4 Day Workout Split: Complete Program Guide

The 4 day workout split in brief

Three numbers explain why four days works. How much twice a week beats once a week, how much each extra set is worth, and how many days the textbooks ask for at your level.

Every figure on this page about the 4 day workout split comes from a PubMed abstract listed at the end. The programs themselves are coaching templates built on those findings, and the page says so where a number is a rule of thumb rather than a trial result.

What this 4 day workout split guide covers

Is a 4 day workout split enough to build muscle?

Yes, and for most people it is more than enough. The honest answer from the trials is that the number of days you train matters less than the total work you do in the week. Once the weekly sets are equal, splitting them over two, three, four or six days gives about the same result. Here is the evidence, in order.

In 2016 a review of 10 trials compared training the same muscle once, twice or three times a week on the same weekly volume. Twice a week grew muscle more than once a week, with effect sizes of 0.49 against 0.30 (PMID 27102172). In 2019 the same group had 25 trials to work with. This time, when volume was equal, the difference between frequencies disappeared. Their conclusion was that for a given weekly volume you can pick the number of days by preference (PMID 30558493).

Strength follows the same pattern. A review of 22 trials lined strength gains up by days per week. The effect sizes were 0.74, 0.82, 0.93 and 1.08 for one, two, three and four or more days. But when the trials with equal volume were pulled out, frequency on its own made no significant difference. The authors said the gain comes from the extra volume that more days allow (PMID 29470825). A separate review of 12 trials reached the same place, with one twist: upper body strength did favour higher frequency, with an effect size of 0.48 (PMID 30076500).

Two trials on trained lifters make it concrete. Twenty three men with about seven years of lifting trained for 8 weeks. Both groups did 10 to 15 weekly sets per muscle, one as a body part split and one as five full body sessions. Bench press went up 5.6 kg in the split group and 9.7 kg in the full body group. Squat went up 8.0 kg and 12.0 kg. Lean mass went up 0.5 kg and 0.8 kg. None of those gaps was statistically significant (PMID 29489727). And 28 trained men did the same work over three or six days a week for 6 weeks. Strength gains matched: squat up 16.8 kg against 16.7 kg, bench up 7.8 kg against 8.8 kg (PMID 29324578).

What the ACSM says about days per week

The American College of Sports Medicine position stand is the reference most coaches start from. It recommends two to three days a week for beginners, three to four days for intermediates with about six months of consistent training, and four to five days for advanced lifters. For size it suggests mostly 6 to 12 rep sets with one to two minutes of rest. For heavy strength work it suggests 1 to 6 reps with three to five minutes of rest (PMID 19204579). A 4 day workout split can hold both. Heavy work early in the session, lighter work after it.

Four ways to split four days

There are four sensible ways to divide a 4 day workout split. They differ in one thing: how many times a week each muscle gets trained. Two of them hit everything twice. One hits the upper body twice and legs once. One hits everything once. Here they are on one calendar.

Rows one and three give every muscle two sessions a week, which is what the frequency trials favour. Row two trains the upper body twice and legs once; row four trains each muscle once (PMID 27102172).

Meet Alex, the example lifter for this page. Alex is 75 kg, has lifted for about a year on a 3 day full body plan, and can now get to the gym on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Alex wants more muscle, especially in the upper body, and does not want to spend more than an hour per session. Every program below is written for Alex, and the sets and loads are the kind a year one lifter can handle.

The upper lower split: the best 4 day workout split for most people

Two upper body days and two lower body days. Every muscle gets trained twice a week, with two or three days between sessions for the same muscle. It is the version the frequency trials point to, the easiest to balance, and the one most coaches hand to a lifter moving up from three days. If you searched for the best 4 day workout split, this is the answer for most people.

The order below is Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. That gives a rest day after each pair and two at the weekend. Any pattern with one rest day between the pairs works. Upper A and Lower A are heavier, with 6 to 8 reps on the main lifts. Upper B and Lower B are a little lighter and use more dumbbell and cable work. That spread covers both ends of the rep range the ACSM recommends (PMID 19204579).

How much work that adds up to

Count the sets and the plan lands most muscles between 9 and 16 direct sets a week. That is inside the range where each extra set still buys growth (PMID 27433992), and it is spread across two sessions so no single workout needs more than about 20 sets. If you want more detail on where the ceiling is, read training volume explained.

