Programming Your New Gym Split

Creating a new workout split can be challenging. It is a mix of both art and science, and the science is always changing. So what should you do? Does every new study mean your split must change? In this newsletter, we will be going over: What is a split, what split is right for me, and how to program a split once you have decided.

What is a Split?

A workout split breaks down the frequency you target a muscle group in a given week, and what muscle groups and exercises you select on a given day. Common examples would be: PPL (Push Pull Legs), Arnold Split (Chest/Back, Shoulders/Arms, Legs), Full Body (3-4 different days of hitting everything), and Upper Lower ( Upper Body, Lower Body, Rest, Repeat).

What Split is Right for YOU?

This is usually determined by how frequently you can go to the gym. The minimum I reccommend is 3x/week, in which a Full Body split would be ideal, as you give yourself a couple days between each workout. If you go 4-5x per week, the Upper Lower split works nicely as you can give yourself adequate rest between days, and you should be fully recovered by the time you have your next segmented session. Next, if you like to go 5-6x/week, a “3-day split” would be perfect. These include any variation of Arnold, PPL, or bro split. These “3-day” splits go like this:

Gym gym gym rest, gym gym gym.

Or

Gym gym rest, gym gym rest, gym

Finally, for those of you that hate rest days and must be in the gym every day, we have the Bro Split. This split targets only 1 muscle group per session, where most focus on getting a nice pump (not a great indicator of muscle growth btw). It would be laid out like this:

Chest, Quads/Calves, Arms, Back, Shoulders, Hamstrings/Glutes, catch up day

The catch up days would be to provide an extra day to whatever muscle group(s) are lagging. According to my physique, I would train triceps and shoulders on this day.

How To Program Your New Split?

This can vary person to person depending on their training goals, but for the sake of simplicity, we are going to assume you are training to put on muscle and get a little bit stronger (and yes, fat loss can play a part in this too).

3 big things to consider with your new split: Frequency, Rest/Recovery, and Volume.

Frequency determines how often you are targeting a muscle group in a given week. If you look at the above splits, most of them target twice per week. This is very standard. Science shows that for optimal growth, you should hit each muscle group 2-3 times per week. This is why the bro split is falling off in popularity, as you hit each group once per week, some twice. On the other hand, this is why splits like the Full Body are on the rise. Those sessions may take a little longer depending on your programming, but most muscle groups should be hit twice, maybe 3 times per week. Rest and recovery is important as you want to give as much time as possible to replace glycogen, give time to heal tissue, and flush out waste products like lactic acid.

We know that increasing your daily volume for a muscle group usually correlates with an increase in fatigue, and therefore recovery time needed. The minimum recommended amount of sets per week per muscle group is about 4. Studies show 4 sets per week can still yield results, but you may consider doing more. As we learned last week, science is showing that to optimize overload and fatigue for hypertrophy training, most sets should be between 4-9 reps. Personally, I like to complete about 4-6 sets per muscle group per session, which is 8-12 sets per week. This allows me to have about 2-3 good sets for each movement. Just for clarification, when talking about sets, we are assuming this is “working weight” or, non warmup sets.

Another point I would like to make, is whatever your split is, consider prioritizing your “lacking” muscle first. Using myself as an example, I do triceps and back on the same day, and since my back is the strong point of my physique and my triceps are not, I usually start with triceps. This gives you the ability to have full motor unit control as you are not fatigued early in the session. As a workout progresses, you start to accumulate CNS (Central Nervous System) fatigue. This will start to limit your abilities, and you wont be able to output as much as you could if you did that movement early on. On that note, this is usually why you also see unilateral (single sided) movements done later in the session. Instead of having both triceps working at a time, you are now able to just use one at a time which enhances your ability to recruit motor units on the chosen side. It should also be stated that you should rest for about the same amount of time between sides as you’d do if it was a bilateral movement.

Exercise Selection:

The final topic of discussion today is about exercise selection. There are many ways to add resistance in weight training. You have bands, cables, machines, dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells etc. What choice elicits the best growth? The Answer: Whatever is the most stable. Choosing stable exercises decreases the amount of bracing and stabilization we have to do. This now provides us with an enhanced ability to just focus on the targeted muscle. Example: dumbbell chest press vs machine chest press. The dumbbell variant (while still common and effective) requires us to actively keep an effective arm path through the movement. This is done through shoulder stabilization. On the other hand, a machine press has a predetermined path of resistance, and a predetermined arm path. This allows us to put all of our energy into pushing the weight through the desired path, without worrying about internal stabilization.

You will typically see machine movements later in the workout, as the free weight movements require maximal CNS output and motor unit recruitment to execute optimally. Machines allow us to focus only on the desired muscle, and for beginners, this is an excellent way to learn how to use each muscle group. For advanced hypertrophy lifters, machines are almost always used as it is the preferred stimulus to grow muscle.

I hope you guys found this week’s newsletter valuable and are able to implement something into your current regime, or maybe you create a whole new one based on what you’ve learned.

As always if you do have questions please feel free to reach out.

~Kyle