Most Effective Training Split to Build Muscle for Natural Lifters? | How to Build Muscle Fast
A hotly discussed topic on YouTube fitness channels and all over the web always is, ‘What’s the Most Effective Training Split to Build Muscle as a natural lifter’. Rightly so really as it is an important thing to consider, when and which body parts you will hit on which specific days throughout the week is something that does need to be planned out.
There are many different variations of training splits. There’s the standard ‘Bro Split’ of Chest one day, then Back, then Shoulders, then Legs then Arms. Then there are Push and Pull splits, Upper body/ Lower body have become popular too and so forth. During this blog I will discuss each of them in further detail highlighting the benefits of them all, and revealing the truths behind splits.
The 'Bro Split'
There really is only one place to start in this debate and that is with the most common split (especially for beginners) it has been famously labelled the ‘Bro Split’ all over social media and consists typically of the following:
• Chest Day
• Back Day • Shoulders Day • Leg Day • Arms Day
So the main benefit of this split is that you get a whole training session to concentrate on one muscle. This allows you to fully concentrate on and exhaust that one muscle ensuring that you adequately break down the muscle fibres and therefore cause muscle growth. It is also quite an enjoyable split, as every day mentally the task looks less daunting when you just have to work one body part and not multiple.
However, there are probably more drawbacks then there are positives for a natural lifter. The main one being training frequency. Using this split you will only be able to
train each body part once a week and maybe one muscle group you will get to train twice. This isn’t optimal for natural bodybuilders as protein synthesis after a workout (muscle growth) typically stops after 48-72 hours. So after this point if you aren’t training that muscle again, you are missing out potential further growth.
Now people will argue that this isn’t strictly true as for example although you only work shoulders one day, a good chest workout will also involve the shoulders, hence you are working it more than once a week. While this argument has a point, fully training every muscle twice a week would generally be much more beneficial for a natural lifter.
Another potential flaw is in that, the big heavy compound movements really are the key to building an impressive physique and strength. These typically being big chest, back and leg movements. With this split as you are only training those body parts on three of the days, you are missing out on the benefits of compound lifting on the other days of the week.
So... Maybe increasing frequency would be better?...
With many people then believing that higher frequency is the key with regards to training splits, the natural next split to discuss is Full Body Workouts. These obviously as the name implies, trains every body part on a workout day, which is then followed by a Rest Day and this cycle repeats. The main benefit of this mainly lies in training frequency as every body part is being worked usually three times a week.
The limitation with this is that unless you are going to spend 4 hours in the gym (which would be barbaric anyway) you aren’t going to be able to concentrate and really isolate the individual muscle groups. Realistically doing full body workouts you aren’t going to get time for any isolation movements, which are really good for really concentrating on specific muscles, to cause the large amounts of microfiber tears that induce large amounts of muscle growth.
The flip side of this is that everything you do in the gym is likely to be a big heavy compound movement which is the main muscle growth stimulant.
So there are strong arguments for full body workouts and many people swear by them, you are however just going to be missing out on really concentrated work on the specific muscles.
Push/ Pull Splits
Luckily then, there is a split that meets in the middle of those two already described. That would be the Push/ Pull/ Legs split. Here as the name suggests, there is one day which focuses on the muscles used to Push (Chest, Shoulders Triceps). Then there similarly is a Pull Day (Back, Biceps, Traps), followed by a Leg Day. This split then draws upon the advantages of both of the other two splits, by providing you with both high training frequency, whilst also being able to spend a decent chunk of time each workout on specific muscles. This is because you get to train each muscle twice a week, and you aren’t working too many muscles each workout so you can focus on really working hard specific muscles.
The general consensus nowadays is that this is the best split for hypertrophy (muscle growth) for natural bodybuilders. It is also the split I use most and the one I generally prescribe for my clients, and is the split used for out Free Training Plan, due to having a good blend of the two benefits.
The negative of this split is that the workouts can be psychologically demanding, for example on Push Day having spent 20-30 minutes on heavy compound chest movements, you’ve still then got to work Shoulders and Triceps, so this is tough mentally as well as physically.
If that mental and physical strain is too much for you then you could change to a 4-day split of Chest & Triceps/ Back & Biceps/ Shoulders/ Legs. This adds that extra element of specialisation, but you do lose out on frequency, when compared to Push/ Pull or Full Body.
Which is Best?
As you can see then there are positives and negatives to them all, and as such there is no one training split that is ultimately the best for building muscle. The main factor is actually the fact that you are doing a split and you are sticking to it and that you are going to the gym consistently, working hard and eating hard. They are actually the main things that will contribute to considerable muscle growth. Different splits will realistically have minimal differences between one another.
Really then... Do What Suits You!
The point then is that you should choose whichever split WORKS for YOU! If you
enjoy doing a ‘Bro Split’ because you can specifically work on each muscle group then great do that. If you are busy and can only go to the gym 3 days a week then do full body workouts on those three days. Fitness is all about consistency and consistency will only come about if you enjoy what you are doing. So my advice is to try all the aforementioned splits, and see which one you personally prefer doing. That split will then be the best regime for building muscle for YOU! If you have any fitness related questions at all we'd love to help out! So fire away at evolvemusclefitness@gmail.com with any questions you may have!
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