Who this plan is for

An upper/lower split trains the upper body one day and the legs the next, twice a week. The plan above is for lifters with six months or more of steady training who have four days for the gym and want muscle first. Two more versions sit under it: Intermediate Upper/Lower Dumbbell, 4 days, for a home or a small gym with dumbbells, an adjustable bench and a pull-up bar, and Advanced Upper/Lower Strength, 4 days, for experienced lifters who train for their heaviest bench press, squat, overhead press and deadlift.

Choose something else if:

  • You have three days. A push pull legs split covers the body once in three sessions; a full-body plan covers it three times.
  • You are new to lifting. Start with the 3-day full-body plan and come back when it stops moving.

How the upper/lower week works

Day Session Opens with
Monday Upper Body: Bench Press Barbell Bench Press
Tuesday Lower Body: Squat Barbell Back Squat
Wednesday Rest
Thursday Upper Body: Overhead Press Seated Barbell Overhead Press
Friday Lower Body: Deadlift Deadlift
Saturday Rest
Sunday Rest

Two days on, one off, two on, two off. No body part is trained on two days in a row, and the two lower days sit three days apart, so the heavy squats and the deadlifts never meet tired legs. If your week needs other days, keep that one rule: at least one day between the two lower days.

The two days of each half are built differently. The first upper day presses and rows horizontally, the second presses overhead and pulls from above. The first lower day is built around the squat, the second around the hinge, with single-leg work. Each movement gets one hard day a week, and each muscle is trained twice.

Counted by the body part each exercise is filed under in our exercise library, the three versions give these hard sets a week:

Body part Muscle, gym Muscle, dumbbells Strength
Chest 10 10 8
Back 14 12 14
Shoulders 10 10 11
Quadriceps 13 10 14
Hamstrings 9 10 6
Calves 8 7 4

Two days per muscle has good support: an early meta-analysis found that, with the weekly work equal, training a muscle twice a week grew more than once (Schoenfeld and colleagues, 2016), and in strength studies higher frequencies brought bigger gains, mostly because they added volume (Grgic and colleagues, 2018).

Sets, reps, rest and effort

Stop the heavy sets with 1 to 3 reps in reserve (the clean reps you could still have done), the small exercises with 0 to 2. Rest in full on the openers: in trained men, 3-minute rests built more strength and more muscle than 1-minute rests over 8 weeks (Schoenfeld and colleagues, 2016).

The strength version works differently. Each main lift has a heavy day of 5 sets of 3 to 5 reps with 3:00 of rest (the Deadlift 4 sets), and comes back lighter on another day: the Standing Barbell Overhead Press at 3 sets of 6 to 10 on the bench day, the Incline Barbell Bench Press on the press day, the Front Squat on the deadlift day, the Romanian Deadlift on the squat day. That is the heavy day and the volume day of each lift. Heavy loads are what build the most one-rep strength, while muscle grows across a wide range of loads (Schoenfeld and colleagues, 2017).

How to progress

Use double progression, as in our progressive overload guide: hold the weight until every set reaches the top of its range, then add the smallest step, 2.5 kg on a barbell (5 lb in a gym that loads pounds). The Barbell Back Squat on Tuesday, 4 sets of 6 to 10:

Week Weight Reps per set Next session
1 80 kg (about 175 lb) 8, 8, 7, 6 same weight
2 80 kg 9, 9, 8, 7 same weight
3 80 kg 10, 10, 9, 8 same weight
4 80 kg 10, 10, 10, 10 add 2.5 kg
5 82.5 kg 8, 8, 7, 7 same weight
6 82.5 kg 9, 9, 8, 8 same weight

In the strength version the rule is stricter: the weight goes up only when every heavy set reaches 5 reps, by the smallest plate the gym has. Expect weeks without a new number: an advanced lifter’s progress is counted in months. In the dumbbell version the next pair is often 2 kg or 5 lb heavier per hand, a big jump on a light weight, so fill the whole range before you move up.

Three versions

Muscle, gym Muscle, dumbbells Strength
Level Intermediate Intermediate Advanced
Main lifts 4 × 6 to 10, the deadlift 3 × 5 to 8 4 × 6 to 10 or 8 to 12 5 × 3 to 5, the deadlift 4
Rest on the main lifts 2:30, the deadlift 3:00 1:30 3:00
Needs A full gym Dumbbells, a bench, a pull-up bar A full gym
A session 50 to 60 minutes about 55 minutes 50 to 60 minutes

Without a pull-up bar, the dumbbell version swaps the Pull-Up for the Dumbbell Pullover and the Chin-Up for the Bent-Over Dumbbell Row.

Substitutions

Instead of In a busy or small gym With dumbbells only
Barbell Back Squat Hack Squat or Leg Press Goblet Squat
Barbell Bench Press Machine Chest Press Dumbbell Bench Press, or the Dumbbell Floor Press without a bench
Bent-Over Barbell Row Seated Cable Row One-Arm Dumbbell Row
Seated Barbell Overhead Press Machine Shoulder Press Seated Dumbbell Overhead Press
Wide-Grip Pull-Up Lat Pulldown Dumbbell Pullover
Deadlift Trap Bar Deadlift Dumbbell Deadlift
Seated Leg Curl Lying Leg Curl Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift

Keep the sets, the reps and the rest of the exercise you replace.

How long a session takes

At about 40 seconds a working set, the rest the plan prescribes, a minute per warm-up set and 5 minutes to set up and move between stations, the upper days take 55 to 60 minutes and the lower days about 50. Add 5 to 10 minutes of easy warm-up. Four sessions make about 4 hours a week.

Common mistakes

  • Putting the two lower days back to back. The deadlift day then starts on legs still tired from the squats.
  • Shortening the rest on the openers to finish sooner. The first lift is the one the rest is for.
  • Starting the strength version too early. Sets of 3 to 5 are where technique breaks first; the plan assumes lifts that already hold up.
  • Changing exercises every few weeks. Progress is measured on the same lift, week after week.

FAQ

Is an upper/lower split better than push pull legs?

On four days, it trains every muscle twice; push pull legs needs six days for that. When the weekly sets are the same, a meta-analysis of 25 studies found no real difference between training a muscle more or less often (Schoenfeld and colleagues, 2019). Choose by the days you have.

Can I run an upper/lower split three days a week?

Yes: upper, lower, upper one week, lower, upper, lower the next. Each half is then trained three times in two weeks, and the plan takes longer to cycle.

Which days should I rest?

Any, as long as one day sits between the two lower days. Two rest days together, as in the table above, suit most working weeks.

Where are the arms and the abs?

The arms close both upper days as a superset, and each lower day ends with a core exercise: the Hanging Leg Raise after the squats, the Plank after the deadlifts.

How long should I run it?

The plan is written for 12 weeks. After that, run it again from slightly heavier starting weights, or move to the strength version if your lifts are solid and strength is what you want.

Sources

All three programs are in Trenno’s Explore with their days, sets and rest times. The previous session’s sets show beside the empty ones, and the rest timer starts when you tick a set, so the full 2:30 on the openers takes no watching.