The Best Training Split For Weight Loss
It’s mid-January and everyone is hopefully neck deep in their “New Year New Me” lifestyles. One of the most common New Year’s Resolutions is to “get in better shape”. This might mean different things for different people, but 9 times out of 10 it means to lose weight.
We live in a country where over 50% of the adult population is either Type II Diabetic or Pre-Diabetic. We just saw that obesity rates have climbed to 42% here in America. Not the overweight population, we’re talking about full-blown obesity. Deciding to make a change in your life is a noble decision, but the older I get and the longer I’m in this field the more I realize that most people are completely lost when it comes to training.
Getting into the gym and starting your life-changing journey is awesome! But today we’re going to talk about the ways you can avoid wasting your time and burning out before you ever really get started!
What is a Training Split?
A training split is just the way your training is organized. There are many different kinds of training splits, and these various training splits are beneficial in certain situations. What may be a good split for you and your situation, might not be the best split for someone else and their situation. What are the main factors that you should keep in mind when organizing your training splits?
Training goals
Training frequency (how many days per week)
Training age (how long have you been training)
The above factors are all incredibly important when organizing your training. Someone who has been training for longer is going to train substantially differently than someone who is just starting. Someone who wants to get bigger is going to train a little bit differently than someone who wants to lose weight. Someone who can train 5 days per week is going to train very differently than someone who can only make it to the gym 2 days per week. You get the picture. different situations create different needs.
I’m going to break down the reasons and lay out my case for why you should ditch the bodybuilding split if you’re looking to lose weight this year.
Your Training Goals
It should go without saying but training for different reasons will require different types of training. If you’re a bodybuilder, training like an athlete is going to be a total exercise in futility for you. If you’re an athlete, doing CrossFit is going to leave you wanting (and possibly hurt). And if you’re training for weight/fat loss, you shouldn’t organize your training like a bodybuilder.
If you’re trying to lose weight your goals for each training session should be two things:
Burning as many calories as possible
Getting enough volume (and tension) to make your muscles grow
These two outcomes will put you in the best possible position to both grow your muscle size and reduce the amount of fat your body is holding onto. This also sounds like something bodybuilders would be after, but there’s a pretty big difference here: you’re trying to burn a whole bunch of calories while a bodybuilder is trying specifically to grow, at all costs. That slight difference makes all the difference in the world when it comes to your training organization.
A bodybuilder is going to be able to waste energy and time on isolating muscles. Take a look at a cable crossover vs a dumbbell bench press exercise. They both work the pecs, but the cable crossover is going to be considered an isolation exercise. The goal of this exercise is to use as many pec fibers as possible while minimizing contributions from the muscles that act at the elbow (like the triceps), and the shoulders. A cable crossover’s movement takes place at one joint, whereas a dumbbell bench press takes place across two joints. Those two joints are the shoulders and the elbows. This is called a compound exercise. Compound exercises offer two important advantages over isolation exercises:
More muscles are used which means more calories are burned
More muscles used means heavier loads which also leads to more calories burned
We call these compound movements the “more bang for your buck” movements. Having the exercise act on more than one joint is incredibly beneficial when the goal is caloric burn and overall weight loss. When you’re trying to lose weight, you want 90% of your training to be these compound movements, and maybe 10% to be isolation-type exercises. You’re going to burn a lot more calories doing a shoulder press with 40lb dumbbells than you are going to burn using 15lb dumbbells performing lateral raises.
Your Training Frequency
This is another one that seems like it would be a no-brainer but the amount of days you’re available to train throughout the week is going to be a big factor in determining the best training split for you. Someone who has the time to train 5-6 days per week will be better off breaking their days down into muscles, while someone who can only train 3-4 days per week is going to be better off organizing their training into upper/lower type days. I used to be a content writer for powerliftingtechnique.com and wrote about this last year. You can find that article over here. It’s a really good article if I do say so myself, and it goes into much more detail than I’m going to go into here as a lot of the information is beyond the scope of this particular article.
Chances are if you’re a parent, going to school, and/or working full time (and everyone’s got a side hustle right now) you aren’t going to be able to dedicate 5-6 days per week to the gym and that’s more than ok. You can make some pretty great gains (or losses) training 2-3 days per week if everything else is buttoned up (sleep, nutrition) and you have sound training. The reason frequency is going to play an important role in your training split is twofold:
You have to get everything in with fewer training days
You need to make sure there aren’t too many days between training stimuli
Getting Everything In
If you’re training three days per week then a bodybuilding split with a chest day, an arm day, a back day, a leg day and a shoulder day isn’t going to cut it. Do the math, that’s five body parts and only three training days. You’re going to have to find a way to organize this training so you can make sure you train every body part, and that you’ve recovered before your next training day. You’ve got a few different options and we’ll talk about those later.
Training Days and Stimulus
Training is a constant chase for various adaptations. You’re going to train, then your body adapts to that training over time. You need a consistent training stimulus to both adapt and maintain those adaptations.
There is a finite timetable for maintaining training adaptations without stimulus. The longer you spend acquiring those adaptations, the longer your body will hold onto them without seeing a training stimulus. But, if you’re reading this article chances you are at least somewhat new to training. If you’re new to training you’re going to need more frequency to keep those adaptations.
If you were to organize your training like a bodybuilder, chances are you’re going to go entirely too long in between sessions for that body part. Hitting chest and tris, and then going an entire week before hitting them again isn’t going to move the needle enough. You’re better off using a split that allows you to hit those muscles twice per week.
