Here are some different ways to organize your workouts throughout the week. This is not an exhaustive list, but I think I cover all the basics.
First, know that you have options on how often you workout through the week. You can do anywhere from 1 day a week to 7 days a week (but it’s advised to take at least 1 day off each week)
Second, you can choose to always do the same routines on the same days of the week or you can do them what’s called asynchronously and do them in order but on whatever day of the week it falls on. Example: you have a routine that’s 4 days long and you workout 5 days a week so you just cycle through them in order.
An example of a synchronous routine is that you always do the same workout on Mondays.
OK, now for the splits. Generally a workout routine is called a split because it splits up all your individual exercise between the days of the week.
The Bro Split A classic. This split targets a particular muscle group or movement pattern each day of the week. Example: Monday: Chest / Tricep Tuesday: Back / Bicep Wednesday: Deadlift (Hinge) Thursday: Shoulders Friday: Squats (Quads) Saturday: Running
PPL: Push Pull Legs Very popular as of this writing. This split can be either 3 days a week or 6 days a week, usually it’s a 3 day split. All exercises are placed into the 3 days based on essentially the name of each day. There’s a day for all pushing exercise, all pulling exercises, and a day for legs. PPL is kinda like a bro split but with less days in it. In the above example Monday is a push day, Tuesday is a pull day, Wednes day and Friday are both leg days, and the shoulders need to be mixed into the Push and/or Pull days
Upper/Lower This split combines things even more than the PPL did and combines all upper body exercise into one day and all lower body exercise into another day. You could exercise twice a week, or keep rotating through for 2-4-6 days a week.
Arnold Split My personal Favorite. Similar to a PPL but we’re going to group things a little different day1: Chest & Back day2: Arms & Shoulders day3: Legs
Full Body This exercise split will focus on trying to do 1 exercise for each body part during every workout session.
Which is best? That’s easy. All of them. There’s no need to limit yourself. Try each one of them for 1-2 months each and see which ones you like or don’t like. Then you can keep to your favorites after that. In the end the true best workout split is the one that keeps you actually enjoying your time working out and producing results for you.
How often should I workout? This one is a little harder. You need to find balance in your life. Do as much as you can consistently stick to. Do as much as you can recover from. If you workout so hard and so many days in a row that your body doesn’t recover then you’re actually going to lose muscle and strength rather than gain it.
Synchronous or Asynchronous? Do whichever you like. Myself, I very much prefer an asynchronous split since it allows me to take a day off whenever I need one either to rest or to just live my life. Then I just do the next workout on the list tomorrow.
I’ve been swimming over the last 2 months to get fit. I’ve been doing 3 days a week, and am adding a fourth. Trying to do about 2000 yards/workout, and had to work up for several weeks to be able to do that and not feel completely drained.
I’ve been using an app called Swim Trainer (android) which can send workout routines to my Garmin watch, and its free tier was so good I paid for it. It has a lot of training plans, and you can make custom ones. I started out with custom ones that worked me up from 1300 yards to my target 2000, and they make a good mix of drills for technique and laps.
It’s worked out well so far! Today I could REALLY tell I’d improved, I swam a full 2100 yards, including a bunch of kick drills. I did 2 separate 300s without stopping!
awesome! swimming is a super healthy activity either for fun or for working out. keep at it, you’re crushing it!
I’ve settled into Upper/Lower 2 days/wk recently and it’s been working well. It’s regimented enough to keep me sticking with it week to week but flexible enough that if work or life gets in the way I can move a workout without it being the end of the world. Time permitting, sometimes I’ll throw some running in for a 3rd workout for the week.
Monday: Chest / Tricep
Tuesday: Back / Bicep
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I’m an idiot for working out as I’m a karate/climbing boy
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I came in here accidentally so this will sound stupid. Please show mercy … but light heckling is cool
- should one not work out both sides of a group at once on the same day? Eg bicep+tricep always in the same session
Thanks. And sorry. And thanks.
you can go either way.
a push/pull split will do chest and tricep together because they both work when pushing. while an Arnold split will do chest one day and tricep another day while doing tricep and bicep together.
so whichever way works for you
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My current split is an arms day 2x a week and a body/legs day 2x a week.
For arms I’m doing a mix of: pullups, crunches, inclined dumbbell, reverse pulley curl, lateral raises, reverse tricep cable pull, and rows. I do maybe 5-6 of these exercises each session. For body/legs I’m doing: benchpress, deadlift, squat, military press. For everything right now I’m shooting for 5x5. I’m still new to working out, only since January, but I’m mainly trying to grow arms (primarily biceps and shoulders) and all of my body/legs. Does anyone have any suggestions about what to do or change?
I would change what you’re naming the days to better reflect what you’re doing. Based on your exercises you have a back/arm day and a chest/leg day. If you’re still comfortable with that then don’t change anything. I’m just trying to give you a perspective that more accurately reflects what you’re actually doing.
Most back exercise will also work the bicep and rear deltoid, while most chest exercise will also work the tricep and front deltoids. muscles working together do tend to make it difficult to separate our workouts into muscle group splits that make perfect sense. I doubt anyone will ever make something that’s perfect. but don’t let perfect get in your way of being effective.
if you’re seeing results and you’re happy then keep going. If you’re ready for a change then I’d suggest looking up any of the previous splits or anything at the fitness wiki and try one of the tried and true splits that have already been proven over time.
I do something a bit different from the above, I wanted a very minimal training routine with flexible timing, so I came up with this:
Workout A: Squats, Chin-ups Workout B: Bench, Row Workout C: Deadlift, Overhead PressEach day has a push and a pull type of lift/exercise. The four main lifts are covered, and I like chin ups too (Squats for the upper body), and I like rows (helps balance out the bench press)
I take 0-2 days off between each workout, and this gives me around 3-4 workouts per week.
