Gone are the days when you were a spry 15-year-old. The conventional bro split, in which you focus on a single body part during each workout (typically 5 days a week), doesn't cut it anymore, especially for us adults with jobs who engage in real-life conversations with non-pixelated women.
Now, let's consider a simple truth: your muscles recuperate in roughly two days. So why let them lay fallow for an entire week? Plus, what happens when life intervenes, and you miss a day or two during a week? It throws off the entire schedule, and you might not train the same body part for another 8 to 10 days instead of the ideal 7.
A Split That Makes More Sense
A far superior approach is adopting an upper body/lower body split, allowing you to work out 4 days a week (or even 6 if you prefer):
- Monday: Lower Body
- Tuesday: Upper Body
- Wednesday: Off
- Thursday: Lower Body
- Friday: Upper Body
- Saturday: Off
- Sunday: Off
As noted by Charles Staley in his illuminating piece, "The Single Most Effective Workout Split," this upper/lower split provides a few essential benefits:
Time Optimization: Since muscles typically recover within two days, training muscles on Monday and then again on Wednesday makes perfect sense. If you don't adhere to this pattern, you risk losing progress.
Increased Training Frequency: In comparison to the bro split, where you work out 5 times a week with each muscle group trained once, the upper/lower split lets you hit each muscle group twice a week while requiring fewer workouts.
It's time to bid adieu to the outdated bro splits and embrace a workout routine that maximizes your time and enhances muscle growth for the seasoned lifter.
