Best Training Splits for Strength & Hypertrophy (Complete Guide)

Today I'm going to be talking about training splits. This is a very popular topic of conversation. In fact, I had one brief conversation on YouTube where I spoke about the very famous training split pushpull legs. Pushpull legs. And I kind of like just mentioned in passing, but pushpull legs kind of seems like a bit of a waste of time. Why would you split your push and your pull when you can do it together? Which is, as you guys know, if I'm programming for you guys, I quite often like to superset my push and my pull exercises. Instead of doing a set of push and then waiting however many minutes of rest between sets, you can be having that rest period and moving over to the opposing muscle groups, which is not really superior in terms of building muscle or building strength, but it allows you to get twice the amount of work in the same amount of time. So, instead of dividing push and pull sessions, I quite often do push and pull in the same session. When I say quite often, I would say pretty much every time on the rare occasion when you are strong enough or you're close to competition, you and you want to really focus on a heavy bench press as an example, that's when I would do that as a standalone. And I wouldn't have you superset the opposing muscle groups. But in your off season, even if you're a super strong athlete in your offseason, there's no reason why why you wouldn't, unless of course you just love spending time in the gym, which is the thing, and that's something that I'm going to be covering. So feel free to ask questions as we go. But this whole session was based on a couple of you guys asking questions about why did I give you this split and can you give me a reason why you set out the program the way you did. I can do one better. I can give you the entire science and all the different types of splits that we have. So if there's anything that you'd like to ask, anything that you disagree with, just you know, just say the word and I'm here to discuss.

Now I'm going to start it from the beginning. So training splits, you know, we've got all the different options you've got. You may have heard of bro splits. You may have heard of upper lower split. You may have heard of pushpull legs or whole body splits. The first thing we have to understand is availability to the individual that's performing the program. So if I'm on boarding anybody, if I'm starting a new relationship with a new client, I'm going to be asking that question first. That's going to dictate the trajectory of the entire program is how many days do you have available to allocate to your training? So some people may not have the leisure of having, you know, whatever is considered to be optimal. So, what I consider to be optimal for maximizing strength and muscle building, I would say four to five days. And I'm going to go into greater depth with that in a moment. But some people don't have that available to them. There's no point creating the best split and the be best program and then figuring out that the person you're working with can only train two or three days per week for whatever reasons. And there are a lot of great reasons. One reason is their general population and they just don't want to allocate that much time to their training. Maybe they're very busy corporate type of people. They only train two times per week. And if that's the case, then then so be it. No, it's not optimal, but we already know that their job isn't to be the most muscular or the strongest or or anything with athletic performance. And so two times per week may be the sweet spot for that individual. And if that's the case, they're not a bad person. They don't all everyone doesn't prioritize their training like, you know, us who are industry professionals. However, there are instances where 2 days per week is optimal. Such as, you know, even at the highest level when we're training an athlete of a nonstrength sport such as rugby player, martial artist, the team sport athlete who need to be allocating majority of their training week by to playing their sport. And if that's the case, then it's probably wise that they allocate less time to their training. Of course, it would be great to be as muscular and as strong and all of these things as possible. However, we have to understand the cost of recovery of training. And if this is going to interfere with their ability to perform maximally with their sport, which is their priority, then we may be doing them a disservice by increasing the amount of days that they spend training with weights.

