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Choosing the Right Training Split

7 min read|By James Quilter

The best training split is the one you can be consistent with. That said, different splits work better for different experience levels, schedules, and goals.

Full Body (3 days per week): Best for beginners and people with limited training days. You hit every muscle group each session. High frequency drives fast skill acquisition and neural adaptations.

Upper/Lower (4 days per week): A solid middle ground. You hit everything twice per week with enough volume per session to drive hypertrophy. Works well for intermediate lifters with 4 days to train.

Push/Pull/Legs (5 to 6 days per week): The most popular split for serious lifters. Each muscle group gets hit hard once or twice per week with high volume per session. Requires more gym time but allows for more specialization.

Bro Split (5 days, one muscle group per day): Gets a bad reputation but can work for advanced lifters who need high volume per muscle group. The downside is low frequency, each muscle only gets trained once per week.

The right split depends on how many days you can train, your recovery capacity, and your experience level. A beginner on a PPL split is probably wasting training days. An advanced lifter on a 3-day full body might not get enough volume.

Do not overthink this. Pick a split that fits your schedule, follow it consistently for 8 to 12 weeks, track your progress, and adjust from there. The program you stick with always beats the theoretically perfect program you abandon after 2 weeks.

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