2-Way Training Splits for Mass & Power

The Best Two-Way Training Splits for Inducing Hypertrophy and Unleashing Impressive Gains in Strength

     I’m fond of full-body workouts.  In fact, if you’re new to training, and you stumbled upon this essay as you scoured the internet looking for the best split program to make you massive—not to mention massively strong—then understand that you’re better off utilizing full-body workouts.  At least at the start.  Eventually, you will want to move on to a split program of some sort, however.  Now, please don’t get me wrong (I mean, really, don’t), you could spend your entire training life doing nothing other than full-body workouts—whether they’re high-frequency “easy strength” programs, or heavy/light/medium programs, or just “basic” 3 day a week programs where all of the training is “moderate”—and never need anything else.  But eventually you’ll want to use some split programs, even if it’s just occasionally, and even if it’s done for no reason other than to stave off boredom.

     Split programs also become essential if you want to start using a high-degree of volume, and make no doubt about it, you do need to increase your volume over the course of your lifting career.  Oh, once again, also, don’t get me wrong, you theoretically could still use full-body workouts even as you begin to use a lot of sets per bodypart.  Some old-school bodybuilders—Reg Park, for example—stuck with full-body workouts even as they did upward of 20 sets per muscle group!  But unless you want to be in the gym for 3 hours plus (!)—which is exactly what Park did—you may want to consider a training split of some sort.

     For this essay, we’ll look at the 2-way splits that I think are the most effective.  Hint: my recommendations are most decidedly not what the average trainee tends to do—I’m not much of a “bro split” kind of guy.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  Briefly, before looking at splits outright, let’s discuss what makes all programs successful when it comes to both hypertrophy and strength-building.

     Unless you are the person that just stumbled upon my writing for the first time, then you know that I’m a fan of high-frequency training.  The more often you can train a muscle group or a lift, the better.  Notice that I didn’t write that the more often you train, then all the better.  You should not just increase the volume or the number of days that you go to the gym and expect to get better results.  No, you need to be on a program that allows for more frequent training.  This means that your program has to manage volume and intensity to allow for more frequent training sessions.  If your volume and intensity are both high, then that will force you to train infrequently—unless you’ve built up the work capacity to handle it through years of training.  And since I’m a fan of high-frequency training, I’m also and generally a fan of 2-way split training, as it allows for (potentially) more frequent training sessions.  But we’ll get around to that in just a moment.

     All successful programs, even if they’re not high-frequency workouts, center around basic, compound movements.  Ideally, those compound movements themselves are centered around (what I refer to as) the BIG4.  I don’t give a damn if you’re a man who wants to look as freakishly massive as a Mr. Olympia champion or a woman who wants to look good naked—and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to look good sans clothing if that’s your goal—then you need to utilize the big 4.  And if you’re a natural lifter who wants to be as big and as strong as your genetics will allow, then you absolutely must utilize the big 4.  Steroid users can get away with not doing these 4 things.  Natural lifters can’t.  Not if they are serious about their results.  And what are the big 4, you ask?  One, you must squat heavy stuff.  Two, you must pick heavy stuff off the ground.  Three, you must press heavy stuff over your head.  And fourth, you must drag, carry, or push heavy stuff around the gym (or your yard) for time or distance.

     If you want to get strong, then you’re going to have to train heavy for low reps.  And if you are after hypertrophy, then you need to still train relatively heavy, but you also need to train with moderate to high rep ranges.  This means that you need a training program that includes both heavy “power” sets and lighter “pump” sets.  (How “heavy” and how “light” is not in the scope of this article but is still an important factor.)  The training split should reflect this need.

     Finally, if you’re going to succeed, then you must be consistent.  Consistency is the key above all others—if you don’t show up, then you can’t do the training—so you need to select a training split that you will stick with.

     For the remainder of this essay, we’ll look at the specific workouts using 2-way training splits that I think are the best, and I’ll offer some insights into making them work based on the specific kind of training the split is used for.

 

2-Way Splits

     My favorite kind of splits are “simple” 2-way splits.  It may seem simple because you’re doing half of your muscle groups, or lifts, on one day and the remainder on a 2^nd day, but in many ways, the simplicity itself is what makes for more potential variation.  If you only split your lifts into two groups, then you have more muscles to train at each session, and, hence, more variety.  If you have something as “extreme” as a 5-way split, however, you have less variety because you don’t have as many options.  If your split includes, say, a chest movement, a shoulder movement, a heavy pull, and an abdominal exercise, it has more potential for diverse training than if you are just having a “biceps workout.”

