STOP DOING SPLIT WORKOUTS!

How Old-Time Lifters and Bodybuilders SLOWLY Worked Up to Using Split Workouts -
How They Utilized Them and How YOU Should Use Them

Bill Pearl was one of the greatest bodybuilders who ever lived, and he rarely used anything more than a "2-way" split program.

     If you’re new to training, always start with full-body workouts.

     I say this because I see WAY too many split workout programs being recommended on the internet for “average” or even “beginner” trainees.  I write “trainees” because I understand that these guys aren’t lifters per se, and the kind of results they are after are probably not what the average reader of my blog is after.  None-the-less, I have a feeling that the majority of lifters that read my blog probably do a lot of split workouts, too, where you just might be better off performing a full-body program instead.

     Now—and I must make myself crystal clear on this point—split workouts are not “bad.”  They simply need to be utilized correctly.  I have plenty of split workouts here at Integral Strength, and I’ve written about a LOT of split workouts in my articles for the major muscle magazines over the decades.  But they are not what the lifter who is just starting out needs to use.

     I started thinking about all of this because, a couple of days ago, I happened to read an article—and God help us with some of these “experts” writing all of these downright crappy training pieces on the internet—where the author of the article recommended that trainees over 50 who are just starting out(!) perform a friggin’ 5-way bodypart split for building muscle.  You know, to make sure the older trainee has “recovered.”  (Insert massive eye-roll.)

     To quote the late, decidedly damn great George Turner: “What the hell has happened to bodybuilding in America?”

     I don’t care who you are—not the age, the gender, the amount of years you may have spent doing other “athletic” activities—if you’re just starting to lift, then you need to do a full-body workout, and slowly work up to a split program.

     Don’t get me wrong.  Not starting off with full-body workouts has always been a “problem” for the bodybuilding, strength-building world ever since I first walked into a commercial gym in the late ‘80s.  But even then, most of the split programs were either two-way bodypart splits—typically an upper-body day and a lower-body day, or a “push” day and a “pull” day—or, at the most, a 3-way split.  But there is no way in hell that you would have ever seen a new lifter training only one-bodypart-per-day, and taking off an entire week before training again.

     Old-school bodybuilders, powerlifters, and strongmen always started off with a full-body training program and slowly worked up to a multi-bodypart split.  Heck, some of the powerlifters and strongmen all the way up to the ‘80s never did anything other than full-body workouts, even guys with years and years of training under their belts.  They had found a system that worked, and worked quite well.  Sometimes, if it ain't broke, don’t fix it, as the saying goes.

     To train the way of the classical bodybuilder, do this: First, start with a full-body program and train just two-days-per-week.  If you haven’t guessed it, then this would be a great time to implement a 20-rep squat program, for instance, like the one I just wrote about in my last post.  After you have trained this way for somewhere between 2 to 3 months, switch over to a 3-days-per-week program.

     You can utilize a host of different full-body workouts.  One of the best to use at this point is a heavy-light-medium program.  I have several essays and articles here at IS on just this method of training.  But that is just one option.  If you’re more interested in building muscle than just strength, you can opt for an old-school bodybuilding routine such as the ones used by Marvin Eder or Clancy Ross, both lifters who almost never used any other kind of method.  Eder was using full-body workouts even when he was arguably the strongest man on the planet; so much for them being only for beginners.

   How long should you stick with a full-body workout before switching over to a split program?  The answer varies, but I would say years.  At the very least, old-school methodology would say to train for at least a year on a full-body program before switching to any sort of split program.  For instance, if you use a H-L-M program, you could do it for years on end because of the variety that’s built into it, but even if you only used it for one year, you would learn a lot more about how your particular body responds to volume, various exercises, and some more subtle aspects of strength training than you would if you switched over to a split workout after only three months of training.

     Also, you should NEVER switch from full-body training until you’ve built a solid foundation of strength and muscle mass.  You may complain.  I get it.  You’ve been “lifting” for months, maybe even years, but if you haven’t built, as just mentioned, a solid base of strength and/or muscle, you’re still a beginner.

     For most old-school bodybuilders, they only opted for split workouts once they were almost forced to switch.  Once they were training for 3 hours-at-a-time, 3-days-per-week, they knew that they could benefit from a split program.  And their first split programs were always two-way splits.  And as with those bodybuilders I knew from the ‘80s, the splits were typically upper-body/lower-body splits or push/pull splits, but this wasn’t always the case.  Some old-school bodybuilders just put the exercises together that they felt worked best for them.  And in fact they knew that those exercises worked best together from all of their years of full-body training!

     A lot of old-school bodybuilders never moved past a two-way split.  In fact, for the vast majority of classic bodybuilders this is exactly what they did.  Just look at the programs of Bill Pearl or, heck, even Arnold from the ‘70s.  Those guys were perfectly content with a two-way bodypart split for the entirety of their careers.

     Eventually, after another few years of two-way splits, a bodybuilder might increase to a 3-way split.  This was exactly the kind of workouts that were popular when I first started training.  You would have been hard-pressed in the ‘80s to read a popular bodybuilder’s training program where he or she didn’t use a 3-on/1-off program or a 6-on/1-off program with his body split 3 ways.  Once again, the typical split was either a push/pull/legs regimen where you trained chest, shoulders, and triceps together, followed by back and biceps, and then the entire lower body on the third day; or they followed an “antagonistic” split where one day was chest and back, one day was shoulders, biceps, and triceps, and then the other day was, once again, legs.

     It wasn’t until the ‘90s when you saw a lot of bodybuilders begin to use 4, 5, or even 6-way splits.  In the mid ‘90s, as I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I got great results from using a 5-way split.  Day 1 was chest, day 2 was back, day 3 was legs, day 4 was shoulders, and day 5 was arms; I threw in random, but more frequent, calf and ab work whenever I felt like it.  But at the time, I already had many years of training under my belt.  And even then I didn’t stick with it for too long.  Eventually, I discovered—especially once I was serious about my powerlifting career—that I needed more frequent training utilizing more bodyparts at each workout.  During the entire time I competed in powerlifting—where I eventually squatted and deadlifted 3 and a ½ times my bodyweight in competition—I only used either full-body workouts or two-way split workouts.  They simply produced the best results.

     And they still produce the best results.  So please beware any author or “trainer” who EVER suggests otherwise.