Double The Split, Double the Muscle

Double Split Training for Quick Hypertrophy Gains

     If there is one form of training that is more controversial than any other, it just might be the idea of “double-split” training, where you do two workouts in a single training day.  Popular among pro bodybuilders from the ‘70s up through the ‘90s, it was usually viewed as a form of training that could only be performed by the genetically few “easy gainers.”  It was used by Arnold, and many others, in the ‘70s, and was the favorite training system of many European bodybuilders in the ‘90s.  Arnold utilized it to work different muscle groups at the morning and evening sessions.  Bodybuilders like Francis Benfatto, who possessed one of the most aesthetically pleasing physiques of all time in the ‘90s, used it to train the same muscles at both the A.M. and P.M. sessions—the common way that it is still used among East European bodybuilders.

     It’s also oft-used by athletes, especially elite ones.  I doubt there’s an Olympic gold-medalist or professional MMA fighter who doesn’t use some form of it.  When it comes to athletics, it’s often utilized in order to divide up the various kinds of training that are needed in their sport.  A track-and-field athlete might spend the morning session on the track and the evening one in the weight room, or the other way around, for example.  Even older, former athletes, like myself, use a certain form of it.  I will often lift weights early in the day, and then either go for a walk or do some martial arts in the evening.  Whether you’re an athlete or an old guy like me, it can be beneficial when you don’t do any extra work, but simply do in 2 workouts what you would typically do in only 1.  And therein lies the key to making it work for building muscle, even if you’re not one of those genetically-gifted easy-gainers.  Most of us aren’t.

     One of the simplest ways to use it is to take Arnold’s approach but do a lot less training than what he utilized.  In the ‘70s, when Arnold won all of his Olympias, he would do leg training on one day, 3-days-per-week, and that would be his only session for that day.  On the next training day, and another 3-days-a-week, he would train his chest and back at the morning session and his shoulders and arms at the evening workout.  I think that’s a great way to train as long as you do a “reasonable” program.  Here’s a sample workout of what I have in mind:

Lower Body Session (Monday, Wednesday, Friday)

Squats: 5x5

Stiff-legged deadlifts: 5x3

Chest and Back Session (A.M. Workout on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday)

Bench presses: 5x5

Wide-grip weighted chins: 5x5

Shoulders and Arms (P.M. Workout on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday)

Military presses: 5x5

Barbell curls: 5x5

Skull crushers: 5x5

     Do 5 progressively heavier sets on each movement.  Don’t worry if you’re not training “all out” at each session.  Your weights will naturally “wax and wane” and that’s perfectly fine.  Just work up each day to something relatively heavy.  When you feel good, go for a new 5-rep PR, and when you don’t feel that strong, just work up to something fairly heavy.  You might find that you naturally settle into a heavy-light-medium rotation or find that most of your workouts are just “moderate.”  As simple as this program is, it can be quite result-producing as long as you know your body well enough that you’re not doing too much, or too little, on a routine basis.

     Having written the above, however, I now want to propose a more voluminous double-split program that is more aligned with how our East European counterparts lift, where you will train the same muscles at both the morning and evening sessions.  This is not a program for beginners, and you really don’t have any business attempting it unless you are already (at the very least) at the “intermediate” stage of training.

     For this program, you are simply splitting what you would typically do in one workout into two separate training sessions.  This means if you are already capable of doing the workouts below in one session, you should have no problem doing a double-split routine.  In fact, it will work better for you by dividing up the training.  It will help you recover faster, not slower, and it allows you to take advantage of post-workout nutrition—something that’s more valuable than a lot of lifters, I think, give it credit for.

     Pay attention to all of the details of this program before you rush off to the gym, excited about giving it a try.  As the saying goes, the devil is in the details, and the details matter when you’re attempting a regimen such as this.