So, there's nothing magic about any of these training splits, right? So, when if if you ever hear people debate about their training split is better than yours, you know, I don't know about agreeing straight away. As long as they can justify why they using that split, then that could be the correct answer. Now, when we talk about frequency, let's talk about, so this is something that's quite important. Some people come to us and say, I'm all yours. I'll do as many days of training as you recommend. I want the absolute most out of my training. What do you recommend? I'll train 7 days a week. So, some people come to me with that. And my response to that individual is 7 days a week is not necessary. In fact, it's actually not recommended. But something we must also understand is some people have their own life circumstances that require them to be at the gym every day. It could be a depression thing. It could be coming out out of an addiction thing. And setting them up with a daily routine could be a crucial part of their mental health. In which case, I'm not going to say to that individual, no, you you know, you need the rest. You're not allowed to come into the gym. Okay? So these are circumstances where I'll speak to the individual and say although it's not optimal I will make it work. The greater the frequency the lower the intensity. Okay. And the flip side to that is also true. The lower the frequency the greater the intensity should be. Okay. Which we're also going to be covering. However, when we do have, you know, our entire life to allocate to our training and we have no other sports or or no other commitments and we want to get as muscular and as strong as possible, what is optimal frequency? And a lot of the times the research kind of covers you know one times per week per body part versus two times versus three times. And you know a lot of the main research firstly let's understand when it comes to research there's not a huge amount of research on this topic and of the research that does exist a lot of the times the duration of these studies is quite low. So what does quite low mean? Well quite often the research goes for about 8 weeks which just so happens to be the length of a university semester. So that's all that's available. How much results, you know, how much muscle can you build? How much strength can you build in an 8week period? The answer is some but not much. Right? So to to base your entire life over an 8we study doesn't make entire sense. It doesn't mean we dismiss the research, but we use it as a guide. So let it guide you, but don't let it lead you based on that. So that that's a disclaimer out of the way saying that although the research isn't perfect, a lot of the research consistently comes back at one time per week versus two times versus three times as long. So firstly as long as the volume is equated there is very little difference between either of these. Okay. However from a practical standpoint and a logical standpoint when we understand we need to consider optimal training volume which is going to be the next slide. Optimal training volume when we're talking about things like hypertrophy and strength there are some differences. Strength is slightly lower because typically strength is using higher amounts of load which need more recovery which prefers less total sets per body part per week or per movement pattern per week than muscle hypertrophy where we're shifting lighter loads and there is a higher recommendation for greater amounts of volume. Okay. So how much volume is that? That's roughly 10 to 20 sets per body part per week. That's what's mutually agreed upon by all of the authorities in our space in terms of science and muscle building. 10 to 20 top sets per muscle group per week being optimal. Now, here's the thing. 10 sets to 20 sets, that's a large gap. So, whether you do 20 sets per week is very different to doing 10 sets. That's half the amount of volume. So, which one is it? My recommendation when it comes to volume, if you were to have one, would be start at the lowest end of that range and if we need to, then we can gradually increase. So my recommendation wouldn't be to start at whatever is maximal thinking I want the absolute best for me so let's go straight to the top. You may be able to achieve sufficient muscle gain with the lowest amount available and then if needed if we start to plateau then we have something that's available to us or a training variable that's available to us that we can modify to potentially break through that plateau. What do I mean by that? Let's speak in English. If we're doing 10 sets per muscle group per week and we get to a point where we're plateauing for whatever reason, we can explore the potential for increasing the amount of training volume, increase to 12 sets per body part per week or 14 sets or whatever it may be. Of course, I just gave you even numbers. That's my OCD. You are allowed to use odd numbers. And just so that you know, a lot of the times I don't really count the total amount of sets in a in a program per week. I typically just use what I believe to be logical for the day. So whenever I'm writing a program, I think about the exercise and I think about the weightlifted and the individual that I'm applying it to. I'll have a main exercise for the day. I'll have a complimentary secondary exercise and then maybe a third exercise for the day that allows us to train things like lowcost feel-good exercises that complement that movement pattern. So like training biceps or triceps after our big bench press day or joint health exercises to complement our strength work. So quite often as you guys know I'll do some you know rotator cuff work or seratus anterior work or core work or hip stability work at the end of our session to complement the main work. Okay. So these are the rules of the program and I think about what's the optimal amount of sets for each of these exercises and I put myself in the situation and usually we land on you know I don't know how many sets for the for the top set. Depends on how much weight you're lifting. If it's a squat and you're doing things like triple body weight, I might do something like one to two top sets for that main movement of the day. If you're more of a beginner and you're not able to even do body weight yet, I might do something like three to five top sets. Okay, when I say three, I'm probably that's probably not a lot of total work. And when I say three, it probably means I'm going to include a lot more accessory exercises. So, there's no hard and fast rule. And quite often whenever I'm writing a program, I don't sit down and count the amount of total sets. Usually I'm looking at about an hour session and I'm trying to fit in what is optimal within that time frame. But either way, you get the gist.

Now, let's put yourself in that scenario. Let's just say the total amount of work per muscle group is 10 sets per week. What would you prefer to do? 10 sets in one session or would you prefer to split that up over two sessions? Let's think about how you perform those 10 sets. And let's just say, not that you probably would, but let's just say it was 10 sets of squats. The first five sets of squats, how you going to feel compared to the last five sets of squats? The answer is quite fatigued in that last five sets. So the quality of work in the remainder of the session is going to be substantially lower than the than the first half of the session. So a better option logically is to split that up over the week. So it's not a matter of doing more total volume. It's a matter of doing high quality work by splitting up that workload in two sessions instead of doing it all in one giant session. Where if you are doing it in one giant session, which is what I've done on many occasions and many people do, then quite often the last half of the session, you are performing usually a whole bunch of junk volume that doesn't contribute to too much muscle gain or strength gain. Okay. So these are the things we need to consider. So from a research standpoint, when volume is equated, it doesn't seem to make too much of a difference whether you choose one time a week per body part or two times or three times. But from a logical standpoint, it makes more sense to split it up over two times. So a lot of the best researchers and practitioners in our space consistently land on optimal frequency per body part per week being two times per week. Research and practical standpoint, practical application shows us that there is a not a huge difference between two times and three times per body part per week. Okay. Now this is quite often when we're talking about strength and muscle building. When it comes to skill acquisition, the rule changes. So, if you're working with someone like a professional or an Olympic level weightlifter, weightlifterss love to practice their skill every day, seven times a week, multiple times per day in some instances. Yes, it sounds extreme. However, that's usually how the best of the best train. So, what are we talking about here? Skill acquisition or muscle building? Well, there's the difference. When it comes to skill acquisition, it's a completely different rule. I'm talking purely strength gain and muscle building. Skill acquisition, we're using lighter loads and practicing it more time. The more practice we get, the better it is. Okay. So there's frequency for you. The outcome of frequency. So to summarize that, you could say if you only have one time per week available, okay, go for it. But if you have the option for increasing to two times per week per body part, that's my choice. That's my recommendation every time. That's why super accumulation makes our form so much better. Absolutely. So a lot of the times when we have these highfrequency programs, a lot of the adaptations are neurological or neuromuscular adaptations rather than cellular adaptations. Okay? But either way, the exception for this for increasing frequency and doing these things are specialization phases exist, but they are not how you train full-time. It's a phase and it's usually quite shortlived because we just can't handle the demands of, you know, double day training forever. I've tried, trust me, it didn't work. Okay.

