About this workout

You have been training a few months. You show up, you finish the workout, and full body three days a week is starting to feel light. That is not a problem. That is the signal to add days and add volume per muscle. This is the plan that comes next. Four days a week, upper lower, split into Upper A, Lower A, Upper B and Lower B. Every muscle gets hit twice a week. Upper A and Lower A run heavier in the 6 to 10 rep range on the big compound work. Upper B and Lower B run lighter and higher rep with more isolation. That is not filler. Training a muscle across two rep ranges in the same week is one of the simplest ways to keep growing once beginner gains slow down. Everything here fits a Planet Fitness. No barbell, no squat rack, no bumper plates. Smith machine, selectorized machines, dumbbells up to whatever your club stocks, and cables. I am not going to pretend that is ideal for a powerlifter. For putting muscle on your frame, it is more than enough. The equipment limits your exercise selection. It does not limit your results. What will limit your results is training four days a week and eating like you train zero. I will say that again later because it matters more than anything in the exercise tables.

Who This Program Is For

• Lifters with three to six months of consistent training who have outgrown a three day full body plan.
• Anyone training at Planet Fitness or any gym without barbells and squat racks.
• People who can commit to four sessions a week and want each muscle trained twice.
• Men and women who want to add size and strength without living in the gym.

Who this is NOT for: This is not for your first week in a gym. If you have never trained, or you are coming back after a year off, start with a three day full body plan and earn your way here. This is also not a powerlifting program. You are not going to test a one rep max on a Smith machine, and you should not try. If your goal is a competition total, you need a gym with a barbell and a rack.

What You'll Need

• Access to a Smith machine, a leg press, a lat pulldown and a cable station.
• Dumbbells and an adjustable bench, flat and incline.
• 45 to 60 minutes, four days a week, and a way to log your weights.

The Program

Run the four days in order with at least one rest day somewhere in the week. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday is the standard setup. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday works too. What matters is that you do not stack all four sessions back to back to back. Upper A and Lower A are your heavy days. Pick a weight that has you grinding on the last rep of the last set in the listed range, not failing on rep three. Upper B and Lower B are your volume days. Lighter weight, more reps, shorter rest, more isolation work. If Upper B feels easy, you are resting too long between sets. The first set of any compound movement is not a warmup set. Do two or three ramp up sets before the first working set on Smith Machine Bench Press and Smith Machine Squat. Those do not count toward the sets listed in the table. Where a movement is done one side at a time, the listed reps are per side. Rest times are guidelines. If you need another 15 seconds to hit the target reps, take it.

How to Progress

Ten weeks, one deload. The weight on the bar goes up over time or the program is not working. Log every set so you know what you did last week instead of guessing.

Weeks 1 to 3. Learn the movements and set your baseline. Stop every working set one or two reps short of failure. Yes, that feels easy at first. It also means you can add weight for three straight weeks instead of stalling in week two. Write down every load and every rep.

Weeks 4 to 6. Add weight anywhere you hit the top of the rep range for all prescribed sets. Small jumps, 5 pounds on upper body movements and 10 on lower body. On the A days you are now taking the last set close to failure, one rep in the tank. B days stay a little easier and a little faster.

Week 7. Deload. Same exercises, same days, cut every working set to two sets and drop the weight about 40 percent. This is not optional and it is not a wasted week. Ten straight weeks of adding weight without a break is how joints get cranky and progress stalls. You will come back stronger in week 8.

Weeks 8 to 10. Push. Take the last set of the first two exercises on each day to true failure. Add one set to Lat Pulldown on Upper A and one set to Leg Press on Lower A if recovery allows. Week 10 is your best week; test your top loads, log them, and use those numbers as the starting point for whatever you run next.

Warm-Up and Recovery Notes

Five to eight minutes on a bike, treadmill or elliptical to get warm, then two or three ramp up sets on the first exercise of the day. On Upper A that means working up to your Smith Machine Bench Press weight. On Lower A that means working up to your Smith Machine Squat weight. Ramp up sets are light and stop well short of failure; they are not part of your working sets. Skip the long static stretching before you lift. Save it for after. Get blood moving, run the pattern light, then train.

Four training days means three days off. Use them. Muscle is built when you recover, not while you are in the gym. Seven to nine hours of sleep does more for your progress than any pre workout on the shelf. If you are sleeping five hours a night, fix that before you add another training day. Walk on your off days. Twenty to thirty minutes of easy movement, or Incline Walking on a treadmill, helps you recover and adds to your daily calorie burn without cutting into your ability to train hard. If you want to run or do intervals, keep it away from Lower A and Lower B by at least a day. Soreness is normal in the first two weeks. Joint pain is not. If something hurts in the joint rather than the muscle, swap the movement for one that does not hurt and keep training.

Nutrition and Supplementation

Here is the unglamorous part. The training in this plan builds muscle. Your diet decides whether anyone can see it. If you want to add size, eat slightly above maintenance, roughly 250 to 400 calories over, and get around 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day. If you want to lose fat while holding the muscle you have, eat below maintenance and keep the protein high. Same training either way; the food decides the outcome. No split, no rep scheme and no exercise selection outruns a bad diet. I have watched people run perfect programs for a year and change nothing because they never tracked what they ate. Do not be that person. Eat protein at every meal. Get most of your carbs around training. Drink water. It is that boring and it works.

Supplements are the last five percent. Get the training and the food right first. If you want the short list that actually has support behind it: a protein powder to help you hit your daily protein, creatine monohydrate at 5 grams a day, and caffeine before training if you need it. That is the list.

FAQ

Is upper lower better than a bro split? For most people training four days a week, yes. Not because the exercises are magic, but because frequency is. On an upper lower split every muscle gets trained twice a week instead of once. Two moderate sessions per muscle generally beat one brutal session, because you get two shots at the growth signal and you can hold better technique on both. A bro split is not useless; it works fine at five or six days a week for advanced lifters with a lot of volume to spread out. At four days, upper lower wins.

How do I squat heavy without a squat rack? Smith Machine Squat is your main heavy squat here, and it does the job. Set your feet slightly in front of the bar so the movement stays in a comfortable groove, and go through a full range of motion. After that, load the Leg Press. A leg press lets you handle real weight safely with no spotter, which is exactly what you want in a gym with no rack. Add Dumbbell Bulgarian Squat and Goblet Squat variations for the unilateral work your quads and glutes need. Between those, your legs are covered.

Is the Smith machine good enough to build muscle? Yes. The fixed bar path takes away some stabilizer work, and that is a real difference from a free barbell, but muscle grows from tension, effort and progressive overload. The Smith machine delivers all three. It also lets you train close to failure without a spotter, which is worth something when you lift alone. Use it, load it, add weight over time and stop worrying about it. Lifters have built serious physiques on machines and dumbbells for decades.

Related Programs

• 3 Day Full Body Planet Fitness Workout
• 5 Day Body Part Split Planet Fitness Workout
• Smith Machine Workout Plan