The Double-Split, Double-Your-Muscle Growth Mass-Building Regimen

     This is a 3-on, 1-off program that follows a push/legs/pull rotation, so don’t use it unless you know you can make it to the gym for every session.  Let’s get to it.  I’ll explain more as I outline the routine.

Day One - Chest, Shoulders, Triceps

Morning Session:

• Incline barbell bench presses, flat bench presses (barbell or dumbbell), or incline dumbbell bench presses: 6x6-8.  For your morning sessions, you will follow a one-exercise-per-bodypart method.  Do the same movement for 2 workouts in a row, and then rotate to the next one.  Select a weight for your 6 sets that you would use if you were attempting 1 all-out, hard-as-heck set for 15 reps.  At the 1st session, do 6 sets of 6 reps on incline bench presses.  It should feel easy.  That’s the point.  If you struggle to get 6 reps on all 6 sets, you selected a weight that is too hard to begin the program with.  At the 2nd session, do 6 sets of 8 reps with that weight.  At the 3rd session, do the flat bench presses for 6x6 using the same approach, and do 2 workouts with that movement.  Proceed in the 5th and 6th workouts using the incline dumbbell bench press in the same manner  When you get to your 7th workout, you will return to the incline barbell bench presses.  You should add a little bit of weight to the movement—5 to 10 pounds—and repeat the process.  Rest about 2 minutes between each set.  You will follow this same method for all of your morning workouts in the program.

• Military presses, seated behind-the-neck presses, or dumbbell presses (seated or standing): 6x6-8

• Weighted close-grip dips, skull crushers, or standing overhead triceps extensions (dumbbell, barbell, or ez-curl bar): 6x6-8

Evening Session:

• Incline dumbbell flyes: 2x10-12

• Flat dumbbell flyes: 2x10-12

• Cable crossovers: 2x10-12

• Standing dumbbell lateral raises: 2x10-12

• Upright rows: 2x10-12

• One-arm cable lateral raises: 2x10-12 (each arm)

• Rope pushdowns: 2x10-12

• Dumbbell kickbacks: 2x10-12 (You can do these with either one-arm or two-arms.)

• Reverse triceps pushdowns: 2x10-12

     Select a weight on each of these movements where you stop a couple reps shy of muscular failure.  At each workout, rotate the order that you do the movements for each muscle.  So, at your first session, for your chest, you would do the incline flyes, followed by the flat flyes, and then finish with the crossovers.  At your 2nd session, you would do the flat flyes, followed by the crossovers, and then finish with incline flyes.  At the 3rd, it would be crossovers, incline flyes, and then flat flyes, in that order.  Use this same technique for all of your muscle groups and for each one of your evening workouts for your other muscles below.  Move fairly fast between each set.  Rest times are individualistic, but somewhere between 30 and 60 seconds is ideal.

Day Two - Legs

Morning Session:

• Back squats, front squats, or hack squats (barbell or machine): 6x6-8

• Stiff-legged deadlifts, dumbbell deadlifts, or conventional deadlifts: 6x6-8

• Standing barbell calf raises, seated machine calf raises, or standing dumbbell calf raises: 6x10-12.  This is the one movement in the program where you will use slightly higher reps.  Select a weight where you could get about 20 reps for 1 all-out set.

Evening Session:

• Sissy squats: 2x14-16

• Lying leg curls: 2x10-12

• Leg extensions: 2x18-20

• Bodyweight calf raises: 3x30-40

     Because squats and deadlifts take more out of the bodybuilder, I have elected to combine together isolation movements for both quads and hamstrings into 1 series of movements.  However, follow the same rotation of movements as you will with all other bodyparts.

     Calves thrive on more repetitions, so this is the one bodypart where, for the P.M. workout, you will simply do 3 sets of really high reps.  If, however, you have discovered that your calves respond better to more “traditional” sets and reps, then you can use 3 different isolation movements the same as the other muscle groups.