So this is where we're talking about volume, which I pretty much covered. So the volume is the research shows us that 10 to 20 sets per muscle group per week is that sweet spot. Anywhere between that range. So what's the practical way of considering how many total sets we do? My recommendation, start at the lower end. So start at roughly 10 sets per muscle group per week. And I'm not counting warm-ups. I'm talking about top sets, okay? 10 sets per muscle group per week. And increase if you need to. So some people love volume. And my recommendation is, and some people have even, you know, recommended that as you get more and more advanced, your ability to handle more volume increases, which I kind of agree. However, you need to factor in as you get more and more advanced, your ability to handle more load also increases, which needs to be factored in when we're calculating total volume. So, when we're calculating total volume, I think of volume load, which is reps times sets times the amount of weights that's lifted. Okay? So, that's volume load. So the stronger you get, so let's just use the example. You got lifter A that's lifting 10 x 10 on 100 kg versus lifter B that's lifting 10x10 on 200 kg. What's the difference in these individuals? Lifter A is probably a lot smaller and lifter B when they perform their 10x10 is at the end of the day. Excuse my language. Okay. So I probably would consider for lifter B that's doing twice the amount of weight or two times body weight or 200 kg for a 10x10. Firstly, don't do 10 x 10. Secondly, if you were to do it, I would use a much longer rest period in between. And then if you were to do it, I would probably consider giving you an entire week to recover from that body from that session versus the person doing half the load would need less time to recover between sets and less time to recover between sessions. So therefore, load should be considered when we're calculating total volume. The stronger the individual, the longer rest between sets and the longer rest between sessions. Okay.

Now that's for hypertrophy. I should have put in there for strength. There are differences in total recommendations. Usually the research points to research and I will say practical application absolutely supports this. Anywhere between 6 to 12 total top set. So this is research by Dr. Rya and colleagues. I believe it was 2009 somewhere around then. It was older research but I believe it's still correct that suggested that 6 to 12 total sets per movement pattern not muscle group movement pattern per week is optimal frequency. So what's the difference? So when we're talking hypertrophy, we think about building quads, building glutes, building lats, building pecs. When we talk about strength building, we're talking about building a squat pattern, building a bend pattern, building a push, building a pull pattern. Okay? So there's a big difference as well as you know the the amount of so that's compound movements usually versus you know in many instances isolation exercises. Compound movements don't just train one muscle group. So when it comes to optimal frequency, how many times per muscle group per week? There is a difference between strength and hypertrophy outcomes. When it comes to hypertrophy, it's higher volume recommendations. When it comes to strength, you are shifting heavier loads. You want to do as much volume as you can and still be able to recover from it and benefit from it. Does that make sense? So, it's not as if we're doing low volume because we're lazy. We're doing low volume because doing more isn't actually more beneficial and can be detrimental because it interferes with our ability to recover from that work.

Now, let's talk about practical recommendation for programming. So the way that I use these tools of training splits is best used as a tool to distribute volume across the week. So the best way to distribute total volume as best as you can. There's minimal evidence showing meaningful differences between two sessions per week versus three. Okay? So therefore, my strong recommendation, if you have the option, move towards two times frequency per body part per week. If you only have one time available, so be it. Quite often even if you've got two sessions per week I make it so with these training splits that you are prioritizing two times per week which can be done and this is going to be sorted in 2 days per week splits versus 3 days versus 4 days versus 5 days and there's special mention to six days per week as well okay so if you ever want to come back if you're ever creating a program and you want to try some optimal splits for your clients or yourselves then you come back here as a great reference point so remember what I was saying so for some people, you have to understand, you know, what's not just optimal, but what's practically available for the individual. You could be working with general population or a new mom who's a full-time mom that doesn't have time to train in the gym and they're doing the best that they can and can maybe only just scrape in two times per week. Okay? Or someone who prioritized, they run a busy company and they just don't have time to train and they can only afford to allocate two days per week. Or let's go to athletic population, professional athletes that need to be spending every single day training their sport and they don't have the energy. They have the time, they make the time, they're professional athletes. However, too much training might negatively impact the recovery requirements of their sport and might interfere with their ability to effectively train their sport. Okay? So, two days per week. So, the first question we ask anybody is how many days do you have practically available to allocate to your training session, to your strength training? Next thing that's pretty important to understand, if you're training two times per week, I highly recommend taking your exercises to a close proximity to failure. Quite often you might hear me talk about periodizing effort where we start our week one of any of our programs with conservative loads to allow room to progress from week to week. Now, this also allows room for recovery for the remainder of the week. Okay? So, I talk about treating it like a marathon where we pace ourselves at the start of the marathon. We don't start by sprinting so that we can have a successful entire race. Okay? Now, here's the thing. When it comes to two days per week, that is a sprint. All right? It's not a marathon anymore. That is a sprint. You want to send it. So, if all you have is 2 days and you got 5 days to recover, okay? That's one of the largest re one of the biggest reasons why people recommend not training to fail all the time is to allow for greater recovery. Okay? Greater recovery for other sessions within the week. Heavy squats and heavy deadlifts per performed in the same week can interfere with each other as some of you may know. So, we have strategies to combat that. But if you're only training two times per week, that means you got 5 days to rest. You don't want to consider recovery. You got 5 days to recover. You're going to be recovered. You're not going to overtrain. Send it. Okay? And on the flip side, the higher the frequency, the lower the intensity should be.

Now, here's some examples of two-day splits. Here's the first one that I used to always do and now I don't. That's an upper lower split. Day one, upper body. Day two, lower body. It's not a bad option, but limited by fatigue. So, what does that mean? So, that means you're training the entire upper body in one session, which means the first half of the session might be great, but because you're saturating the same muscle groups, the last half of the session is going to be pretty fatigued and you're going to be performing junk volume compared to splitting that up into two sessions in the week. Okay? As well as remember the deal with frequency, optimal frequency where you have the option, let's opt for two times per week versus one. Okay? Next thing, if you're doing two times per week, prioritize compound movements. You don't really want to waste time on doing bicep curls, leg extensions, hamstring curls. Go and do your big compound movements. Go and beat yourself up. This is my preference. You know, the way that I was going to present this to you was just to have only one option, which was, and [clears throat] I remember writing this out saying whole body splits. There is no excuse not to do whole body splits. If you're doing two times per week, train your whole body. What does that mean? A push, a pull, a squat, and a bend pattern all in one session. Okay? And if you're doing two sessions per week, I mean, you can, but my recommendation is to not do the same session. Okay? So, so I would do a a hip dominant squat pattern on day one and a knee dominant squat pattern on day two. Okay? For push, I would do a vertical push on day one and a horizontal push on day two. Okay? And so on. You get the point. There's no single exercise that focuses on every single muscle fiber available in that specific muscle. Okay? We have portions of every muscle and different exercises focus on different portions of every muscle which is why we have a need for some training variation. I'm not saying we need a ton of variation. I need we I'm saying we need some variation to make sure that we have a better opportunity to completely train an entire muscle. Okay, if we have the option, if we're doing two-day splits, this is the one that we do. Whole body split. This is my recommendation. Okay, versus upper body on one day, lower body on another day.

