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How to Create Your Perfect Bodybuilding Split

If you’ve read one of my previous posts “5 Reasons Why Your Muscle Building Program Sucks,” you will know that most people suffer from Program ADD or Program Hopping.

This is when you jump from split to split.

I like to tell people to follow a split for at least 3 months.

This allows you to establish a baseline and progress.

Through my experience, lifters jump from split to split because they get bored with their current split and are looking for something new and exciting.

How about we fix that problem?

How about you create your perfect bodybuilding split now so that a month or two down the road you won’t be looking for a new split?

I’m glad you are on board with this idea.

So, how do you go about creating your perfect bodybuilding split?

You do so by following these 5 steps.

Step 1 – Determine how many days a week you are available to train.

Your schedule may allow you to train Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.

Step 2 – Determine how long your sessions could last.

Your schedule may allow you to workout for an hour on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and allow you to workout for 30-40 minutes on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Step 3 – Determine how many days a week you want to train.

Even though your schedule allows you to train 5 days a week, maybe you only want to train 4 days a week.  Maybe you don’t want to train on Fridays.

Step 4 – Determine how long you want your sessions to last.

Although your schedule allows you to train for an hour on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays maybe you only want to train for 30 intense minutes on each of those days.

Step 5 – Make a list of your favorite exercises (it could be 2 or 20, just write them down).

• Lat Pulldowns
• Seated Cable Rows
• 1-Arm Dumbbell Rows
• Chest Press
• Hack Squats
• Concentration Curls

Let’s say the above are what you come up with for your absolute favorite exercises.

Step 6 – What are your favorite bodypart(s)?

This piggybacks off of #5.

Chances are that your favorite exercises target your favorite muscle groups.

From your list of favorite exercises your 3 favorites are Lat Pulldowns, Seated Cable Rows and 1-Arm Dumbbell Rows.

All 3 exercises target your Back so your Back is probably your favorite muscle group.

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Putting it all together…

You will be training on Mondays for 30 minutes, Tuesdays for 30-40 minutes, Thursdays for 30 minutes, and Saturdays for 30 minutes.

Each day will focus on 1 or 2 of your favorite exercises.

Since Back is your favorite muscle group, you will be performing more work for your Back than any other muscle group.

2 examples of a perfect bodybuilding split

Split #1

Monday

• Lat Pulldowns  5 x 12-15
• Concentration Curls  3 x 12-15

 

Tuesday

• Hack Squats  5 x 15-20
• Hamstring Curls  5 x 15-20
•  Calf Raises  3 x 15-20

Wednesday – off

Thursday

• Chest Press  10 x 10
• Seated Cable Rows  3 x 8-12
• Triceps Pressdowns  3 x 15-20

Friday – off

Saturday

• 1-Arm Dumbbell Rows  3 x 8-12
• Push Ups  3 x failure
• Standing Dumbbell Military Press  3 x 12-15

Sunday – off

Split #2

Monday

• Hack Squats  4 x 15-20
• Lat Pulldowns  4 x 8-12
• Chest Press  4 x 8-12
• Barbell Curls  2 x 12-15
• Triceps Pressdowns  2 x 12-15

Tuesday – off

Wednesday

• Pull Ups  4 x failure
• Push Ups 4 x failure
• Concentration Curls  2 x 12-15
• Close-Grip Bench Press  2 x 12-15
• Leg Press  2 x 8-12

Thursday – off

Friday

• 1-Arm Dumbbell Rows  5 x 8-12
• Dumbbell Bench Press  5 x 8-12
• Leg Press  2 x 15-20
• Hamstring Curls  2 x 15-20

Saturday – off

Sunday – off

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photo credit:  Vaibhav Arora 

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Build Big Arms With HFT

I don’t know you, but I’m pretty sure that you started this whole weight lifting thing because you wanted to build big arms.

Am I right? Thought so.

And the great thing about building big arms is that there is always room for improvement. Your arms can always get bigger. And I’m here to help.

Look, a lot of things work for building big arms. All I’m trying to do is give you another option.

Possibly one that you’ve never tried before.

It’s called High Frequency Training or HFT.

Tell me if the following split looks familiar.

Typical split

• Monday – Back (10 sets)
• Tuesday – Chest (10 sets)
• Wednesday – off
• Thursday – Legs (10 sets)
• Friday – Arms (10 sets Biceps / 10 sets Triceps)
• Saturday & Sunday – off

Chances are you are following a split very similar to the one above.

Is there anything wrong with it?

Not at all.

However, when you want a muscle to grow faster, you want to stimulate it as often as possible without exceeding your ability to recover.

Stimulating a muscle 3 times a week will lead to more growth than just stimulating that muscle 1 time a week.

This is where HFT comes in.

Take a look at the following HFT split for big arms.

A Better Split for Building Bigger Arms Using HFT

• Monday – Back (10 sets) / Biceps (3 sets) / Triceps (3 sets)
• Tuesday – Legs (10 sets)
• Wednesday –  Chest (10 sets) / Biceps (3 sets) / Triceps (3 sets)
• Thursday – off
• Friday – Biceps (3 sets) / Triceps (3 sets)
• Saturday & Sunday – off

You will notice that you are working your biceps and triceps 3 times a week instead of just 1 time a week in the previous example.

You will also notice that the total volume for your arms is basically the same.

Although you are working your arms more often, you are not adding any volume. You are simply splitting up the total volume into more sessions.

This is key.

Your biceps and triceps are small muscles, therefore, they recover faster and you can train them more often.

This is why your biceps and triceps are perfect muscles to use for HFT.

Try an arm specialization program using HFT and let me know what it does for you. Add your feedback in the Comments.

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How I Am Training Now

Here’s an update on my training. As you may know, I’ve been a proponent of low-volume, low-frequency split training. It is simply the best muscle-building system I have come across.

Typically, I split my body into two parts, and train each half every other day (Monday-Wednesday-Friday, for example).

However, I am experimenting with a new split – a 3 way split where I train my Legs, Torso, and Arms and Shoulders on alternative days.

Here are the benefits to such training: First, I get a whole week to recover from a workout. This is working great for my recovery. The other cool thing is, since I’m training harder, with more volume and weight, little injuries crop up and I can structure my workouts such that I can get nearly 2 weeks between workouts for an injured body part. (Right now, I am dealing with a knee injury. It’s NOT from my weight training. Rather, it’s the unfortunate outcome of three knee surgeries after being hit by a car when I was a teenager. In fact, the heavy training has made my knee feel better than ever.)

As I alluded to earlier, some other benefits of this schedule is that I can work with heavier weights, higher sets, and more variety between reps, weights, and exercises.

The drawbacks to this split are: I’m not sure I’m getting enough stimulation. I mean, the higher intensity and volumes work wonders. But I feel like there’s too much time between workouts. One of the things I can do to deal with this is to focus on a specific body part that I want to improve. For example, if I feel like my biceps are not getting enough frequency, I can split them out and train them separately from the rest of my body parts on a Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday. This is an option I haven’t tried yet, but it is certainly feasible.

I also am not doing much in the way of supplementation, either. Currently, I’m taking a multi-vitamin, calcium, and a glucosamine/condroitin mix (to help repair the knee). When I really get back into my weight training again, I’ll begin taking a weight gain powder, creatine, and some BCAAs. I’d like to gain about 20 pounds of muscle.

What do you think about this new split? Have you tried something like it? Any pointers? Let me know in the Comments – would love to hear your take on this.