If that is all you do, you will be golden. These are the exercises listed first, and this is the most important part of the program. Increase the weight when you can do the indicated sets and reps with good technique.Įach workout contains a core part. Do these workouts over the course of a week. StrengthLog’s Upper/Lower Split Program, 4 Days/Weekīelow is an outline of the program. In the next section, you’ll learn the how.įirst in a bird’s eye view, and then in a closer look. Now you know why the upper/lower body program is centered around these big four movements. But honestly, these movements alone will be more than enough to develop six-pack abs, provided that you’re lean enough. While these movements will train your core, some direct ab work can be added. Pick one or a few exercises to target these different major movements, and you will work almost every major muscle group in your body. These muscles emphasize your lower back, glutes, hamstrings, and traps. Any exercise where you bend forward at the hip, like deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, and kettlebell swings. These exercises primarily train your quads, glutes, calves, and adductors. Examples include the barbell squat, front squat, and leg press. Any exercise where you bend your knees and extend them again. Same thing here: do a horizontal pull (like the barbell row) and a vertical pull (like the pull-up) to emphasize slightly different back muscles. Pulling exercises works your lats, traps, rear delts, and biceps. Want to get more granular? Do a horizontal push (like the bench press) to emphasize your chest, and a vertical push (like the overhead press) to emphasize your shoulders. Pushing exercises works your chest, shoulders, and triceps. Here’s a rule of thumb that will simplify strength training for you forever:įor full-body training, do one each of these: For the next section, let’s look at how the upper/lower split routine can cover all your major muscle groups. Finally, spreading your training out on four workouts per week means that you get top-class training in, while still spending less than an hour in the gym per workout. Besides, the marginal gains in going from 2x/week to 3x/week are very small. Training each muscle only once per week would leave you plenty of days per week where you aren’t growing, and training a muscle three times per week steeply increases the injury risk unless you really know what you are doing. Twice weekly training for your joints and muscles is a sweet spot. This is a great training frequency for allowing close to full recovery, while still keeping your muscles in an almost constantly growing state. You will alternate between the upper and lower body workouts, which means that your muscles will get three to four rest days in between each training session. Benefits of Upper/Lower Body Split RoutinesĪn upper/lower split running on four days per week means you will be doing two upper body + two lower body workouts.

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