Creating the Ultimate Lifting Split: Muscle Building Workout Guide

If you want your training to be productive AND effective , then like anything else it needs to be purposeful, organized, and executed. This should not come as a surprise.

Unfortunately, it comes as a surprise to more people than you would think. Not because they didn’t know these things, but because they never took the time to think about them and what they mean.

Purposeful.

This is twofold.

Firstly, your training must serve a purpose, i.e., what is your goal? When you have a specific goal in mind, your training is given weight. I don’t mean weight you are lifting in the gym – I mean ‘weight’, as in, it becomes REAL. It becomes a means to an end – not the means itself. We are no longer training just to train; we are training with an end-state goal in mind. This gives importance and accountability to each and every session.

Secondly, purposeful training means we train with a purpose – with EFFORT. We are not going in there and just checking the box, going through the motions. We are applying ourselves – present in the moment – pushing ourselves to reach and surpass our limits. This is how progress is achieved.

Purpose brings effort. Effort raises intensity. LFG

Organized.

For your training to be effective long term, then it must be organized and planned out. Notice I emphasized long term. Anyone can show up and have a good workout. However, what separates your casual weekend-warrior who exercises and the legit athletes who make progress in the gym, boils down to the difference between exercise and training.

Exercise is showing up, moving your body, and burning some calories, all for the sake of checking the box on a given day. You showed up because it makes you feel better and then you move on with your day. You come back the next day or every other day and repeat the cycle. No session has any influence over the next.

Exercise in this context isn’t bad – don’t get me wrong. This is lightyears better than what most people are doing. However, it still exists on a spectrum, and it is at the opposite end of where you want to be if you are looking to really make some strides in your performance and physique.

Training is at the other end of that spectrum. Training is strategic. Training systematically lays a plan out over the course of months – sometimes even years – with a singular goal in mind. Every workout, every exercise, every set and rep scheme, is planned with the end-state goal in mind. It has a specific reason for being in the program.

Furthermore, no workout lives in complete isolation. Every workout is a small piece to a bigger puzzle that is put together over the course of 9, 12, 16 weeks (or whatever length of time the program is) and continually builds upon itself.

Your training needs to be prepared and planned ahead of time. No showing up the day of and doing random stuff – that type of play has no room for the serious athlete.

You also need to record your sessions. What weights did you use? How long were your rest periods? How many sets did you do? How many reps did you get? Etc.

How can you build off it next week if you don’t know what you did the week prior??? Be accountable and log your training!

Execute.

This one speaks for itself. Once you have a goal and you have an action plan in place to achieve that goal,

DO THE WORK – Period.

LIFTING SPLITS

The scope of this article is going to cover the organization aspect of our training. I am not going to go into the finer details of programming itself – because that is heavily dependent on the individual and their goals. However, I will give you some of my favorite training splits. A training split is how you can organize your workouts over the course of a week.

A common question I get asked a lot is ‘how many days a week should I workout?’ And I always respond with ‘how many days a week can you workout?’

If I tell you 5 days a week, yet you can only get to the gym 3 days per week, then that advice doesn’t really do you any good. Therefore, you need to understand your schedule and decide how many days you can fully dedicate 60-90 minutes to get a high-quality training session in.

Once you have that nailed down, then you can utilize one of the templates below and start crushing.

TWICE A WEEK PLAN & THREE DAYS PER WEEK PLAN

This template can be used for both twice per week AND three times per week. Two sessions a week is straight forward – you complete each session once over the course of the week (preferably with 48-72 hours in between).

For three times per week, you will stagger the sessions over the course of every two weeks. For example, week 1 will be sessions A, B, A. Week 2 will be sessions B, A, B. This two-week cycle is then repeated. Therefore, you are completing both sessions a total of 3 times over a two-week period. Most commonly, three sessions a week are completed M, W, F, or T, TH, Sa. You then get two days off before the next training week starts.

All workouts in these templates are full-body muscle building workouts. Because we are only getting 2-3 sessions in per week, we need to ensure the entire body is getting stimulated in every session. If you do not do full body sessions, then there is just too much time in between exposures to really push progress to the best of our ability.

Session A

Dynamic Warm Up

A1) Squat Pattern

A2) Upper Body Pull – Vertical

B1) Unilateral Hinge

B2) Upper Body Push – Horizontal

C1) Delt/Bicep/Triceps exercise (pick one)

C2) Calf/Tibialis (pick one)

C3) Carry/Core

Session B

Dynamic Warm Up

A1) Hinge Pattern

A2) Upper Body Push – Vertical

B1) Unilateral Squat

B2) Upper Body Pull – Horizontal

C1) Carry/Core

C2) Delt/Bicep/Triceps exercise (pick one)

C3) Rotation

FOUR DAYS PER WEEK PLAN

Once you move to four days a week, I find it more beneficial to move to an upper-lower-body split. This means you will be training upper or lower body exclusively within a session. In my opinion, this is the best (and my personal favorite) split for building size and strength and what I have found the most success with in myself and my clients. It allows for more volume than either of the previous two splits and still gives multiple exposures to the whole body over the course of the week. Let me be clear – there are MANY ways you can create your workouts with this split. Below is just a very simple and basic layout to a week.

