There's No Perfect Split

Members ask me about splits more than almost any other training question. What's my ideal split? Should they run push/pull/legs or a bro split? Upper/lower or torso/limbs? Can they add an arm day to a program that says to run it as written? Underneath every one of those is the same question: which split builds the most muscle?

My honest answer is that nobody knows the best split for every person, and new research keeps coming out. What I do know is what has built the biggest physiques in the sport, what each kind of split gives you and what it costs you, and why the split usually matters less than what you do inside it.

The split the top guys all used

I'll start with the fact that settles the argument about whether a bro split works.

No top bodybuilder of the last 30-plus years, since the mid-'80s, has done anything different than the straight one-body-part-a-day, five-days-a-week routine. There are guys like John Meadows who do maybe seven days a week or do different things, but I'm talking about the top ten on the Mr. Olympia stage. They're all doing the same training split.

Every Mr. Olympia for 30 years trained one body part a day. Whatever else you believe about it, a split that built every one of those physiques clearly builds muscle. Anyone who tells you the bro split doesn't work has to explain all of them.