Our bodies are great at adapting, but they’re even better at conserving energy. If your body doesn’t see the need to maintain an adaptation, it will let it go. I wrote about this phenomenon when it comes to strength. The old adage of “if you don’t use it you’ll lose it” is still true when it comes to training. We’ll talk about organizing these days at the end of this article.
What is Your Training Age?
Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard someone say “he’s 40 but he acts like he’s 5.” We all have, and chances are we’ve all got that one friend who fits the description. If you know me, then you know I was that guy up until about three years ago.
Someone’s mental age is much like their training age. It’s completely unrelated to how old they are but instead related to how much time they’ve spent in the gym. Someone with a low training age is going to benefit from training that is very different from someone who has an intermediate training age. And someone with an intermediate training age is going to need different training than someone with an advanced training age.
If you’re new to the gym or have been training for less than a year then you have a low (or zero) training age. You’re not going to need very specialized training the way a bodybuilder does because your body isn’t ready for it yet. Think of it like school, most people need to start off in elementary school, then move to middle school, and eventually high school. Starting off with specialized training when your training age is low is the equivalent of jumping to your freshman year of college right after kindergarten.
Your training can (and should) be incredibly generalized. This goes back to what we were talking about earlier with compound movements. With a low training age, you're going to see enormous benefits from very general movements like even dumbbell bench presses and goblet squats. You don’t need the curl to presses, weighted pistol squats, and pullover to extensions just yet.
Having a low training age also likely means that you don’t yet have a great base level of strength or work capacity. Pounding the same muscle over and over again for an entire session means you’re going to be too fatigued early on in the session to really see the benefits of increased reps/sets for that same muscle. On top of that, you’ll probably feel crippled if you devote an entire session to one muscle group. The recovery process will take 4-6 days instead of 1-2. Not being able to walk for a week isn’t conducive to motivation to get back to the gym each and every day.
The Best Training Split For Weight Loss (or Muscle Gain)
Ok, so we’ve established that a bodybuilding split isn’t for you just yet. Say no to “chest day” and “leg day” and instead say hello to upper/lower and push/pull sessions.
In the very beginning, you’re honestly going to want to try to train about three days per week. This is plenty of training stimulus and as long as you’re not training three days in a row then taking four days off, you’ll make steady and consistent gains. The way I would set this up for my clients would be either
Monday/Wednesday/Friday - Best
Monday/Tuesday/ Thursday - Not the best but still good
Monday/Thursday/Saturday - The same as example 1 but not lined up with the week
We’re not open on Sundays but you could also organize them in other ways if Sunday was an option for your training. Some people enjoy hitting the gym on a Sunday because the gyms seem to be a little bit quieter then. Do what works for you.
What you want to keep in mind when planning your week is to try not to have more than two days away from training in a row, while keeping a day for recovery in between days if possible.
This is how I would set up a client who was training Monday/Wednesday/Friday:
Monday - Upper push/Lower pull
Upper push exercises are anything that involves pushing the weight away from you. Bench press, shoulder press, push-ups, tricep extensions, etc. They’re mostly chest, shoulder, and tricep exercises.
Lower pull exercises can also be thought of as hinge exercises or posterior chain exercises. Things like deadlifts, RDLs, hamstring curls, GHR, hip bridges/thrusts, etc. They’re mostly hamstring and glute exercises.
Wednesday - Upper pull/lower push
Upper pull exercises are anything where you’re pulling weight towards yourself. Pull-downs, pull-ups, row variations, bicep curls, etc. They’re mostly trap, lat, and bicep exercises.
Lower push exercises are just squat and lunge patterns. Goblet squats, front squats, leg press, back squats, reverse lunges, lateral lunges, etc. They’re commonly thought of as quad exercises, but in reality, they incorporate all of the leg muscles.
Friday - Total Body
We use this day for two things: 1) work capacity type exercises like sled work and loaded carries, and 2) to get in work that we couldn’t get in the other days. Adding in another compound press movement, or another squat pattern that we wouldn’t have had the energy to do on the other days.
This is how I would set up a client who had to train two days in a row like Monday/Tuesday/Thursday:
Week 1
Monday - Upper heavy push/light pull
All upper body but more focus on the pushing than the pulling exercises
Tuesday - Lower heavy pull/light push
All lower body but more focus on the pulling exercises compared to the pushing exercises.
Thursday - Total Body
Same as the other setup
Week 2
Monday - Upper heavy pull/light push
Inverse of week 1
Tuesday - Lower heavy push/light pull
Inverse of week 1
Thursday - Total Body
Same as week 1
The reason the training looks different is because of the back-to-back days. Squatting and deadlift patterns use all the leg muscles so you wouldn’t be able to get much out of them doing them on back-to-back days. Also, upper body pulling and pushing movements both use the shoulders, so the same principle applies to the lower body. You just won’t be able to recover in time to get much out of your second session.
These training splits allow you to get enough work in and use primarily compound movements, all while ensuring you don’t have too much time in between training stimuli and that you’re able to recover so you can be your best every time you walk in the gym. I have found these training splits yield the best outcomes when it comes to clients who are either newer to training or haven’t been consistent about their training in a long time.
Wrapping It All Up
People are often lost when it comes to organizing their training, and believe it or not this is a giant hurdle for many people trying to both lose weight and/or gain muscle. If you’re one of those people hopefully this article helped you create the best training split for your weight loss (or gain)!
The things I want you to keep in mind when it comes to designing your training split and organizing your training:
Your training age. You’re probably not trained enough to need a bodybuilding split just yet.
Your training goals. Your goals should dictate the training. Don’t let the training dictate your goals.
Your training frequency is important. Ensuring you have both enough stimulus and enough time to recover.
