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The most popular training routine - 3 day split
Most gym users follow the classical 3 day a week training routine, deciding to train; Mon, Wed, Fri. The 3 day a week training programme is often followed as either;
a. Train the entire body each training day with 3 sets per major exercise.
b. Split the body up into 3 sections and train these different bodyparts; Mon, Wed and Fri, The best routines use compound exercises that cause overlap, so you actually work some of the major muscle groups twice in a week.
Here’s the prefered 3 day split routine (b)
Click on each exercise for a pop-up window
that shows you how to perform each exercise
(no downloads or extra software needed).
Monday
Squats OR Leg Press
Straight leg Deadlift or
Leg Curl (Lunges for women)
Standing Calf Raise
Leg Raise
Crunches
Wednesday
Incline Bench Press
Close Grip Bench Press
Military (or DB) Shoulder Press
Lateral Raise
Dumbbell Biceps Curl
Hanging leg raises
Friday
Shoulder Width Lat Pulldown
Close Grip Seated Pulley Row
Dips
Reverse hand Triceps Pushdown
Crunches
Hyper Extension
Shrugs (men only)
*Get proper instruction on all exercises or invest in a personal trainer to show you how to perform each exercise properly.
For those just starting out;
1. On the first training session, start off light, do 1 set per exercise. You might ache the next day, this is normal and shows you have trained well. Training well results in your body adapting to the stress applied. This causes your muscles to get stronger, firmer and more toned to cope with the stress you have put them under. You tend to ache the most the first few sessions, a dull ache however is good, often desirable and is a true indication that you have trained hard!
2. After a few weeks, perform 2-3 sets for each exercise. After around 2-3 months, you can move to a maximum of 3-4 sets per exercise. Always do an easy warm-up set of around 15-20 reps, to get the motion right and the blood into the muscle.
3. Perform a maximum of around 8-12 reps for each exercise. The weight you are using should be heavy enough, so that the last rep should be near impossible. Try and increase the weights or reps you are doing every session, to ensure you are progressing. When I say increase, it only needs to be a very little increase in weight, (in some instances, a tiny 1 or 2lb plate or extra 1-2 reps is fine.). Don’t ego train, i.e. throwing two additional big plates on the end of each bar and thinking you can lift it, only to struggle or bounce it up, is a waste of time. You’ll end up using bad form, which makes you look silly and increases your chance of injury and… you probably won’t even be using the actual muscle you are trying to work!
You’ll find that most professional bodybuilders will not use 3-day splits because of the large amount of ‘Chemical assistance’ that allows them to enhance their recovery abilities by a significant amount compared to the average trainer. So these guys will tend to use much higher frequency routines (greater than 4-6 days per week), due to the fact the more you stimulate a muscle to grow, the greater opportunity it has to grow. This is of course only possible if you have the extra protein required for building muscle by using a good protein powder and your recovery abilities are enhanced by effective supplementation/sports nutrition.
A lot of Natural bodybuilding champions and powerlifters, as well as a lot of professional athletes in other sports such as football, wrestling, track and field, boxing, Aussie Rules Football and rugby, use a 3-day per week weight training routines.
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This routine has become pretty much the standard these days (sadly). Cut it in half and go twice a week concentrating on compound movements. Tricep pushdowns are pointless (they’ll be trained perfectly well during bench press or parallel bar dips. I used to do a 3 or 4 day split as all the so called guides, books and gyms were telling me and I looked ok on it but wasnt really that satisfied after training for two and a half years. Then I bought Mcrobert’s ‘Beyond Brawn’ that shows you how it’s really done. I suddendly started growing! And only on 2 days a week. Abbreviated training is the way forward and Stuart Mcrobert is God. Nuff said.
Why can’t women do ‘leg curls’ and ’shrugs’?
I agree with the above ref compound movements. Surely the deadlift should feature in the routine (perhaps instead of leg ext/curl). Heaves and dips are also far better than any number of tricep extensions & bicep curls.
IS THIS ROUTINE REALLY ENOUGH???? LIKE INCLINE BENCH AND CLOSE GRIP BENCH. THATS ALL FOR CHEST IN A WHOLE WEEK. IM NO EXPERT BUT THAT DOESNT SEEM RIGHT TO ME. CAN SOMONE PLEASE EXPLANE?
