Please Help with my Training Split

I am trying to design a training split where I work out mon-tues-thurs-fri. So I plan to do four different workouts. On Mondays, I need a short workout, since the gym is packed. I was thinking of doing delts and triceps on this day. On Tues I have a lot of time, and I want to do quads on this day. However, I am not sure if I should do hamstrings on this day also? Or should I do them with back on Friday? I will also do traps with back, and Thurs will be chest and bis. I’ll do abs somewhere do. So my real question is “where do I put hamstrings, or deadlifts, in my split?” I’ll be doing stiff leg, most likely. Thanks!

princess: The Four Day Split has always been my favorite. The one that I have found to work well is one that Miriam Power posted in an interview done by Chris Shugart:

MONDAY Chest, Back, Biceps, Abs, cardio

TUESDAY Legs (Hams, Quads, Calves), Shoulders, Triceps, Abs, cardio

WEDNESDAY Cardio

THURSDAY Chest, Back Biceps, Abs


FRIDAY Legs (Hams, Quads, Calves), Shoulders, Triceps, Abs

SATURDAY Jog outside


SUNDAY Off

I’ve made some minor adjustments (like doing forarms on two of the “abs” days and doing abs twice a week instead of four), but I thought Miriam provided a great framework. Hope this helps!

princess: This is what I call the “Modified Powers 4-day Split” and is the one I use the most:

MONDAY Chest, Back, Biceps, Abs, Neck, cardio
TUESDAY Legs (Hams, Quads, Calves), Shoulders, Triceps, Forearms, cardio

WEDNESDAY Rest

THURSDAY Chest, Back, Biceps, Abs, Neck, Cardio
FRIDAY Legs (Hams, Quads, Calves), Shoulders, Triceps, Forearms, cardio

SATURDAY Off
SUNDAY Off


I am able to work the body parts twice a week (sorry, HITTers…), I get good recuperation, and I hit neck and forarms (that are often missed in many workouts). I am still working on where is best to put my conventional/Sumo Deads. Many will say do them on back day; some say right before your rest days. I sure welcome any input…

To Princess, don’t know much about your training history but I’ll try to summarise as best as I can.

Mondays, Shoulder presses choose either vertical, incline or flat followed by tricep and delt work.

Tuesdays, choose whichever focus you want, quads or hamstrings. I prefer semi- stiff deadlifts as they target hams and glutes…keep knees bent slightly. Or do some squats or leg presses. Follow up with back exercises, hypers or reverse hypers, then do some light quad emphasised exercises (split squats). Follow up with some ab work as your last exercise.

Thursdays, compound chest movement not done on Monday (if you did vertical on Monday then do Flat or Incline today). Again do some tricep work afterwards (like dips), then throw in some bicep work instead of shoulders.

Friday, do upper back (upright rows/chins/pulldowns/Rows), legs (hamstrings or quads choose which one you did not focus on Tuesday), could be hamstring curls or leg presses. Final exercise biceps curls.

Compund movements first in the workout followed by either more compound or isolation work. Hope this helps you.

I recommend that you write down your weaknesses and then prioritize your training to address those weaknesses first. The four-day split is great because it allows you to divide your quad/ham workouts and allows you to focus on 2-3 bodyparts each workout. So here’s an example of a four-day split you could try based on your time availability.

MONDAY: Back (chins, rows), triceps. TUESDAY: Hamstrings (stiff-legged deadlifts), shoulders (presses, laterals). THURSDAY: Chest, biceps. FRIDAY: Quads, calves.

Go ahead and do abs on each training day. You can do them at the beginning or end of your workout. Divide them up the “Ian King way.” I hope that helps! :slight_smile:

The only thing I could suggest here is maybe do a lower body workout on Monday instead of chest like all the minions in gyms do on Mondays for some reason.

I find monday is the perfect day to get use of the leg equipment(with the exception of the wife beater wearing dorks doing their barbell curls in the power rack)

Works for me, I do a bodyparta day myself and if chest or shoulders lands on a monday I just take that day off, less annoying lol.

monday: biceps, triceps
tuesday: quads, delts, calves
thurday:chest, upper back
friday:hamstrings, shoulders (traps), forearms
After doing heavy sets of bent leg deadlift and stiff legged deadlift you probably wont need to do shoulders (traps) or forearms. If you feel like it, you can add some sets. My nervous system is too shocked by then. You can put the hamstring workout on monday since you can theoretically be at one free bar or dumbell workstation for the whole workout. If so then you just shift all the other workouts down one day. This has been the best split i have ever used. If i was to shift excercises i would group chest-tris and back-biceps but definitely keep the legs split. there is no way you can get a goos workout out doing quads and hamstrings the same workout. need help with excercises, let me know.

Now I’m just even more confused! I guess my real question is whether or not to split up legs? If I am planning on deep front squats for quads, will it still hit my “posterior chain” enough so that it would be overtraining to do deadlifts later in the week?

I think it’s best to keep your leg days separate. Sure, deep squats will hit some of your hamstring and glute area, but not enough to warrant not doing the hammies on a separate day. I think you’ll make better progress keeping them separate. Check out the split I wrote. I think it may be a good one for you. Also, the split by pkradgreek looks good too. Give one of them a go! And keep your quad and ham days separated!!! :slight_smile:

Here is my suggestion. Why not do just stiff-legged deads on Monday? Put the delt work with either the back or chest day. The same thing with tri’s. Just lump them with either the back or chest day. I’m not sure that you need extra trap work if you are going to deadlift. Most women don’t like big traps, but to each her own. I like being time-efficient by grouping muscles that work together. I do tri’s on chest day because the bench gives the tri’s a good workout and I only need to do a few more sets to finish them off. The same goes for biceps and back work. Sometimes I will switch them around though, so that the arms get some work twice a week. If you are going to do any rowing, the traps will probably see some work there too, in addition to the work done while deadlifting. The rationale behind putting delts with either back or chest is that delts get work with either one. Since delts get worked so much during the week, I wouldn’t think that they need that much volume–unless you are prioritizing them. One final option: just throw the deads in with quads and keep the rest of the program as you first stated. A lot of people do both deads and squat in one workout and get good results. You do have to be careful of the volume because it should be less than the sum of the volumes of two leg workouts that were split up. No worries though. Deads and squats work a lot of the same muscles, but with differing emphasis, so you should not need excessive volume to “hit all the muscles.” Good luck.

Id say squat and dl on one day is too much, dls should be the core back exercise, and biceps should be worked with or a few days from back because of the pulling overlap. So assuming you have prioritised correctly Id suggest 1> traps to tues or thurs 2> biceps to tues or friday 3> calves on tuesday 4> back and hams friday.

Deep squats will hit your hams and glutes at the bottom, but I think of them primarily as a quad exercise (a “light” ham/glute exercise at best).

I split up my quad and ham workouts. My reasoning is this... any sort of leg training is brutal and takes a lot of energy, more so than upper body work. So splitting my leg training up into two workouts a week allows more quality work per session.

It's a good idea to either do DL's with back, or as far away from back as possible. Just don't do one the day after or the day before the other.