One of the most elusive things to gymgoers is the ideal training split. Should you be working bodyparts once per week, or two? How about three? Should weak bodyparts be trained more frequently? What exercises should be utilized on each day?
The answer to all of these questions is "Yes" (srs). At different points in your training life, you'll find that different frequencies and splits suit you better for certain times than others. This is largely based on your goals, how long you've been training, and what you've been doing up to that point. At some points you should choose a weak bodypart to train very frequently to bring it up to speed, and at other (most) points you should strive for a more balanced approach. You'll also find that different exercises suit you better at certain times.
I've used a ton of splits in the time I've been training, and have oftentimes switched more frequently than I should. There are two splits that I always can come back to, though, when I feel like I've hit a dead end in training.
Split 1: Chest/Shoulders/Arms, Legs/Back
This split, which I'm currently using, is pretty ideal for a pure focus on hypertrophy.
I first decided to try it out after reading an article in Men's Fitness about Mark Wahlberg's workout, in the summer after my senior year. Wahlberg split his workouts into a chest/shoulders/triceps day and a legs/back/biceps day. I utilized that version of the split for a few weeks, but soon decided to switch biceps to the chest/shoulders/triceps day, which allowed me to focus on my smaller muscle groups on one day, and my larger ones on another. This was especially useful since I like to use several exercises in a back workout given that the "back" is composed of so many different muscles.
A major reason I like this split is that it leaves plenty of time for the low back and hips to recover. Any posterior chain work in your routine is done on this day. This eliminates the possibility of interference between leg day and back day - RDLs from leg day won't have an impact on bent-over rows on back day, since both would be done on the same day.
I've found that the volume per day for each body part shouldn't be too high since several muscle groups are involved on each day, and if you did 4 exercises for chest, 4 for shoulders, 3 for triceps, and 3 for biceps your workout would take too long. For this reason, exercise selection is key. Mostly compounds should be used, but isolations could be used for one muscle group per day to give that muscle group a particular focus. In each workout, I'll usually choose one muscle group to give more focus to.
For example, on Ch/Sh/Arms day, I might do weighted dips (which hit chest and tris, with some shoulders), standing military press, (which hits shoulders and tris, with some upper chest), barbell curls (biceps, obviously), and 2 variations of side laterals to add some focus for the shoulders on that day.
I find that this split allows you to train very frequently, if you pick your exercises wisely. I've trained each muscle group 3 times per week on this split, though I generally go for 2 times per week, with a 2-on, 1-off frequency scheme (I usually run on the "off" day, so I'm really training every day and only take complete rest days as needed, which isn't often here). The key is using a decent amount of variation in your exercise selection, and keeping volume per body part moderate as I mentioned before.
While training your back and legs 2 days after your last back/legs session may seem like too soon, using variation and changing the emphasis workout-to-workout can allow you to train while still sore. Say that on your last leg/back day you really hammered your hamstrings, erectors, glutes, and traps, but your quads, calves, and lats aren't particularly sore from the workout. Not that they weren't worked, but they weren't emphasized as strongly as the other muscles. On the next back/legs day you would focus on quads, calves, and lats, and only do light work for your hamstrings, erectors, and glutes. So your exercise selection might be some light leg curls, bodyweight-only hyperextensions, heavy weighted chin-ups, and heavy front squats.
As you can see, there's a ton of room for tailoring this split to your needs, which is one of the reasons I like it so much.
Split 2: Upper/Lower/Upper
Where the previous split was good for a focus on hypertrophy, this one is better as a focus for pure strength.
I used this split, lifting 3 days per week, to train for my first powerlifting meet. The best part about this split is that it allows plenty of time for the lower body to recover from heavy squats and deadlifts, which often takes a lot longer than it would take to recover from a bench press workout. At the same time, the second upper body day ensures the upper body isn't being under-stimulated.
The way I split this up was to bench press on Day 1, and follow it up with several assistance exercises - one variation of a row, and the rest focused on arms. I'd squat and deadlift on Day 2, and follow that up with all of my lower body assistance. On Day 3, I'd usually military press or perform some other sort of other secondary press, and follow that with a chin-up or pulldown variation and several bodybuilding movements for chest and shoulders.
Using this scheme, the back is worked in all 3 training sessions in a different way. I saw some pretty good gains in back size while using this split.
Because the lower body is only worked once a week, this split is good for times when you want to include a significant amount of conditioning work. It's easy to schedule both hard and light conditioning around a single lower body session.
Similarly, those with good lower body development who want to put more focus on the upper body would do well on this split to ensure the upper body is getting some extra volume.
If you're stuck in a rut and sick of devoting an entire day to each body part, you could certainly do worse than adopting one of these simple methods of splitting up your workouts.