There is no reason women cannot do leg curls or shrugs. The article is making the assumption that women would want to target the glutes more than hamstrings (hence lunges vs leg curls) and not want to train traps (the ‘mountain’ type muscle at the very top of your back). Women have no need to train differently to men, only to train in a way that suits their goals, but that goes for me too.
When i do sets, i do 3 sets with a weight where i sruggle to hit 6 reps, then once ive hit 10 reps with that weight i move up 5kg at a time. i used to curl 20kg on EZ bar now im curling 45kg on the EZ bar and thats within 6 months, im the biggest and srongest ive ever felt in my life. I dont think your routine would work very well!!
If you can do pull ups and dips (preferably weighted) these are way better than lat pull downs and tricep pushdowns. Leg curls and leg extensions are also pretty rubbish exercises and shouldn’t be used by competitive athletes except perhaps for rehab purposes, if you want to target the quads and hamstrings harder use front squats and romanian deadlifts or good mornings respectively. As a highly rated strength and conditioning coach said, ’sorry I don’t use machines, I’ve got testicles’.
Absolutely terrible routine…why did you guys publish this?!?!
That’s a pretty terrible workout routine in my opinion. No deadlifts, dips, pullups… Awful
Plus, loving the use of the word “supplement” to describe pros’ special ingredient they use!
Deadlifts and pullups are not necessarily the answer for everyone. I do a similar thing to this routine and have made good gains on it. There’s a good emphasis on legs on a monday which is nice as a lot of routines don’t concentrate on legs. Monday’s a good day to do them too.
It all depends on what you are after.
hate to say it but this routine is appalling. no way near enough sets, reps or variation of exercise. Youd do more good doing pressups and situps. No real structure since its meant to be a split routine and a severe lack of core stability let alone ab workout. expect low yield results with a program like this
OK, not a great workout but covers most the bases. But watch the behind the neck shoulder press. Most men will have a problem with this as their shoulders will be too tight so the have to jut their heads forward. Just use db’s or use military press. And come on, no deadlift! Grow some and do it.
Note that this article is entitled “The world’s most popular training routine”, not “The world’s best training routine”.
Well,my opinion about it is,focus on compound exercises as bench press,squats,deadlifts,rows,pull-ups,chinups,etc.I use only free weights.By the way,I’ve seen routines worse than this one!Beginners should start full body workouts.That’s what I used to do 20 years ago,and I’m back on it again.It’s productive!
PUSH PULL LEGS IS THE ROUTINE
push - bench, incline bench, shoulder press, weighted dips
pull - deads, chins, bent over row, bi curls
legs - squats, stiff leg dead, calf raises
tried and tested routine that works
Not sure about this routine, seems too Simplistic. Try core excersises that overlap with the smaller muscle groups.
i.e. Bench/DB bench, Incline bench, DB Flys and any 2 tricep excercises. Abs
2 or 3 Bicep excersises (EZ curls/Hammer/Preacher) followed by Bent over row, Lat Pulldown and/or deadlift
Shoulder/military press, Lateral raise, upright row. Abs
This takes three days you could fit a leg workout in with some cardio on any of the three days or day 4 if you have th time.
hi i got a lot of wore from u but wanna get how to work out for just triceps, & biceps
a good rountine but i would make a few changes.train biceps with the back+traps, and train triceps with chest+delts.
also train legs on wednesdays to split up the two upperbody rountine for example:
monday :chest,delts,triceps
wednesday:legs,abs
friday :back,traps,biceps
by doing the rountine in this order it will provide better recovery for all muscle groups.as you get stronger increase the days off between workouts to compensate for the extra stress that lifting heavier weights creates. e.g train monday, friday,
Not sure about training the biceps with back nor the triceps with the chest and shoulders?
I would swap those two around because they would be worked hard during the main back and chest movements and you wouldnt be able to stimulate them enought to get the development needed due to their effort assiting the chest press or lat pull down.
Also alot more “core” work is needed
so to agree with francis:
Monday:core Chest, delts, biceps and core
Wednesday: Legs and core
Friday: Back, triceps and core
Monday: Biceps Triceps
Tuesday : Rest
Wednesday: Chest Shoulders Back
Thursday:Rest
Friday:Legs Lats
Saturday & Sunday :Rest
hi.can anyone outline a weight training routine for gaining weight. any help appreciated.regards