I’ve went through the search function in an attempt to find something that explains how upper/lower body splits should be programmed, but outside of Westside for Skinny Bastards I couldn’t find anything that gave any real rhyme or reason to the exercises included or otherwise explain things besides “Upper body should include chest, triceps, blah blah” and “Lower body should include hamstring, quads, etc”.
So, as the subject asks, how should I be programming a upper/lower body split? I’ve been thinking of doing something like-
Main strength exercise.
Volume based secondary exercise.
1-2 assistance exercise. Probably 1 for lower body, a superset of 2 exercises for upper-body.
Upper back.
For each training day. I include upper back in each because personal experience tells me that the upper back seems to recover from rows and chin-ups easily and I like a wide and big looking back.
there are a number of ways how to do this… A few that come to mind are
WSB: max effort lower / max effort upper / dynamic effort lower / dynamic effort upper
WSFSB: max effort lower / max effort upper / dynamic effort lower / rep effort upper
531: Deadlift & accessory / Bench & acc / Squat & acc / OHP & acc
Renegade Strength: max effort upper / max effort lower / rep effort upper / Strongman day (prowler, farmers walk etc)
John Romaniello: heavy upper with compounds / arms & legs / heavy upper with compounds / arms & legs
Lean Muscle Hybrid: max effort Squat, RDL as acc / max effort bench, DB OHP as acc, arms / max effort DL, front sq as acc / max effort OHP, DB bench as acc, arms
Plenty of options. The main things you have to decide are
do I want all four days to be heavy?
do I want some overlap?
WHAT do I try to achieve? Hypertrophy, athleticism, practising lifts?
Generally, try not to do more than four or five exercises but really hammer those (personal opinion; YMMV).
howie424- Largely because I find my legs lose size and strength if I don’t squat frequently and at a fairly heavy weight relative to 1rm.
Nighthawkz- Thanks for the programs. I honestly forgot that 5/3/1 is essentially a lower/upper split as well. I might consider just doing 5/3/1 BBB for a while with a focus on squats and bench, with OHP and deadlift being accessory.
I just want a bunch of programs and/or some guidelines for upper/lower splits so that I can read up and educate myself on them.
[quote]magick wrote:
For each training day. I include upper back in each because personal experience tells me that the upper back seems to recover from rows and chin-ups easily and I like a wide and big looking back.[/quote]
Not to be Sammy Semantics, but you wouldn’t be doing an “upper/lower” split in this case. Does the terminology matter? Not really at all, nope. But doing rows, chins, and/or other back work along with legs would fit the most general definition of a “full body workout” - that being, an upper body exercise and a lower body exercise done in the same session.
Here’s a great 2-part roundtable with Waterbury, Thib, and Cosgrove discussing different splits:
(Note that it’s about 8 years old, so some of Thibs’ perspective may have changed. However, it’s still an interesting discussion.)
Upper/lower splits from Waterbury:
Horizontal push/pull on one upper day, quad-dominant on one lower day, vertical push/pull on the other upper day, and hip-dominant on the other lower day.
Vertical push/pull and horizontal push/pull on one upper day, quad-dominant lower day, push/pull and arms the other upper day, hip-dominant second lower day.
Upper/lower split from bodybuilding coach Clay Hyght:
Hitting back, chest, shoulders, bis and tris on upper day, and quads, hams, and calves on lower day.
