The Best training Split
This doesn’t exist.
Beginners
Beginners start off with whats called a ‘Whole Body’ split.
This is due to the fact that fatigue occurs quickly with beginners and each bodypart usually only needs one exercise of about 3 sets in order to create fatigue.
Every part is given one exercise and the workout usually contains 6 to 8 exercises.
Normally arms are not given any work because they have already been fatigued.
The idea is to teach a beginner how to perform each exercise.
It’s suggested that beginners train 2 to 3 times per week with the idea being to give repetitive actions with each exercise in order to create neural pathways.
These Whole Body splits may last for 1 to 3 months. Depending on frequency and many times because beginners may actually enjoy the programs and want to continue for longer.
Sometimes athletes use them indefinitely because their strength workouts are sport based they may only train 1 - 2 times per week.
2 day splits
Intermediate type splits which can be for later stage beginners and intermediate trainers.
In this type of split we may do;
1. Upper body body and lower body
2. Chest,shoulders and arms on one split and legs and Back on the other split.
3. Torso on one split and legs and Arms on the other split.
The way we split body-parts depends on preference. Or on previous injuries or disabilities.
The split always has a reason and in this way there is no perfect split.
The reason we move from a whole body split to a 2 day split is because as beginners become stronger they find it difficult to train everything all at once.
There is also the opportunity to train muscles from different angles. In this way we can start doing 2 exercises per body-part and begin to train arms.
The number of exercises per bodypart can stay the same. Approximately 6 to 8 exercises.
The number of sets per exercise may also increase. But the number of work sets will be similar. Because the beginner/intermediate trainer is getting stronger they now need to use pyramid style progressions in weights to warm up.
Triple Splits
These are three day splits. They are more intermediate to advanced. They are advanced splits because even advanced lifters use these splits.
Once again there is no exact method of splitting bodyparts or movement patterns. I say movement patterns because these types of splits are not just bodypart based.
These are the popular splits.
1. Push/pull/legs
These splits more split into movement patterns. Day 1 is push or chest/shoulders and triceps. Day 2 is back and biceps and Day 3 is Legs.
The reason for these splits is;
To train chest and every body-part that is a pushing action and uses triceps as the muscle that gets hit the hardest.
To train back and the muscle group that most contributes to helping the back muscles and that is the biceps.
Then the next day is Legs which obviously are separated based on the fact that Legs take a lot of energy to train.
2. Chest and back/legs/shoulders and arms.
This type of program uses push/pull in the same workout.
Chest and Back is trained in the same workout and many times as supersets of chest and Back.
This type of workout can be intense and certainly leaves you whole upper body quite fatigued.
Legs is also trained as push/pull or quads and hamstrings as push/pull.
We can put squats and leg curls as a superset or leg press and stiff leg deadlifts.
Arms can be push/pull as well.
3 day splits still have a similar training volume but each body-part will receive more training volume.
Beyond 3 day splits, the focus is a lot more bodybuilding based and body-part focussed.
It’s important at this point to group body-parts in a way that doesn’t hinder training of another body-part
4 and 5 day splits can be used to focus on week bodyparts. So in this sense these types of splits are advanced splits.
How these splits are grouped can be personal preference based on ensuring maximum recovery of some body-parts.
Conclusion
It’s important to realise that there is no magic split that is more effective. It’s the split that works best for your body and how your muscles develop over time.
There are differences in how power lifts do splits and how bodybuilders do splits.
How athletes from different sports also split their workouts in different ways in order to maximize strength and power.
They may also minimize fatigue so that it doesn’t hinder their sports specific training.
Once again there is no perfect way to split your workouts. It’s what suits the application of those workouts.
For maximum results it may be important to use different training splits each training cycle in order to give different stimulus and to maximize results and change focus.
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