didn't suit me better to do that than it did to just follow what I do now and prioritize the main movers first and fit in small stuff wherever it can go at the time.

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I do different splits quite often. For the most part I suppose I do full body, at least two days a week, then another two days I will probably focus on certain areas. But this changes weekly. I feel that if you keep your body guessing it will usually keep improving. I just get bored easily I guess!

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I have tried a lot of different training splits, the one that worked the best for me was

 

Day 1 - Legs

Day 2 - Chest and Tri's

Day 3 - Back and Bi's and Shoulders

Day 4 - Chest and Tri's

Day 5 - Back Bi's and Shoulders

Day 6 - Cardio or Sport

Day 7 - Rest

 

I have added the most size on this split.

Once a week for legs works fine for me, but upper body needs more to grow.

 

I vary sets and reps from 5 x 5 to 3 x 12 and anything in between.

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Day 2 - Chest and Tri's

Day 3 - Back and Bi's and Shoulders

Day 4 - Chest and Tri's

Day 5 - Back Bi's and Shoulders

 

does this really work out?

 

Yeah it has worked really well for me in the past.

I've added 8 kgs of muscle in 10 weeks on this split.

 

If you are really sore after Days 2 and 3 you can take a rest

 

Day 1 - Legs

Day 2 - chest and Tris

Day 3 - back, bi's and shoulders

Day 4 - Rest

Day 5 - chest and Tris

Day 6 - back, bi's and shoulders

Day 7 - sport or cardio

 

It's not a split I think you could do for months on end, but it definitely works.

Only body part I find that can get overly fatigued is shoulders, so sometimes I would miss shoulders for

a session

Of course it's like any training, what works for me, might not work for you.

I know a lot of people who have tried this split who have real trouble doing the second chest and back days.

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