How to change it without breaking it

Swap any exercise for one that trains the same muscle through a similar movement. Barbell bench for dumbbell bench, back squat for leg press if your knees complain, and so on. Keep the sets and reps. If knee pain is the issue, there is a full page on knee pain when squatting. If you want more arm work, add one set to each curl and pushdown rather than a fifth day. If the upper days run long, drop the last exercise on each. Do not add a third upper day. That turns the plan into something else.

Push pull legs plus upper: the 4 day split for a bigger upper body

Push pull legs is a 6 day idea squeezed into four. You run push, pull and legs once, then add an upper body day so chest, back, shoulders and arms get their second session. Legs get one session. That is a trade, and it is worth saying plainly. Upper body frequency is where higher frequency showed a strength advantage in the 12 trial review, with an effect size of 0.48 (PMID 30076500). Legs showed no such effect. So if your priority is upper body size and your legs are already fine, this split puts the extra work where the evidence says it helps.

The downside is that one leg day has to hold the whole week of leg volume. The table below gives legs 19 sets in one session, which is a hard day. If that is too much, keep the squat and Romanian deadlift and cut the rest to two sets each. Or switch to upper lower.

Push pull twice and the body part split

Push pull twice a week

This version folds the legs into the upper body days. Push days are chest, shoulders, triceps and quads, because they all push. Pull days are back, biceps, hamstrings and glutes, because they all pull. Every muscle still gets two sessions a week, so the frequency matches upper lower. The difference is feel. There is no leg day, so there is no day you dread, and every session starts with a big barbell lift. The cost is that each session is a bit longer and a bit more tiring, because you are squatting and benching in the same hour.

The body part split

Chest day, back day, leg day, shoulder and arm day. This is the classic bodybuilding layout, and the honest thing to say about it is that the evidence is mixed. In the 2016 review, once a week lost to twice a week (PMID 27102172). One trial put 20 trained men on either a once a week split or three full body days. The full body group grew more in the forearm flexors and matched on strength (PMID 25932981). But in the 2019 review with 25 trials, once weekly sets were equal, frequency stopped mattering (PMID 30558493). And in the 8 week trial on 23 experienced men, the once a week split gained the same lean mass and strength as five full body sessions (PMID 29489727).

So a body part split can work, as long as the weekly sets per muscle stay as high as they would be on upper lower. The table below gives each muscle 12 to 16 sets in its one session. That is a lot of work for one muscle in one hour, and the last sets are usually the weakest. That is the practical reason most coaches prefer twice a week. The quality of the sets is better when they are spread out.

Which 4 day workout split fits you

4 day workout split for men

Men searching for a 4 day split are usually after size in the chest, back and arms, and strength on the bench. Upper lower covers that for most. If the upper body is the clear priority, PPL plus upper puts the extra sets there. Keep the lower days in. Squats and deadlifts carry a lot of total muscle and they are the lifts that make the rest of the plan feel easy.

4 day workout split for women

The same splits work, and the trials say so. A review of 10 studies found no difference in muscle growth between men and women on the same program, with an effect size of 0.07. Lower body strength gains were also the same. Upper body strength gains were actually larger in women, with an effect size of 0.60 (PMID 32218059). So there is no women only version of a 4 day workout split. What usually changes is emphasis. Many women want more glute and hamstring work, and the fix is simple. On upper lower, add hip thrusts for 3 sets of 8 to 12 to Lower A and a second hamstring exercise to Lower B. Keep the upper days. They are where women often see the fastest strength progress.

Beginners

The ACSM puts beginners at two to three days a week (PMID 19204579), and a 3 day full body plan is still the better start. Three days teaches the lifts with more rest between sessions, and a beginner grows on far fewer sets than an intermediate. If you have under six months of training, start with the 3 day workout split. Move to four days when you have a year of steady lifting, your main lifts have stopped going up every week, and three sessions are running past 75 minutes. If you still want four days as a beginner, use upper lower and cut every exercise to 2 or 3 sets.

Hypertrophy, strength and a 4 day full body option

For pure size, upper lower or push pull twice. Both give every muscle two sessions and 10 to 16 sets a week, and both let you use the 6 to 12 rep range the ACSM favours for growth (PMID 19204579). Taking some sets to failure helps a little in trained lifters, with an effect size of 0.15 in a review of 15 trials. It is not required, and it costs recovery (PMID 33497853). Save failure for the last set of isolation work.

