Structuring your workouts

Having a structured workout plan is one of the keys to being successful in the gym. It will help ensure that you are performing good workouts and keeping everything consistent. The first step in creating a structured plan is choosing a workout split. A workout split is a way to assign certain days of the week to certain body parts. There are plenty of workout splits out there and I have gone through and used many of them. These three that I have chosen to write about have been used by me and I have decided that these are not only my personal favorites but the ones that I think are the most effective and building muscle and keeping healthy. The information below will help you create the best workout split for you.

My top workout splits

PPL

The push pull legs split is a very popular split that hits each muscle twice a week. It is a 3 day workout split that you run through twice a week. It is a split that groups the push muscles (chest, shoulders and triceps), the pull muscles (back and biceps), and the leg muscles (quads, hamstrings, and calves). My recommendations for PPL workouts are below.

Push day

It is considered normal for a push day to consist of around 3 exercises for each body part. I recommend starting with chest, then moving to shoulders, then finally triceps. I think this is the smartest order because when working chest your shoulders and triceps are secondary movers in the exercises. Since this is the case hitting chest first ensures you will get the most effective chest workout. The next body part is shoulders, this is second because in a lot of shoulder exercises triceps are a secondary mover which means you should be hitting triceps last to maximize chest and shoulder workouts.

Recommended chest exercises

Recommended shoulder exercises

Recommended tricep exercises

Pull day

I think pull days should consist of 2 exercises for back thickness, 2 for back width, and 3 bicep exercises. I recommend alternating between thickness exercises and width exercises to make sure you're putting the same amount of effort into each. Then like push days, I recommend hitting biceps after you finish your back exercises.

Recommended back thickness exercises

Recommended back width exercises

Recommended bicep exercises

Leg day

In my eyes leg days should consist of 2 to 3 exercises for each group (hamstrings, quads, and calves). I recommend having a blend of big compound movements like a squat, and muscle isolation movements like a hamstring curl. I also recommend alternating between hamstring movements and quad movements then finishing with your calves for the same reason we do this for pull days.

Recommended compound movements

Recommended isolation movements

Recommended calf movements

The "Bro" split

The bro split is another very popular workout split that only hits each muscle once a week but adds more volume to each workout. This is a 5 day split that give two rest days a week. My bro split recommendation is below. The recommend movements are the same for this split so refer to the lists in the PPL section.

Chest

For a chest workout in the bro split you want to be hitting 5 - 7 exercises focusing only on your chest.

Back

Just like the chest workout you want to be hitting 5 - 7 movements but still split evenly between width and thickness movements.

Legs

Bro split leg days should be about the same as a PPL leg day.

Shoulders

Shoulder day should consist of 5 - 7 movements. Make sure to be targeting front, lateral, and rear delts evenly for the best shoulder development.

Arms

Arm day should consist of 3 - 4 movements for both triceps and biceps. It is common practice to complete all exercises for one part of the arm before moving to the next.

Upper lower split

The upper lower split is quite different from the other two splits we've talked about. It is a 4 day split that mixes all upper body movements into a workout then you perform a leg day like the other splits.

Upper body workout #1

For the first upper body workout I recommend a back/chest day with a little bit of arms. Below is an example workout.

Lower body workouts

Each of the two lower body workouts can be structured like the ones talked about in the splits above.

Upper body workout #2

I recommend making the second upper body day a lot like the first but with some shoulder movements replacing some of the other movements in the first day. Example workout below.