Now, let's go to three-day splits. Great option for athletes of non-strength sports. So, as I mentioned, two days is probably a good option for non-strength sport athletes, but so is three if they have it available to them. It's still, in my opinion, not the most optimal for maximizing muscle and strength gain. It does work, and there are instances at the highest level where 3 days is the preference for the best strength athletes in the world. So, as you guys know who my strength mentors are, Eric Liybridge and his father and coach Ernie Liybridge Senior. Their method that they taught me and I learned so much from and I apply many of their principles today. The Lily Bridge method is a 3-day split, which I'm going to give you in a moment. And the reason it works so well is because they're lifting so damn heavy. They're squatting and deadlifting in excess of 400 kg. So, when you do that, the demand for recovery is quite high. Okay? And you know, trying to squat and deadlift heavy every single week on two separate occasions. So that's why they combine it in one day. Trying to do it in two separate days interferes with each other for recovery. Ed, we still aiming to hit 10 sets per body part per session on the 2-day versus a whole body split. This is what we need to consider. It becomes incredibly hard if we do that. The whole idea of, you know, getting four days of training per week versus two days per training per week is so that we can achieve optimal amount of training volume. When we're doing less days per week, we have less time to achieve 10 sets per muscle group per week. So, in some instances, it's not possible. In other instances, I'll tell you now, Eric Liybridge only doing three times per week, but his squat sessions would last him hours. He has a meal in between his in the middle of his session. Okay? So, there's the the added context. So, he does a heavy squat. For him to get to his top set of squats, it would probably take him about an hour and a half to two hours. And then he's doing his accessory deadlifts after that. So, he'd have a meal in between. And then he'd perform another hour and a half of training with his accessory exercises. Okay, so there's the context. So it's not as if he's just training less because he's training three times per week. He's condensing the hell out of that session. Is it optimal? I don't know. It works. There's many ways to skin a cat. To be honest with you, I've used all of the methods, everything that I find to be valuable out of the Lily Bridge method, but I still prefer to spread it out over four days, which is why I do four-day splits for myself as well as all of the athletes that I work with that I have the option of doing 4-day splits. But I do reserve the understanding and the knowledge of an optimal 3-day split if it's required.

So, here's an option for a 3-day split. Whole body every session works well. Okay. So whole body every session. So, what does whole body mean? I would recommend four movement patterns. Push, pull, squat, bend in one session. So, four big exercises. That's what a whole body looks like to me. Okay. Now, can you do this? Yeah, it does work well in my opinion, except for highly elite lifters. And when I talk about highly elite, I'm really mainly referring to high absolute strength athletes, athletes with a high absolute strength. So, you can get like elite level athletes that are smaller. So, you know, you got people like, you know, females or 60 kg, you know, 60 kg lifters or 70 kilogram lifters. Can you know what's relatively strong for that individual a triple body weight squat for that individual is 210 kg that is incredible don't get me wrong however it takes a lot shorter of a time to warm up to a 200 kg lift than a 400 kg lift okay so that's the context that needs to be added so a lighter lifter with high relative strength but lower absolute strength might be able to warm up to their top sets in a shorter amount of time so that's the only downfall of training whole body in a session is how long does to take you because you still need to after you've done your squats you then need to warm up for your deadlifts. Then after that you need to warm up for your push then after that you need to warm up for your pull. If you have high absolute strength that can take hours. So that's my recommendation is don't do whole body if you're really really really strong. We still the same question. I'm not going to answer that again. So that's one option is whole is whole body. The next option is the lily bridge split which I quite like. Squatting and deadlifting on one day. Okay. So the way that they rotate it is week one is heavy squats and light deadlifts and then week two it's heavy deadlifts and light squats and then they continue to rotate that. So they are doing it all on one day. Okay. And in my opinion this works extremely well because they have high absolute strength and they need that much recovery. Okay. That's why they don't do heavy squats and heavy deadlifts in the same week. The second session is a heavy bench session. Okay. So that's day two. It's upper body. I say upper body but they call it a heavy bench press session. But for our context, a heavy bench press, I'll always do a structurally balanced upper body day on a heavy bench press day. So that's upper body day, we could say. And then day three is their whole body day. So I quite like this. I think if you have three days available to you, this is a really nice option. The next option, pushpull legs. Okay, pushpull legs over three days. This is quite popular. People have different variations of what pushpull legs means to them. Some people perform their deadlifts on pull day. Okay, so push might be, you know, all the pecs. So pecs, triceps, and deltoid. It's all of the pushing muscles. So that's what push day is. Pulling is literal pulling. So deadlifting, pull-ups, pull downs, and rows all performed on that one day. And then legs on the third day. Okay. So does it work? Yeah, it works. In my opinion, it's not enough frequency, particularly in the upper body. So you've only got one pressing day. Even if you do 20 sets in that one day, the last sets of that day, the last 10 sets are junk volume. Okay? You're better off dividing that over two sessions. Okay. So there's one of the downfalls. The second downfall is it's not enough frequency for the quadriceps. Okay. So this is something we have to understand. Okay. So quadriceps and deadlifts are kind of two different things. If you have a squat on one day and a deadlift on another day, that's that's pretty good frequency for the hip extensors. So the deadlift is a hip extension. So is a squat. So we've got two times per week frequency for the hip extensors, which is optimal, but we've only got one time frequency for quadriceps. Okay. So this is me playing devil's advocate. Why I don't particularly recommend a pushpull legs split for a 3-day per week athlete. Not enough frequency for quadriceps or upper body push.