     The most popular form of 2-way splits is probably an “upper/lower” split, where you train all of your upper body muscles on one day and all of your lower body muscles on the next.  This was exactly the kind of program recommended by old-school great George Turner. If you don’t know Turner, then, first and foremost, make sure you read about the dude.  He was one of the greatest bodybuilding writers of all time, but he got the knowledge that he so eloquently espoused—he wasn’t afraid to call guys “idiots” who trained at his gym and kick them out for doing “stupid” workouts, for instance—from decades and decades of real bodybuilding training.  His monthly column in  IronMan was called exactly that: “George Turner’s REAL Bodybuilding.”  Here’s the program:

 

Day One - Lower Body

Steep incline sit ups: 5x15 reps

Squats: 6x20, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6 (add weight on each set)

Sissy squats: 5x20

Stiff-legged deficit deadlifts: 5x15, 12, 10, 8, 6 (add weight on each set)

Leg curls: 6x12, 12, 10, 10, 8, 6 (add weight on each set)

Standing calf raises: 8x10-12

 

Day Two - Upper Body

Incline bench presses: 6x8-10

Flat dumbbell bench presses: 5x12, 12, 10, 10, 8 (add weight on each set)

Wide-grip chins: 6x failure (using bodyweight)

One-arm dumbbell rows: 5x10 (each arm)

Bent-over laterals: 5x12, 12, 10, 10, 8 (add weight on each set)

Seated dumbbell presses: 6x12, 12, 10, 10, 8, 8 (add weight on each set)

Standing lateral raises: 5x12, 12, 10, 10, 8 (add weight on each set)

Biceps movement: 6x8

  supersetted w/

Triceps movement: 6x12

 

     Here is what Turner said about the above program, so I’ll kick this commentary off with his words before giving my own two-cents worth: “One thing I love about this schedule is its versatility.  You can easily train a steady two days of workouts and one day of rest right through the week, or if you really want a program that not only builds muscle but keeps you in superb condition, alternate the workouts with no break and take a rest day only when you know you need it.  Don’t try this right away, however, but save it for after you’ve been training on the basic split for a while, perhaps six months.”

     I loved Turner’s writings—and his programs in IronMan, they had a huge influence on my training, and probably my writing too, to some extent—but I actually don’t care for his rationale for using the 2-way split, though it took me over a decade of training, from the time I first read Turner, to come to that conclusion.  (It must be also noted that, if you choose to use the program above, I also recommend a set or two of loaded carries at the end of the lower body day—otherwise, you’re only using 3 of the big 4.)  Turner’s preference for the upper/lower split was simply, according to him, because of recovery.  He didn’t want you to train, say, back one day and biceps the next because the biceps muscles would end up getting worked on both days.  Here’s the thing, however: I actually think that the overlap of training the biceps—once directly and once indirectly—is a good thing.  More work for a muscle group is almost always good, as we mentioned at the outset.  So, here’s another adage I’m fond of: more isn’t always better, but it usually is.  Which brings us around to our next 2-way split, and that is (what I often refer to as) full-body split training.

     A great benefit of full-body workouts is that they stimulate muscle growth better than most split training programs.  A full-body workout consisting of an assortment of squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, bench presses, chins, rows, and curls stimulates full-body growth much better than, say, a workout that consists of nothing more than a variety of curling movements.  But you can take advantage of training your entire body, even when on a split program, if you do a 2-way split where each workout still contains upper body movements and lower body exercises.  A lot of old-school bodybuilders from the ‘70s and before did exactly that.  A popular split, for example, was chest, legs, and biceps on one day, and back, shoulders, and triceps the next (or something quite similar).  And the back workout would often consist of heavy pulls—such as deadlifts or power cleans—which worked a lot of the same muscles as the leg exercises.  (And calves and abdominals were often trained at each session.) 

     One of the best ways to use full-body split workouts is to focus on movements over muscle groups.  Squats, bench presses, and chins on one training day, followed by deadlifts, overhead presses, and barbell curls the next is a good example of what you could use.  Anything similar works well.

