Train Like an Athlete by ATHLEAN-X (Video Podcast)

Determining the best workout split is one of the most popular questions being asked by every person that works out. The answer however is not a simple one if you want to be truthful. Anyone that pretends to tell you the one best training split should be avoided when looking for helpful advice. This is because in order to know how to best split your muscle group training you need to ask many questions.

The first thing you need to understand is what your current training goals are. Are you trying to build new muscle? Are you trying to improve your conditioning while losing body fat? Are you trying to develop explosive power and athleticism? The answer to that question can greatly alter the training split that would best fit your goal.

Next you need to understand what type of training split you just completed. For instance, some workout splits are much more successful than others depending on the one that immediately preceded it. Following a period were you were doing high volume low weight training, your muscles are more primed and ready than ever for a change to lower volume. Whether or not you accompany that with an increase in weight would depend on whether strength was a priority for you or not.

Additionally, not all splits are right for every body. If you were going to attempt to build bigger triceps because they were a weak muscle group for you then you would want to prioritize them with additional volume over the course of a training cycle. This could come in the form of a few additional sets at the end of 3 workouts in a week or as an additional day of training per week geared at the triceps.

Finally, while push and pull muscle group splits have their advantages in helping to manage training volume they can’t be relied on as gospel for how you should train. For example, biceps and back are two muscle groups that act to “pull” when active. Training them on the same day would allow you to work the two similar functions without subjecting yourself to overtraining by continually training them on back to back days.

That said, thinking that a push and a pull muscle group can’t be worked together because of this synergy would prevent you from realizing the gains you could see by training this way. See the example of how the back and triceps work well together in this video for an example of this.

At the end of the day, the most important thing to do is make sure you are strategically varying your training splits. Never listen to someone that tells you the best training split to do unless they are aware of what your goals are and where in your training plan you currently are. They need to know what you’ve been training like leading up to this point as well. If you’re looking for a step by step workout plan that varies training splits from phase to phase and does so with science leading the way, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System

For more workout videos and best ways to split your muscle groups when training, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24