Next variation, daily undulating programming. Okay, very popular amongst powerlifterss. So the idea of this is essentially it's split up into squat, bench press, and deadlifts performed every single day. But if you have a look at the order, okay, so it's day one. So have a look above. So we've got day one, day two, day three. So above those are heavy, moderate and light. So the first exercise we go heavy, the second exercise we go moderate, the third exercise we go light. Okay? And we sort that in a way so that every one of those lifts, so squat gets one heavy session per week, one moderate session per week, and one light session per week. And same applies for all of those lifts. Okay? So that's split up into how I would allocate those heavy, moderate, and light for each of those days. The pros of this, great frequency for skill acquisition. You're performing each of these lifts three times per week. Great for skill acquisition. The cons to this, I would recommend that this is too much frequency for elite, high absolute strength lifters. So you can be elite but low body weight and high relative strength but not a high absolute strength. In which case you'd be able to recover from multiple days of frequency. So three days of frequency per week, you'd be able to recover from that really nicely. But as you get really really really strong. So like Thor Bjönson coming in and he's pretty soon he's going to be doing 400 kg deadlifts every damn week and to the point where I'm going to have to divide that so he only goes heavy every second week. All right, so take it from me. He'll do dead deadlift once a week. So heavy week, light week, heavy week, light week. But his ability to recover, he needs seven days of recovery. He needs 14 days of recovery from heavy to heavy. In between he's doing a skill session. Okay, so that's a huge amount of recovery demand for a super super high absolute strength athlete. He would not be able to do two more deadlift sessions that week. Even if it was moderate and light, that's too much frequency for him to be able to recover from. He wouldn't be able to get in position. It wouldn't feel good. It wouldn't be effective. Okay. So now, the negative to this, and I mean I'm not saying that people don't do this, but I would recommend if you were to do push, pull, and legs. So, so my con to this is it needs upper back exercises. Daily undulating periodization where you're going squat bench dead, just add your rows and pull downs in here as well. Okay? Which can easily be done. Just so that you know, just adding context. Some highle powerlters only ever always do squat, bench press, and deadlift and nothing else. So that's pure specificity and they reach high levels doing this. It's not my recommendation, but just letting you know it exists at a high level and it works. I just find other ways work better such as not neglecting muscle groups such as, you know, your lats and your boys and your back and your traps and and your arms and other groups as well. Okay.

Strength systems. Every time I give my recommendation, I give it the strength system signature. Okay. So, this is the strength system three-day split, which I believe is a 50/50 of all muscle groups. Okay. So, day one is lower body squat focus or or squat day, quadriceps focused. Day two is whole upper body and then we have day three. So, this is where day three I kind of call it an whole body day. But you have to understand the way that I allocate the whole body is the first exercise is deadlifts. So, that's where we kind of like focus. That's the main exercise. Then, we apply secondary squat patterns to that. So, we're giving ourselves a second day of of quadricep work. So, it could just be leg extensions. Okay? It could be as simple as that, but this is something that I reserve for high strength athletes that are doing less days per week is make sure at the very least you can add in some leg extensions. You can always add in leg extensions. That's where you're getting your second day of frequency. Okay? Something that I like to consider with, you know, 5 days of frequency is, you know, there is data, not the best data, not the best research, but I kind of agree with it that your muscles stop responding after about or they stop growing after 5 days of recovery. Okay? At which point they start shrinking. That's interesting. We've got a red cross on that page. Just ignore that. Someone was having a squiggle. Does that make sense, guys? So, we have deadlift secondary squats. Someone's still writing on there. Dear me, said Boris. Do you guys get access to writing on that? Can you not, please? If that was me, I swear I'd draw a penis in the corner, but it's not me and I don't want to give you guys ideas. Anyhow, no more drawing on here. You're on detention if you do. Oh, sorry. It's okay, Boris. Thank you for not drawing a penis. It's going to be on all of it now. Can you see if you can undo it? It doesn't really matter so much. I won't let it take our attention. So, this was a Jimmy contribution. Thank you, Jimmy. Is he even here anymore? Probably not. He's doing work. So, he basically said, "Should we include another day for the ladies?" Now, the idea of this is it's a lower body split. Now, I'm not here recommending that women need to train differently to men, but I'm talking from a place of experience now is a lot of women come to me asking to apply more volume or more work or more emphasis on their lower body and less on their upper body. Okay? And I've been doing this for many many years and I'm also part owner in a female only facility where I have access to a lot of women's programs and a lot of women's feedback. Okay? So, understand it is a thing. It's not my recommendation. I don't recommend anything. I recommend you train for the goals that you want to have. But if someone comes to me and they say, "I want to emphasize lower body dominance and deemphasize upper body." Here's your option. Okay? So, this is where we only have one day of upper body per week. The same principle applies on our deadlift day. I would add more quadriceps work. Okay? At the very least, I would be doing leg extensions. Okay? So, there's a nice little option for you. If you have any questions, just feel free to to put in the comment section. I'm going through this very fast because there's a lot more splits to come.