Upper Body Session 1

Dynamic Warm Up

A1) Upper Body Push – Horizontal

A2) Upper Body Pull – Horizontal

B1) Upper Body Push – Vertical

B2) Upper Body Pull – Vertical

C1) Bicep Variation

C2) Triceps Variation

C3) Carry

Lower Body Session 1

Dynamic Warm Up

A1) Hinge

B1) Unilateral Squat

C1) Squat (sub maximal, higher volume)

C2) Calf/Tibialis

D1) Core/Rotation

Upper Body Session 2

A1) Upper Body Pull – Vertical

A2) Upper Body Push – Vertical

B1) Upper Body Pull – Horizontal

B2) Upper Body Pull – Vertical

C1) Delt/Trap Variation

C2) Triceps Variation

C3) Bicep Variation

Lower Body Session 2

A1) Squat

B1) Unilateral Hinge

C1) Unilateral Squat

C2) Calf/Tibialis

D1) Core/Rotation

FIVE DAYS PER WEEK PLAN

Five days per week is the most I will ever program someone typically – and this is RARE. If you are lifting with the goal of building legit size and strength and are doing it the RIGHT way (without the use of PEDs), then 4 is the sweet spot for the vast majority of natural lifters. However, there are some athletes out there who have a tremendous work capacity and just love the grind – therefore, a fifth day not only can lend itself to further physical progress but can also give them a mental boost.

When we start to construct a 5-day split, we merely just build off the 4-day split and the added day becomes a full body, accessory type day.

NOT another high intensity/high volume day. Read that again…

This fifth day can be utilized to fill in the finer gaps that are left open during the week – smaller things that cannot warrant constant attention.

The best thing about this 5-day split is that it lends itself for the most personalization. Whatever your specific weaknesses are – whether they be performance based, or physique based – this is the day to give them that extra love. Things like foot/ankle strength, grip strength, neck/traps, more arm work, more core work, extra conditioning, etc.

Below is an example split of someone who may be looking to add some thickness to their shoulders and arms.

Upper Body Session 1 (Day 1)

Dynamic Warm Up

A1) Upper Body Push – Horizontal

A2) Upper Body Pull – Horizontal

B1) Upper Body Push – Vertical

B2) Upper Body Pull – Vertical

C1) Bicep Variation

C2) Triceps Variation

C3) Carry

Lower Body Session 1 (Day 2)

Dynamic Warm Up

A1) Hinge

B1) Unilateral Squat

C1) Squat (sub maximal, higher volume)

C2) Calf/Tibialis

D1) Core/Rotation

Upper Body Session 2 (Day 3)

A1) Upper Body Pull – Vertical

A2) Upper Body Push – Vertical

B1) Upper Body Pull – Horizontal

B2) Upper Body Pull – Vertical

C1) Delt/Trap Variation

C2) Triceps Variation

C3) Bicep Variation

Lower Body Session 2 (Day 4)

A1) Squat

B1) Unilateral Hinge

C1) Unilateral Squat

C2) Calf/Tibialis

D1) Core/Rotation

Full Body Session 1 (Day 5)

A1) Delt Raise Variation

B1) Bicep Variation

B2) Triceps Variation

C1) Rear Delt Variation/Horizontal Pull

C2) Carry

Any of these options is a great way to structure your training and will yield results – given you are lifting with ample intensity and volume. For simplicity’s sake, if you stick with 3-4 sets per exercise for 6-15 reps, you will be covering most of your bases.

Don’t shy away from heavier sets (2-5 reps), and don’t completely shy away from pushing sets deep into the 20+ rep range. If the primary goal is building muscle, sets like this shouldn’t be the focal point, but when used moderately, they absolutely will be effective.

If you are reading this, chances are you have the goal of getting stronger and/or bigger. That’s good – having a goal is step one.

I have given you the tools to begin planning and organizing your training here. Be sure to plan it out, record your sessions, and maintain the course.

All that’s left is to EXECUTE. Do the work. Push yourself a little more each week, recover, and then come back for more.

If you use any one of these templates and stay consistent with it, you will see insane gains.

It’s not a matter of if – only a matter of when.

I guarantee it.

If you want to know how to tailor a split specifically for you, feel free to schedule a call through the link below!

Schedule A Call

C-Roy