Whether you're looking to lose weight or build muscle and bulk up, there are plenty of workout programs to choose from. Unfortunately, not all of them are incredibly effective. Finding a well-designed workout program can help you build strength and size in no time and make the most of your efforts in the gym.
Three-Day Splits
Three-day splits are popular for beginners, but also for experienced lifters that need a change to bust through a plateau. As personal trainer and bodybuilding expert Mark Mahler notes, a 5x5 set up is great for three-day splits. This means you perform five sets of five repetitions for each exercise.
Three-day splits involve lifting on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, or Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. They provide ample time for rest and recovery, which is needed, because three-day splits involve the use of full body workouts--you target your upper and lower body each workout.
Upper/Lower Split
Upper/lower splits usually entail hitting the gym four days per week, though it doesn't matter which days you. The only rule is that if you're going to work out two days in a row, one day should be an upper day, and the other should be a lower day.
"Upper" and "lower" refer to upper body and lower body. An upper body day involves exercises for your upper body: shoulders, arms and chest. A lower body day involves exercises for your legs and back.
As Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) Jimmy Smith notes, upper/lower splits are great because they strike a balance between intensity and frequency and increase focus on specific areas.
Body Part Split
Body-part splits involve setting aside one day for each body part and can have you training about five days per week. Typically, workouts are shorter because you are only concentrating on one muscle group per session. As Jimmy Smith points out, body part splits allow for a lot of recovery time, but don't offer much in terms of frequency.
A body part split workout week could include working the chest on Monday, biceps on Tuesday, legs on Wednesday, triceps on Thursday and back on Friday.
Push/Pull Split
A push/pull split tends to get you into the gym about four days per week. The set-up is similar to the upper/lower split in that you can train two consecutive days, as long as you are pushing one day and pulling the next.
Push/pull split workouts focus on muscle movements--pushing or pulling--, regardless of whether the muscles are in your upper or lower body. Bodybuilding.com recommends splitting your muscles into groups, working just a few of them for each session: The pull includes biceps, back, hamstrings and shoulders, while the push focuses on triceps, chest, quadriceps and calves.
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