4 day splits. Now, we're entering advanced lifter territory. This is my recommendation for anyone who wants the absolute most out of their resistance training. Whether the goal is performance or muscle building, you don't have to be advanced to benefit from strength training four times per week. You just have to want the most out of your training. Okay? Four days per week. I train four days per week. Thor Bjönson trains four days per week. Enough said. I do train elite lifters. Okay? Okay. So, so one in particular, Stephie Cohen, she's 5 days per week. What's the difference? She weighs under 60 kg. Thorbjson's 200 kg. Very big difference, especially when we consider the loads lifted, the absolute strength. The higher the absolute strength, the greater the need for recovery. The lower the absolute strength, even though it's high relative strength. So, what's the difference? Relative strength means we factor in body weight. So, that's the power to weight ratio, you could call it. Okay? So, we factor in body weight. So Stephie Cohen, four times bodyweight deadlifter, but that's still 240 kg. That's still less than 50% of Thor Bjöson's max. So do we understand the picture, the illustration of what absolute strength is versus relative strength? The greater the absolute strength, the greater the demand for recovery. Rest between sets need to increase and rest between sessions need to increase. Okay. But if your goal, if you're a strength athlete or if you just want the most out of your strength training, your resistance training, can you share the definition of your absolute strength? Yeah. The person who lifts the most weight. There's the definition. The person that can lift the most weight has the greatest amount of absolute strength. There's my definition. Okay. So, elephant high absolute strength and very poor absolute strength. Massive relative strength. But no one cares. Sorry, my lighter weightlifters. I shouldn't say that. I'm just getting nasty. Critters giving me death stares. Critter has big absolute strength anyway. That guy just add, let me add context. 70 kilo guy with a 300 kilogram squat and deadlift. So, it's more than four times body weight. So he has high absolute strength and high relative strength. So I guess you win whatever. Now remember what I said about the strength system standard. Okay. Covers all bases. Five gold stars. This gets five gold stars. That's quite an unofficial accolade. You know, unless unless you take it, then it's very official. It's official coming from me. If you want the most out of your training and if you want a balanced approach, this is how I'm going to coach you. This is how I coach myself. Okay? So that's an upper lower split. So upper body push pull horizontal focus. So horizontal push pull it doesn't mean so it's focus on horizontal but it doesn't mean I don't use any vertical accessories. Okay. So it's upper body one day lower body quad focus the next day then upper body vertical focus the next day and then lower body posterior focus the fourth day. Okay. Where we still include quadricep accessories. In my opinion it's the most balanced variation of the 4-day split. It covers all bases. Now here's the female athlete version. So, I work with many females that have asked specifically for these modifications. Okay? You don't have to. Okay? If you get offended, that's up to you. You can give the the strength system split, which I give to many of my female athletes, and they look awesome, and they perform really, really well. But some people specifically request less muscularity in the upper body, and this is my solution, is less total volume in the upper body. The way that I do that is I only have one completely allocated upper body day. So, it's the same thing except instead of the second upper body day, I give them a full body day, okay? Which is push, pull, squat, bend. So, they're still training upper body twice per week, but it's just less total volume and more total volume on lower body. So, there's my disclaimer at the expense of sounding like I'm recommending females and males train differently to each other. In my experience, the vast majority of women that I have worked with over the years request a lower body dominant training split. Okay? And this is how I would do it if that's you.

Now, we move to 5day splits. All right, we're cooking. 5day splits is the upper end of my recommendations for resistance training frequency. Okay. Yes, I write six day programs, but 5 days is the upper end of my recommendations. 6 days not my recommendations. Remember, I will give a six-day program for cases where the individual needs to be at the gym. They need to have a rigid schedule for whatever reasons. Okay, mental health is maybe a huge reason for that. It's for lifters who prioritize their results with resistance training, whether it's performance or aesthetics with muscle building. Here's the caveat. The frequency can be too high if the lifter has a strong has a high absolute strength. Okay? So, the frequency can be too high if the lifter has a high absolute strength. Okay? So, this is what I'm talking about with Thor Thor Bjönson. So, I use that as an illustration for the person who devotes his life to being the strongest human on the planet and has achieved that four days per week. Would do five, would day seven, he would do seven, he would do seven days a week, two times a day if it guaranteed that that's what would achieve a positive result, but it doesn't. Okay, there is a need for recovery. So, we have the stimulus, okay, which is the training session. Then we have the recovery that's required for the adaptations to occur. Okay, you take the recovery out of that and just give more stimulus, stimulus, stimulus with no recovery. We get no adaptations. I'm sure we get some adaptations. That's a lie. Okay. But we get lesser adaptations. So here's my variations of a 5day split. This is what I quite like. So it's a pushpull legs up or lower. So it's a it's a combination of two splits. Pushpull legs up or lower. Quite like this. Okay. Great split. It can be too much for high absolute strength athletes. Again 5 days. It's the same disclaimer. Okay. But

It's optimal for lightweight, high relative strength athletes. Okay.

Currently, I am coaching Stephie Cohen, and I'm writing her a 5-day-a-week split. That's her preference, and that's optimal for her. She has the time to allocate to it. She has the resources to allocate the sufficient recovery for it. So, she gets in all of her other recovery modalities. So, sleep and nutrition and intelligent training is the best way to recover. Okay.

But things like sauna, cold therapy, massage, whatever other modalities, if it makes you feel good, yeah, it can contribute. But from a research standpoint, D-tier compared to sleep, recovery, and nutrition is S-tier. So, S-tier being the best. I always thought A is, but, you know, this generation, S-tier is better than A. Not sure why, but it's just S-tier. Hope you guys understand. I'm sure you do. I'm sure you do.

Five-day bro split. What's a 5-day bro split? This is a bodybuilder split. Here it is. Body part per day. Day one: chest. Day two: back. Day three: legs. Day four: shoulders. Day five: arms. That's the 5-day bro split. Okay.

