Training splits for strength and muscle mass

Training splits often matter more than one very heavy chest day or a long arm day. If your goal is strength and muscle mass, it’s worth looking at whether a muscle receives training load often enough, not just at how exhausted you feel when you leave the gym.

In fact, I talked about the same idea in my 2014 book “Your Best Shape from the Gym”. In the chapter “The Ideal Split”, I explained why a weekly plan shouldn’t revolve around just one muscle or body part.

Why do training splits matter at all?

It’s easy to stick to an old habit in the gym. Monday chest, Tuesday back, Wednesday legs, Thursday shoulders, Friday arms. Sound familiar? This kind of “muscle/body part” split has been standard in bodybuilding photos and magazines for years.

The problem is that a natural lifter doesn’t recover or progress the same way as someone whose training is built on entirely different premises. If a muscle gets serious work only once a week, progress stays slow for many people. Not because the effort is lacking. Rather, the frequency is too low.

A simple truth: if you want to get stronger and build muscle mass, your body needs a sufficiently frequent stimulus. That doesn’t mean you have to hammer every muscle all year round. It does mean, though, that the cycles that drive progress work better when a muscle, body part or basic lift is trained in a controlled volume on average 2 times a week.

That’s where the big difference lies. Doing a huge amount of work for the chest in one go once a week is one thing. Spreading the same training load across the week is another. For most regular trainees, the second option is more practical and better tolerated.

How to make training splits work better

Take the bench press, for example: your whole chest workout doesn’t have to fit into one day. Instead of doing 20 sets for the chest once a week in one go, it makes more sense to use press progression at a frequency of “2 times a week”.

In practice, this can mean adding 5-6 sets of assistance work in both workouts. The progression itself usually already includes 5-6 working sets. So the chest gets 2 x 10-12 working sets a week, but they don’t all fall on one day.

So what actually happens? Training quality stays higher. Technique doesn’t break down as easily. Your nervous system doesn’t take the whole blow on a single day. Meanwhile, the muscle gets the signal to grow stronger and bigger more often.

That doesn’t mean every week has to be identical. In my book I proposed an approach where in one week you train like powerlifters: twice, but with less each time. In the next week you can train at a frequency of once a week, but with a higher work volume.

This way, one week puts more emphasis on driving your strength numbers forward. The other week focuses on working the muscle in more varied ways and with greater volume. The result can be better hypertrophy along with a notable gain in maximal strength.

Practical training splits for your weekly plan

If you don’t want to overcomplicate things, the most sensible starting point is to train 3-4 times a week. That leaves enough room for recovery, while still letting you load every important muscle or lift more often.

Good options are lower body/upper body splits, squat/press/pull, and, in some periods, full-body training. These aren’t buzzwords, just simple ways to distribute training load more smartly.

A lower body/upper body split works well when you want to keep the plan clear. One day you work on legs and hips, the next on upper-body presses and rows. The same cycle repeats within the week, but the volume per workout stays manageable.

A squat/press/pull split suits someone who thinks in terms of movements rather than individual muscles. It teaches you to look at training as a whole. Honestly, athletes, bodybuilders and regular trainees have a lot to learn from powerlifters here.

“Full body” training can seem simple at first, but done right it’s a very powerful tool. It suits periods especially well when you have less time or when the goal is to improve exercise technique and frequency.

What to watch when choosing a training split

First look at recovery. If muscle soreness drags on, sleep gets poor and the weights drop, the split is no longer effective. More isn’t always better. Better is what you recover from and what keeps your strength moving up.

Second, check whether your main lifts get enough practice. Squats, presses and rows develop better when you don’t treat them as a big ordeal only once a week. Technique needs repetition, but that repetition has to happen within reasonable fatigue.

Third, don’t turn a split into a religion. A “muscle/body part” system can be useful in some phases, especially if you want a bigger pump or to focus on a lagging area. As a permanent main approach, though, it’s too infrequent for many people.

Bottom line: for most of your training time, it makes sense to apply training load to a muscle or body part at a lower volume per session, but twice a week. It’s simple, practical and works well for both strength and muscle mass.

FAQ: training splits and progress

Do you always have to train a muscle 2 times a week?

No. The point isn’t that one frequency suits everyone all year round. But 2 times a week is a good tool in progression cycles where the goal is clear progress in strength and muscle mass.

Is training once a week always bad?

No. Once a week can suit a higher-volume period or serve as a change of pace. The problem arises when your entire training is built around it for a long time and progress stalls.

Which split suits the average trainee best?

A good starting point is training 3-4 times a week with a lower body/upper body or squat/press/pull split. These keep volume under control and give your muscles a more frequent stimulus.

Author: Janar Rückenberg

Find out more: “Your best shape from the gym”

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