Day Three - Back and Biceps

Morning Session:

• Barbell rows (close-grip or wide-grip), wide-grip weighted chins, or one-arm dumbbell rows: 6x6-8.  On workouts for the one-arm rows, do 6 sets for each arm.  The same thing for alternate curls below.

• Barbell curls, standing alternate dumbbell curls, or preacher curls: 6x6-8

Evening Session:

• Wide-grip lat pulldowns: 2x10-12

• Close-grip seated cable rows (triangle attachment): 2x10-12

• Straight-arm cable pulldowns: 2x10-12

• Incline alternate dumbbell curls: 2x10-12

• Cable curls: 2x10-12

• Concentration curls: 2x10-12 (each arm)

Tips and Suggestions

     Once again, don’t attempt this routine unless you know you can make all of your workouts.  This makes double-split training hard for the “average” person who might work long hours on a job or family obligations that require more time at home.  However, if you (once again) know that you can make it to the gym, then do your first session before you head to work in the morning and do your 2nd when you get off or later in the evening once you’ve got home from work, had a meal, and can make it back to the gym.  I used to do double-split training when I was single and worked as a personal trainer.  I would often do my first session before I started training clients in the morning, and then did my 2nd once I was finished with my clientele in the evening.  In recent years, though I didn’t use a program as “intense” as this one, because of my age and (numerous and varied) injuries, I would often use a triple-split program of some sort, working out 3 times in a single day.  However, I am single, work from home (where I have a large home gym with everything a serious athlete needs), have no family that lives with me (aside from occasional visits from my grown sons), and have the luxury of following such a routine.  My point here is that this program might work for the older, retired bodybuilder, assuming he can still handle the movements in the heavy morning session.

     Occasionally, life “gets in the way” and you might be forced to miss a session.  If this happens, you can combine both sessions into one, but try your best to not make that a habit.  If you find life “getting in the way” quite frequently, it would be best to switch over to a different program.

     One of the best advantages of double-split training is the fact that you can take advantage of post-workout nutrition, and all of the benefits that come with it, twice in the same day.  A host of “good things” happens to your muscles from an anabolic (or, perhaps more accurately, “anti-catabolic”) standpoint when you consume protein and carbohydrates immediately after your workout.  And, no, in case you’re wondering, I’m not going by any “science-based” studies or any recent findings on the “science of post-workout nutrition” or anything of that nature.  For one, I don’t read or pay attention to all of that stuff.  Perhaps that’s to my detriment, but what can I say?  I’m a bit old-school.  I know what worked for bodybuilders in the ‘80s, when I started training, and what worked in the ‘90s among all of the successful bodybuilders of the day—and what worked for bodybuilders in the decades before I ever picked up a barbell.  Bottom-line: get some protein and carbs immediately after each session—or within 45 minutes after training, but no longer than that.

     The more frequently you can train, all the better.  Notice that I did NOT write that the more frequently you do workout, all the better.  The reason that many bodybuilders dismissed double-split training in the past is because they would do the above two workouts in one workout and then do that twice per day.  If they trained their muscles with 12 sets per muscle group, they increased it to 24.  Remember: you must properly balance/manipulate the 3 training variables of volume, frequency, and intensity.  If all of the factors are high—what most often happens with double-split training—you will not achieve your desired results.  This program, on the other hand, is more of an “everything moderate” approach, which is one of my preferred methods of training.  If you elect to use this program, don’t worry about “crushing it” in the gym, or any of that other hyperbolic gym-talk verbiage.  In fact, don’t worry about necessarily even training “hard.”  Just follow the program using it as I outlined, get in your gym sessions, consume your post-workout nutrition, and the results will come of their own.  You don’t even have to think about your training.  You just have to follow the program and do it!

If you enjoyed reading about this program, then you might want to purchase a copy of my book "Ultimate Mass and Power." It's PACKED with workout programs for building loads of muscle mass and strength. You can find out more about it and all of my other books at the My Books page of the blog.