It's a typical bodybuilder split. It allows for high concentration of each muscle per day and 7 days of recovery post-session. It can work, but there are some disadvantages of high fatigue in the second half of any session when we're trying to condense 100% of our training volume in one day. Okay. We are going to be performing the second half of that session under a huge amount of fatigue. And are you actually getting a result from that? Some people actually suggest no, you're not, which is the definition of junk volume.

So, the law of diminishing returns applies. So, if you were to do five sets of any exercise, just the first five sets, I'll tell you now, you get the absolute most return on investment after the first set. And then apparently, not that I know the exact data, but there is a significant drop-off in returns on investment on the second set, as well as the third. There is a decrease in returns, and the fourth and the fifth. Okay. The law of diminishing returns applies. Something that I absolutely loved when I heard Alex Horoszi say it: diminishing returns are still returns. Okay.

So, here's a big difference with elite-level lifters and not the elite-level lifters doing those extra sets. They understand the law of diminishing returns and they understand they are getting a less of a carryover from those sets, but it's still a carryover. Less of a carryover, but it's still a carryover. The highest-level athletes in the world, an illustration that I like to use is Olympic-level weightlifters will train for four years for the next Olympics only to beat or not even beat or to tie or whatever, but very rarely improve by much in four years of progression in the Olympics. They might improve by 1 kilogram in four years, and that is a successful four years if it meant that they won the gold. Okay. So, that's adding a little bit of context to the level of expectation of elite. I don't want to say advanced. There's a next level up. Elite lifters and the rest of us. Okay. So, the return on investment decreases, but there are still returns. Okay.

Critter, in Japan, ranking systems often include an S-rank above A. Okay. Interesting. The S is most commonly understood to come from Japanese loan usage, meaning "special" or "super," rather than a literal alphabet progression. I love that. Thank you, Critter. I thought it came from anime, which was also Japanese. So, there we go. It still has the Japanese origin. And thank you for the definition. So, now we all know S-tier. S-tier is a thing. Okay.

Now, here's something about the bro split that I don't like. Here's two things about the bro split that I don't like. Frequency of once per week. Remember, if you have the option, go two. Okay. Frequency of once per week. Even though you are saturating that muscle group and you're probably going to be in so much soreness that you feel as though you need seven days to recover, and you can actually achieve meaningful gains with seven days of recovery and only performing frequency of once per week. Okay? Research supports that. Practical application supports that. You still get gains. Two days is still better. Okay? Two days is still better. So, there's one downfall.

The next downfall: you're training four days of upper, one day of lower. Okay, that just bothers me. I don't know. All I see is really jacked upper body and very skinny legs. Not a good look. Okay, so that's chicken legs. Chicken legs. If you like the look of chicken legs, you should do the bro split. For me, I'm unfortunately upper body dominant, not by choice. And well, actually, it is by choice. It was by the wrong choice when I started. This was the split that I used to do once per week and four days upper. And I have an upper body dominant physique. So, I've spent the rest of my training career trying to balance that out.

Big dog, did you catch my question or did you miss the answer? I did not catch your question. Where is it? Okay. If you want to build your squat, can you still train bench twice a week as well as a squat without becoming too fatigued? Absolutely. So, here's you have to understand. Okay. Let me use that analogy. Let me use Kirill Sarychev as the analogy or as the illustration. Kirill Sarychev is my bench press mentor. He was previously the world record-holding bench presser with a 335 kg bench press. It has been beaten by a man that weighed 30 kilograms heavier than him, which is Julius Maddox. So, Kirill Sarychev 335, Julius Maddox 355, right? So, it's 20 kilograms more from a guy who weighs 30 kg more. So, I'm not doing the pound-for-pound thing, but I still factor it in. I consider that Kirill as the best technical bench presser of the heavyweight bench presses in the world. Now, when he trains for his bench-only competition, trains four days per week: two days bench, one heavy, one light, and one day squat, one day deadlift. Okay? So, even when he's training for a bench press competition, he still does lower body in that week. He just uses a lower intensity. Okay. He just uses lower intensity.

Jazz, I got his route. Don't worry, Jack. I'll answer it for you. I'd love to hear your answer. By all means, go for it. Uh, don't put it on on Mike. Just write it in. I want to see it. I'll I'll I'll give you a mark after this. And we're using the tier system. If it deserves an S-tier, I'll give it. Okay. It must be if it must be if you're critiquing my answer. Anyway, I'm only joking. I'd love to hear your answer. Okay.