     Here’s an example 4-days-per-week program that incorporates this split:

Day One:

Workout One

Squats: 8 sets of 8 reps

Wide-Grip Bench Presses or Incline Bench Presses: 8 sets of 6 reps

Seated Dumbbell Presses or Standing Behind-the-Neck Presses: 6 sets of 6 reps

Standing Calf Raises, Seated Machine Calf Raises, or Donkey Calf Raises: 4 sets of 12-20 reps

Ab work of your choice

Day Two:

Workout Two

Deficit Deadlifts (conventional or sumo): 6 sets of 5 reps

Chins, Wide-Grip Lat Pulldowns, or Seated Cable Rows: 8 sets of 8 reps

Barbell Curls supersetted w/ Rope Triceps Extensions: 8 sets of 10 reps (each exercise)

Loaded carry movement of your choice (farmer walks, stone carries, etc.)

Day Three: Off

Day Four: Repeat Workout One

Day Five: Off

Day Six: Repeat Workout Two

Day Seven: Off

     As you get more advanced, you could increase the number of training days each week.  One of my favorite ways to train using a 2-way split is with a 3-on, 1-off, 2-on, 1-off rotation.  This is the exact split used in my last article “High-Volume Hypertrophy” where you train on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.  What I like about this is that each week one of the workouts gets 3 days of training and the other workout gets 2 days, and this rotated from week to week.  Using the above program as an example, a couple week of training might look like this:

Monday: Workout One

Tuesday: Workout Two

Wednesday: Workout One

Thursday: Off

Friday: Workout Two

Saturday: Workout One

Sunday: Off

Monday: Workout Two

Tuesday: Workout One

Wednesday: Workout Two

Thursday: Off

Friday: Workout One

Saturday: Workout Two

Sunday: Off

     Another good way to utilize 2-way splits—and this is one of the most underutilized training methods for a lot of lifters—is to do essentially a full-body session on one day, and then to specialize on just a couple of bodyparts on the other.  This is, in fact, the whole premise of my recent article “Real Bodybuilding: Old-School Arm Specialization.”  (Also, I’m going to do an entire series on this sort of training, so look for those in the future, which also means we won’t get into it as much here.)  But let’s say that your back and your shoulders lag behind other bodyparts.  This means that you would train your chest, arms, abs, and your leg muscles on one day, and then simply train your back and your shoulders on the next.  If you select this option, then train frequently.  You can train on a 6-on, 1-off rotation—getting 3 sessions in for each workout—or you can follow the above 5-day plan, so that your “full body” gets 3 workouts one week and your back and shoulder session gets 2, but the following week it will be reversed.  And if you really need to specialize on certain bodyparts, then do the specialization workout 3 times each week and the full-body workout twice and don’t rotate the schedule from week to week.

     Although I’m a fan of frequent training, you can also use a 2-way split if you enjoy using a lot of volume for a lift, upwards of 10 sets or more per lift/muscle group.  One of my favorite workouts is what I call the 3x10x3 workout.  By the way, even though I’m a fan of HFT in general, there are exceptions.  I, for instance, absolutely love high sets of low reps for building strength.  It’s a “foolproof” method for almost any lifter who is after strength gains, no matter their genetics.  So, if you want to use the 3x10x3 method, it would look something such as the following.

     Each workout consists of 3 exercises for 10 sets of 3 reps after warmups.  Select a weight for your sets where you could get 6 reps if you were doing one set to absolute failure.  Use that for all 10 sets.  If you manage to get 3 reps on all 10 sets of an exercise, add weight at the next session for that movement.

     Here is a workout example using this form of 2-way split training:

Monday:

Squats

Bench presses

Barbell curls

Wednesday:

Deadlifts

Barbell overhead presses

Chins

Friday:

Squats

Bench presses

Barbell curls

     On the following week, you would do the Wednesday workout on Monday and Friday, rotating back and forth in this manner each week.  Add in some loaded carries to one, or both, of the days to make it complete.

     Another good way to set up a 2-way split is to have one day focused on a certain kind of training and the 2^nd day focused on a different kind.  One day could be a “power” day and another day could be a “pump” day.  Or one day could be a “metabolic” day and another could be a more “traditional” bodybuilding day.

 

     There are a host of other 2-way split workouts, but as this has probably inundated you with enough ideas, we’ll stop here for now.  Originally, I had intended on covering 3-way training splits and then 4-way, and up to 6-way splits, but we’ll save that for some future essays.  If there is enough interest in this article, then the next one I write will be on some of the best 3-way splits for building mass and power.

     For the rest of this month, be on the lookout for the remainder of my series on “heavy/light/medium” training and the continuation of my “specialization” series.  Until then, lift heavy and hard—and put some of these 2-way splits to use.