Choosing What’s Right for You

The biggest deciding factor for what split to choose should be your schedule and goals. If you find yourself coming home every night with 4 hours of homework, something like PPL/UL might be for you because of its flexibility. If you are an athlete who requires a lot of recovery and can’t be overworked, FBEOD may be the right choice. If you are an athlete, I’d stay away from the PPL x Arnold and a FBEOD. At the end of the day, it all comes down to preference and you can make crazy progress with any split. All that matters is your focus and intensity. If your workouts aren’t fun and enjoyable you aren’t going to want to do them and stick to them. Choose what split works for you and what you have fun doing. Or, make your own. Take control over your fitness, and become Your Greatest Self.

Workout Splits

By Morgan Korn

When working out, your schedule and structure are everything. Different schedules, commonly known as splits, change the way you train, grow and think. Here I’m going to break down some of the most common splits so that you can decide which one is best for you.

Push/Pull/Legs (PPL)

Most people start with this cycle because it’s easy to plan. You get a dedicated back and biceps day but the push day can be lacking. With only one day for push, it’s very easy to lose out on volume unless your sessions are crazy long. This split can also be an issue if your schedule has to be flexible. With only one day of rest, it stays pretty constant all the time. Now of course you can move the days around, but with a split so focused, it’s hard not to stay consistent. It is good though because it’s a rolling split, meaning that the same muscle group isn’t on the same day every week.

Upper/Lower (UL)

This split is great because it hits every muscle at least twice a week. It’s also great with a day of rest every other day, allowing for great recovery. A common problem arises here as well: to be training with enough intensity, sessions must be very long. If you want to target your biceps, chest, triceps, shoulders and entire back in one day, you could be at the gym for over 2 and a half hours. If that’s fine with you, be my guest. For most students, that kind of schedule isn’t possible along with school work.

Bro Split

The “Bro Split” is sort of the standard entry level split in the gym. It includes a day for chest, back, shoulders, arms and legs. Often times what happens is people who do this split end up hitting whatever feels good on a certain day, skipping their least favorite days. Another issue is the sequence; putting either a back or chest day right before an arms day could be redundant, especially because to train chest you also train triceps and to train back you also train biceps.

Push/Pull/Legs/Upper/Lower (PPL/UL)

I typically run this split because it has great volume and it’s also very flexible. My usual rest day is between Legs and Upper but if I feel ready to work I can skip my rest day and fit it in elsewhere. The most tiresome day in this split is the lower day where I usually do some sort of Romanian Deadlift and Back Extension combo which can leave me numb and sore for hours to days. The push and pull days are your typical chest/tri and back/bi days. On Legs I include a barbell squat, hack squat, a leg extension, hip adductor and calf raise. My upper day is more of a shoulders and arms focus, along with a few upper chest and back movements. A fair warning, this split can leave you very tired and exhausted if not planned or fueled right. Nutrition is the key.

Full Body Every Other Day (FBEOD)

This split is great for serious lifters. I know a lot of people who love this kind of schedule and others who think it’s ridiculous. I am among the others. You get good recovery with rest every other day but your sessions can drag. If you tend to favor Olympic lifts, this split is great, with included dedicated days. My issue with this split is the lack of hypertrophy because of less focus to each individual muscle during the workout. If you did hit each muscle enough each workout, there is no way that you could re use that muscle two days later in my opinion.

Push/Pull/Legs x Arnold

This split gives you a typical push, pull and legs day along with a chest and back day, shoulders and arms and extra leg day. This one is particularly popular because people enjoy the dedicated arms day. This is also risky, however, because it trains the legs twice a week. This may be a problem for atheletes who need to be able to run daily. The volume is good though with most muscles getting hit twice a week.