So, next day, 5-day split. So, check this out. I hope that answered your question, Jack. Yeah, absolutely. You can squat and prioritize your bench. This is what I paid Charles Poliquin $1,000 an hour for. All right, so this is one of my consultations that I had with him. That's how much he slugged me. And you know, when someone charges you that much money, you hang on to every word. And I've used this since, you know, since I did it with him, which was about 15 years ago since I had the consultations with him. So, check this out for a split. It is highly considered. I quite love it. So, it's basically it's a five-day split, okay? Lower body three times, upper body twice. So, let's have a look at it. So, we have a look at from week one to week two, there's just a slight modification. Okay, so the upper body days remain the same. So, that's day two and day four is upper body. Okay. One, three, and five is where it changes. Okay. In week one, we go squat, deadlift, squat. In week two, we go deadlift, squat, deadlift, and then we just rotate. So, what does that allow for? It allows for three to four days of recovery between our upper body sessions, which is optimal. So, you bench press on Monday and Thursday, say, or Tuesday and Friday, whatever it is. That's three to four days of recovery between your bench press sessions. And then you squat on Monday and Saturday and Wednesday and Monday and Saturday and Wednesday. Monday and Saturday and Wednesday. Monday and Saturday and Wednesday. So, you're giving yourself five days of recovery for the squat sessions. And you deadlift Wednesday, Monday, Saturday, Wednesday, Monday, Saturday. Does that make sense? Okay. So, between squat days, you're giving yourself five days' recovery. Deadlift days, you're giving yourself five days' recovery. Upper body days, you're giving yourself three to four days' recovery. I quite love this. However, I have a small complaint with it, which you're going to see here, which has the five gold stars. Thank you very much. The strength system standard. You know, no hate on Charles Poliquin. Nothing but love from me. That guy taught me like probably was the biggest influencer when it comes to my programming knowledge and understanding of strength coaching. Okay, may he rest in peace. However, in my opinion, squats need less time to recover than deadlifts. So, to give them equal priority, which means five days a week for squats and five days a week for deadlift is a little bit of an imbalance in my opinion. I would prefer to allow for more recovery for deadlifts and slightly less for squats. My sweet spot, sweet spot, sweet spot is two times a week for upper body, two times a week for squats, one time per week for deadlifts. Okay? So, my split is not a rotation of two weeks. It's essentially five days. So, we go squat twice, upper body twice, and deadlift once. So, if you came to me for a 5-day split, that's my strength system, five gold star standard. Okay? It's very similar to the Poliquin split. Okay? But I would say it's probably a little bit more appropriate for the heavier deadlifters. Okay? I know some deadlifters, and this is something that we have to consider, okay? I'll always play devil's advocate on myself. I know like for me, when I was at my my strength peak, I would come in every single squat session, and I don't care what you put on the bar, it feels good, okay? I'll just go down and up. I don't care what you put on the bar. But when it comes to deadlift, it's so damn temperamental for me where I would come in one session and blast it, and then the next session my confidence is sky-high, and I'm weak. I don't know what it is. I just it's just so temperamental. Now, I work with many lifters who are exactly like that except for deadlifts. So, they come in, they can come in and pick up anything off the floor at any given day with higher frequency, low frequency, whatever it is. Their body's built for deadlifts. But then when it comes to squats, it's temperamental as deadlifts are for me. What's the explanation for that? Okay, I'll tell you my explanation for that. Okay, so this is what I talk about training morale. Squatters love squatting and hate deadlifting. You come into your session like me with the attitude of, I hate deadlifts. That's what you're going to cop, and vice versa. People that just love their deadlifts. Okay, so their training morale is a lot higher on these days. Now, here's a little bit of the science, which isn't backed by research. It's backed by practical application, but I'll still refer to it as the science. Heavy spine loading multiple times per week ain't happening with high absolute strength athletes. Okay. So, you know, enter the Lily Bridge method where they only they squat and deadlift on the same day because the spine can only [clears throat] handle one heavy session per week. Okay. So, when you come in and you allocate all of your enjoyment and your effort and your energy on your squat day, I don't care what it is, the second day of spine loading that week is going to be negatively affected. Okay. And vice versa. If you come in and you have a big deadlift session, there's a high likelihood that your squat's going to suck that week. Okay? So, this is when we have to get crafty with our programming strategy. If you remember two weeks ago, I gave you the programming strategy for that, which is called weekly undulating programming. If you remember it, if you don't remember it, that whole episode is two weeks old on our circle group. Go and watch it at any time. Okay. Yeah. So, you can squat day one, day five. That is very cool. And that is my optimal if I was to do a 5-day split. Okay.

All right. Last, I don't want to say last but not least, I would say kind of least: six-day split. I don't really do it. Okay. It's the option that I reserve for people that just love to be in the gym for whatever reason. I'm trying to be nice about this when I say a lot of people suffer from depression, okay? For whatever reasons. I work with a lot of people that are like this, and they need to be in the gym, or they're going to do something horrible. Okay? So, those people exist. So, fine. I'm going to give that to you. I'm not going to take it away from you. Okay? So, therefore, I'm going to write you a six-day split that works. Okay? I don't think it's superior. Okay? Now, six days doesn't mean I'm going to do more volume. I'm going to do the same amount of volume but just spread it out over those six days. And my preferred split for that is push, pull, legs, push, pull, legs. Okay, so that's my split if I was to write you a six-day program. Push, pull, legs, push, pull, legs.

Now, the way that I do it, my interpretation of this, the deadlift goes on lower body day. It doesn't go on pull day. Pull is upper body pull. Okay. So, what's the difference between this and my 4-day split? Actually, not much, except for it's spread out over the four days. For my 4-day split, I do upper body push, pull in the one session. For my six days, I divide it. So, one day is push, and one day is pull. Okay? And then of the leg days, I should have written day three legs is quad dominant, and day six legs is posterior dominant or deadlift dominant. Damn, I'm good. That's 5:00 p.m., and I am finished. Okay, my team. So, there is today's session on training splits. I hope that helped. I hope you guys use this. I hope you found it valuable. If you ever are to write a program, um, and play around with your splits, please come back and reference these slides and this video. I love you all. I love you all.

Now, that was a 1-hour session that I gave to my mentorship group. So, this is something that I do every single week with a whole bunch of amazing industry professionals that are personal trainers with so many different goals. Some people own gyms, some people are expert online coaches, and some people are beginners. But this session was based on training splits. Every good coach needs to know how to write great programs. And that's a huge component of program design is understanding all of the different splits that are available to us. And of course, this comes with conditions, which I hope that I thoroughly explained in that session. So, if you learned something from that, go and use it and succeed with it and all of that good stuff. And I hope you enjoy it. And if you want more content like this, write it in the comment section. And if you want to join my mentorship group and receive these education sessions every single week, plus be coached by me, because that's a part of the mentorship is I believe that you need to be the walking billboard for the product that you sell. So, that's why I coach and program for all of the members of the mentorship group. And if you want that to be you, then click the link wherever it is down here and join my mentorship group and learn from me firsthand. Anyway, hope you enjoyed that session. See you next time.