The Top 3 Weight Training Split Routines - Who Should Use Them and When?
If you are wondering which weight training split routines you should use, then wonder no more! I want to show you the top 3 that should be used, who should be using them, and when they should be used.
As all people that train are individual in their body type, and their current training experience; and also have different goals, each person should use a training split that takes these things into consideration.
Obviously there are only so many training splits that can be designed, and implemented, so my recommendation would be to use these top 3.
Upper/Lower Body Split: This training split should be used by those of you that have completed a conditioning phase for approximately 12 weeks, using bodyweight exercises, and functional training to ensure good muscular balance and posture; or experienced trainers returning after a short time out.
The Upper/Lower body split is exactly as it sounds.
You should split your body in half, and train the muscles of the upper and lower body on alternate days.
The split for upper body would be Chest, Back, Shoulders, Triceps, and Biceps; and the lower body would be Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Calves, Abs.
Your example split would be:
This would then be alternated on a 2 week pattern to make sure that you are training Upper and Lower body equally.
Push/Pull split: The push/pull split is the next step to add more intensity to your training routine.
This type of routine should be used after the conditioning phase, as mentioned earlier, and at least 3 months on an upper/lower split.
This is to make sure that you have good muscular balance and posture, and have also strengthened your ligaments, tendons, and connective tissue enough to take on the added intensity of this type of training.
The push/pull split works the muscles by performing all pushing exercises in one session, then all pulling exercises in the next session.
The muscle groups that you would use to perform the pushing exercises are Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, and Quads.
The muscle groups for the pulling exercises are Back, Biceps,and Hamstrings.
An example of a push pull split will be:
With a 4 day split, you will not only be able to increase the volume that you are training individual muscle groups, but you will be leaving more time between the sessions that you train them on, and therefore giving them more time to recover and develop.
As long as your diet is right, this recovery and refueling time will be exactly what is needed to continue gaining muscle.
An example of a 4 day split will look like this:
As all people that train are individual in their body type, and their current training experience; and also have different goals, each person should use a training split that takes these things into consideration.
Obviously there are only so many training splits that can be designed, and implemented, so my recommendation would be to use these top 3.
Upper/Lower Body Split: This training split should be used by those of you that have completed a conditioning phase for approximately 12 weeks, using bodyweight exercises, and functional training to ensure good muscular balance and posture; or experienced trainers returning after a short time out.
The Upper/Lower body split is exactly as it sounds.
You should split your body in half, and train the muscles of the upper and lower body on alternate days.
The split for upper body would be Chest, Back, Shoulders, Triceps, and Biceps; and the lower body would be Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Calves, Abs.
Your example split would be:
- Mon - Upper body
- Tue - Rest/Cardio
- Wed - Lower body
- Thur - Rest/Cardio
- Fri - Upper body
- Sat - Rest/Cardio
- Sun - Rest
This would then be alternated on a 2 week pattern to make sure that you are training Upper and Lower body equally.
Push/Pull split: The push/pull split is the next step to add more intensity to your training routine.
This type of routine should be used after the conditioning phase, as mentioned earlier, and at least 3 months on an upper/lower split.
This is to make sure that you have good muscular balance and posture, and have also strengthened your ligaments, tendons, and connective tissue enough to take on the added intensity of this type of training.
The push/pull split works the muscles by performing all pushing exercises in one session, then all pulling exercises in the next session.
The muscle groups that you would use to perform the pushing exercises are Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, and Quads.
The muscle groups for the pulling exercises are Back, Biceps,and Hamstrings.
An example of a push pull split will be:
- Mon - Push
- Tue - Pull
- Wed - Rest
- Thur - Push
- Fri - Pull
- Sat - Rest
- Sun - Rest
With a 4 day split, you will not only be able to increase the volume that you are training individual muscle groups, but you will be leaving more time between the sessions that you train them on, and therefore giving them more time to recover and develop.
As long as your diet is right, this recovery and refueling time will be exactly what is needed to continue gaining muscle.
An example of a 4 day split will look like this:
- Mon - Chest/Biceps
- Tue - Legs
- Wed - Rest
- Thurs - Back/Triceps
- Fri - Rest
- Sat - Shoulders/Abs
- Sun - Rest
