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Since I seem to write about exercise and training relatively less frequently (odd given that I started out in exercise physiology), I wanted to put down something that I've been meaning to write about for a while which has to do with split routines. For anybody not familiar with the term, this is just any routine that splits the body into different muscle groups or bodyparts. This distinguishes it from full-body routines (where the entire body is worked all at once in some form or fashion).

But I'm not just going to write another generic article about split routines; there are plenty of those around. Rather, I want to talk about an issue regarding split routines that I think is often overlooked which has to do with the sequencing of the actual workouts within a week and some issues that can crop up if people don't take certain things into account.

I'm not going to try to cover every single type of split routine that can be set up, there are just too many variations. Rather, hopefully by the time you're done with this and see what I say about the types I will discuss, you'll be in a better place to think about how you set up the split routines or what issues to at least consider when designing them.

Primarily I'll focus on two way split routines where the body is split into two distinct parts although I'll try to look at least one or two three way split routines where the body is split into three parts. I'm going to assume that the trainee is targeting a body part frequency of roughly twice per week or at least every 5th day; by the time you go to hitting everything once per week a lot of this tends to matter less. I'm also going to assume that the trainee is avoiding weekend training although it honestly doesn't change that much in the big scheme of what I'm going to discuss.

Let me say up front that there is no perfect split routine or split routine sequencing. Every one has it's advantages but every one brings it's own set of disadvantages to the table. So a lot of picking a split along with how you sequence the workouts depends on your own strengths and weaknesses or personal preferences.

The Two-Way Split Routine

As I said above, a two-way split routine is any approach where the body is divided into two distinct parts and there are a host of variations that can occur here. My go-to routine is an upper/lower+abs routine where the body is divided exactly in that fashion. In one workout the entire upper body is trained and in the other, the lower body and core work (abs and low back) is trained.

I like this routine for two primary reasons. The first is that it saves the stress that can occur in the shoulder girdle that occurs with different splits. If you've never had a rotator cuff or shoulder problem, consider yourself lucky. If you have, you will understand completely why I like this. I also like it since, depending on your gym, pushing and pulling movements can be alternated. So you do your first chest exercise, then your first back exercise, then a second pushing movement, a second pulling movement, etc. If your gym is busy, you do all of one exercise and switch, giving muscles a bit of a break. If your gym is empty you can alternate superset and get the hell out of the gym faster.

A lot of people don't like this type of routine, mainly men who aren't happy that their arms are trashed by the time they get to direct work (at the same time I've had criticism of this routine by people who believe strongly that direct arm work should never be done; you just can't win). I would counter argue that since there is so much indirect work for the arms from compound pushing and pulling, less work is needed to get it done. But I'll show a variant that gets around this problem although it causes others.

The Upper/Lower Split Routine

A typical upper/lower workout might look like this (workout notation is setsXreps/rest interval in seconds). I'm going to provide sample exercises but don't read too much into them. It would be better to think of it as pushing 1, pushing 2 or whatever. Eventually I'll write this up in far more detail but that's not the point of this article. Make no mistake, exercise selection does impact on much of what I'm going to talk about but then this article will start to get away from me length wise.

Upper Body Lower Body Bench press 4X6-8/180″ Squat 4X6-8/180″ Row 4X6-8/180″ RDL 4X6-8/180″ Flye or Incline Bench 2-3X10-12/90″ Leg Ext or Split Squat

2-3X10-12/90″ Cable Pullover or Pulldown 2-3X