For strength, keep the same layout and put the heavy lift first on every day with 3 to 5 minute rests. In 21 trained men, three minute rests beat one minute rests for both strength and thigh growth over 8 weeks (PMID 26605807). Heavy loads beat light loads for one rep max strength across 21 trials, while growth was similar at any load taken near failure (PMID 28834797).

A 4 day full body split also exists: four short full body sessions, each with one press, one pull, one squat or hinge and one or two small lifts. The 28 man trial that compared three and six full body days found the same gains at equal volume (PMID 29324578). So four full body days is a fair option for someone who likes short sessions. It is harder to recover from than upper lower because the legs get loaded four times a week, so keep the sets per session low.

An 8 week 4 day workout split plan: how to make it progress

A split is a calendar. It does not build muscle on its own. What builds muscle is asking for a little more each week and writing it down. The ACSM rule is to raise the load by 2 to 10 percent once you can do one or two reps more than planned (PMID 19204579). On a 55 kg bench that is 2.5 kg at the small end, which is exactly the step in the table below. Here is how Alex runs the first 8 weeks on the upper lower plan.

The pattern is called double progression. Keep the load until every set hits the top of the rep range, then add the smallest plate you have and let the reps drop. It is slow on paper and fast in practice. Over the 8 weeks Alex adds 5 kg to the bench while the reps stay in the 6 to 8 range. The full method, with a calculator for your next session, is on progressive overload explained.

Week 8 is a deload on purpose

Every eighth week, cut the sets in half and take 10 to 15 percent off the bar. You will not lose anything in a week, and the sets in week 9 will feel better than the sets in week 7. Fatigue builds quietly on a 4 day workout split because there is less rest between sessions than on three days. The signs you need the deload early are sleep getting worse, joints aching before the muscles do, and the same load feeling heavier two sessions in a row. More on all of that is on recovery and fatigue.

Food and the split

Four days of lifting with 10 to 16 sets per muscle is a real demand, and it needs food to turn into muscle. A small surplus of 200 to 300 kcal a day is the usual coaching starting point for a lifter who wants size. For protein, a review of 49 trials found no extra gain above about 1.6 g per kg of body weight a day (PMID 28698222). The training itself changes a little depending on whether you are eating to gain or to lose. That is covered on cutting vs bulking training, and the calorie calculator gives the starting number.

Five 4 day workout split mistakes that stall people

1. Four days of upper body and calling it a split

Chest Monday, arms Tuesday, shoulders Thursday, back Friday, legs never. It happens more than people admit. Half of your muscle is below the waist and the squat and deadlift drive the strength of everything else. Two of the four days need to load the legs.

2. Training four days in a row

Monday to Thursday, then three days off. The fourth session is always the worst one, and the weekend gap is long enough that Monday feels like starting over. Put a rest day after each pair. Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri or Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat both work.

3. Treating the lighter day as optional

On upper lower, the B days are where the second weekly session for every muscle lives. Skip Upper B and your chest and back are back to once a week, which the 2016 review found grows less (PMID 27102172). If life only allows three sessions in a week, do Upper A, Lower A and a short full body session, not two upper days.

4. Adding exercises instead of weight

A fifth chest exercise is not progress. An extra 2.5 kg on the bench is. Each added set is worth about 0.37 percent more growth on average (PMID 27433992), and that return falls as the session gets long. Hold the exercise list steady for 8 weeks and change the numbers in the log instead.

5. Resting 45 seconds on the main lifts

Short rests feel productive and cost you reps on the sets that matter. Three minute rests beat one minute rests for strength and thigh growth in trained men over 8 weeks (PMID 26605807). Rest long on the first two lifts of the day. Rest short on the isolation work at the end, where it does no harm.

Verdict: four days, two for upper, two for lower, write it down

A 4 day workout split is effective because it makes the two things the trials care about easy. Enough weekly sets per muscle, and every muscle trained twice. Upper lower does that with the least fuss. PPL plus upper tilts the extra work to the upper body. Push pull twice does the same job as upper lower with no leg day. The body part split works if the sets are there and you enjoy it. None of them works without the log.

If you are moving up from three days, go to the 3 day split page first and check you have outgrown it. If you are already on four days and not growing, the fix is on the progressive overload page and the training volume page, not in a new split.