It’s a split decision on training

FOLLOWING on from resistance machines and free weights, I want to talk about a common training split in your week at the gym… and suggest a new one that may suit you better.

Back in the day, weights were thrown around and people would typically follow a bodybuilder split, also known as the ‘bro split’, which looked a little like this:

» Monday: Chest Day

» Tuesday: Back Day

» Wednesday: Leg D…. Arm Day… No, don’t do it, don’t skip Leg Day!

» Thursday: REST Day

» Friday: Shoulders

» Saturday: Arms (biceps and triceps)

Sunday: Rest Day. As God intended it to be, Sunday is a day of rest!

This may look familiar because it is a very common split a lot of people use in the gym, and they believe it is superior for muscle gain.

However, today, I want to talk about a different split variety that could be even more beneficial towards your training goals: The ‘push, pull and legs’ split.

This is a three-day split in which one workout focuses on all ‘push’ movements, the next on all ‘pull’ movements and the final one on all ‘leg/lower body’ movements.

Push

This is every exercise that requires you to perform a pushing motion with the weight or piece of equipment. This will mainly focus on the chest, shoulder and tricep muscle groups. This is because a chest or shoulder press will require you to push the weight away from you for the concentric phase, also known as the first part of the exercise. (Don’t believe me? Mimic a shoulder press now and you’ll see what I mean!)

Pull

This is every exercise that requires you to perform a pulling motion. This will mainly focus on the back and bicep muscle groups.

A pull-up, lateral pull-down and bicep curls etc will require you to pull the weight towards you for the concentric phase of the exercise.

Legs/lower body

This is, quite simply, every exercise that will focus on working all the lower body (mainly leg) muscle groups, such as the quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, calves, ab- and adductors.

Now, if you have the time to go to the gym six times a week you could perform each one of the above twice.

However, I understand that life gets in the way and you may not have this time, so why not combine them into one gym workout – i.e. if you go to the gym for one hour, then you could do 20 minutes’ push exercises, 20 minutes’ pull exercise and then 20 minutes’ lower body exercises? This could then be performed three times a week, varying the exercises you do for each segment each time.

Another benefit of this gym split is that you may work at a higher intensity knowing you only have 20 minutes on each section. I would advise starting with the hardest exercises first and then moving on to your easier ones as you go through your session.