About this workout
I am going to be straight with you about the five day body part split. It is not the most efficient way to train. Hitting a muscle once every seven days sits at the low end of what the research says grows the most tissue, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. But it is the split most people actually enjoy, and a program you show up for five days a week beats a smarter one you quit in three. This is that split, built entirely around what a Planet Fitness has on the floor: machines, cables, dumbbells and a Smith machine. Ten weeks, one body part a day, no barbell required.
Who This Program Is For
- Lifters who can genuinely get to the gym five days a week and want each session focused on one body part
- Anyone training at Planet Fitness or a similar machine and dumbbell gym with no barbells or squat racks
- Intermediates with a year or so of consistent training who know how to take a set close to failure
- People who like the classic bodybuilding feel of a chest day, a back day and an arm day
Who this is NOT for: This is not for beginners in their first six months, who grow faster on full body work three days a week. It is not for anyone who realistically trains three or four days; you will keep missing sessions and the same body part will get skipped every time. And if your only goal is maximum muscle per hour spent, a push pull legs or upper lower setup hits each muscle more often and will beat this on paper.
What You'll Need
- A gym with cable stations, a Smith machine, plate loaded and selectorized machines, and dumbbells to at least 60 pounds
- Adjustable benches, a preacher setup or an incline bench you can use in its place, and a leg press
- A way to log every set: weight, reps and how close you were to failure. If you are not tracking, you are guessing
The Program
Five days, five body parts. Day 1 chest, Day 2 back, Day 3 shoulders, Day 4 arms, Day 5 legs. Run it Monday through Friday and take the weekend off, or slide the days around your schedule as long as arms fall after chest and back rather than before them. Every session is 5 to 7 exercises, 45 to 60 minutes of real work, and it starts with the heaviest compound movement of the day while you are fresh. Since each muscle only gets one session a week, that session has to count. Leave one or two reps in the tank on your early sets and take the last set of each exercise to the point where the bar speed slows and the next rep is genuinely in doubt.
| Day 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Chest | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Smith Machine Bench Press | 4 | 6-8 | 90 sec |
| Incline Dumbbell Bench Press | 4 | 8-10 | 90 sec |
| Pec Dec Butterfly | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Cable Crossover | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Dumbbell Pullover | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Push Ups | 2 | to failure | 60 sec |
| Day 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Back | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Lat Pulldown | 4 | 8-10 | 90 sec |
| Seated Cable Rows | 4 | 8-10 | 90 sec |
| One Arm Dumbbell Row | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Close Grip Pulldown | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Straight Arm Pulldown | 3 | 12-15, squeeze one second at the bottom | 60 sec |
| Dumbbell Shrugs | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Day 3 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Shoulders | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Smith Machine Overhead Press | 4 | 6-8 | 90 sec |
| Dumbbell Shoulder Press | 3 | 8-10 | 90 sec |
| Dumbbell Lateral Raise | 4 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Cable Lateral Raise | 3 | 15-20 | 45 sec |
| Reverse Flyes | 3 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Face Pulls | 3 | 15-20 | 45 sec |
| Day 4 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Arms | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Tricep Pushdown | 4 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Cable Hammer Curl | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Cable Rope Overhead Tricep Extensions | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Incline Dumbbell Curls | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Lying Dumbbell Tricep Extension | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Preacher Curl | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Bench Dips | 2 | to failure | 60 sec |
| Day 5 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Legs | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Smith Machine Squat | 4 | 8-10 | 2 min |
| Leg Press | 4 | 10-12 | 90 sec |
| Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift | 3 | 10-12, slow on the way down | 90 sec |
| Lying Leg Curl | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Leg Extension | 3 | 15-20 | 60 sec |
| Dumbbell Walking Lunges | 3 | 12-15 per leg | 60 sec |
| Standing Calf Raise | 4 | 15-20 | 45 sec |
How to Progress
Ten weeks, three working blocks and one deload. The plan is simple: add weight or add reps, and write it down.
Weeks 1 to 3 Find your loads. Pick weights that put you at the top of the listed rep range with one or two reps left over, then repeat those numbers and add a little each week. Do not chase failure yet; you are building a baseline and learning how each machine at your gym feels. Most people go too heavy here and spend three weeks grinding sloppy reps.
Weeks 4 to 6 Now you push. On the first exercise of every day, add 5 pounds or one rep over the previous week. On everything else, work to the top of the rep range before you add weight. The last set of each exercise should be hard enough that you are not sure you would get another rep. Dumbbell jumps are big at Planet Fitness, so when the next pair up is too heavy, stay where you are and add reps instead.
Week 7 Deload. Same exercises, same days, but cut every set to about 60 percent of the weight you used in week 6 and stop two or three reps short of failure. Drop the last exercise from each day. This is not a wasted week; your joints and your nervous system need it, and you will come back in week 8 stronger than you left. Do not skip it because you feel fine, that is exactly the point.
Weeks 8 to 10 Back to your week 6 numbers in week 8, then beat them in weeks 9 and 10. On the last set of the final exercise each day, run a drop set: hit failure, cut the weight roughly in half, and go again. When week 10 is done, take a full week easy, then either run the whole thing again with new loads or move to a split that hits each muscle twice a week.
Warm-Up and Recovery Notes
Five minutes on a bike or a treadmill to get warm, then warm up the first movement of the day properly. Two or three progressively heavier sets of 5 to 8 reps leading into your first working weight is enough. Do not warm up every exercise; once the muscle is hot, the second and third movements need one light feeler set at most. On leg day give the Smith machine squat an extra ramp set, and on shoulder day do a set of face pulls before you press so the rear delts and cuff are awake.
One body part a week means each muscle gets six full days off, so soreness is rarely the limiter here. Sleep is. Seven to nine hours most nights is the difference between adding weight in week 9 and stalling in week 5. Take both weekend days off, or use one for easy cardio and walking. If a joint hurts, and I mean hurts rather than burns, swap that movement for something in the same pattern that does not aggravate it instead of training through it and losing a month.
Nutrition and Supplementation
Training gives you the reason to grow; food decides whether you actually do. Eat roughly 200 to 300 calories above maintenance if you want to add size, and hold your weight steady if you just want to look better at the same bodyweight. Get 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight every day, spread over three or four meals. Carbs are not the enemy on a five day split; they are what fill the muscle and get you through a hard leg session. Weigh yourself two or three mornings a week and adjust off the trend, not off one number.
Simple support: a protein powder so hitting your daily protein target is not a daily fight, and a multivitamin to cover the gaps in your food. That is it. The training and the eating do the work; supplements are the small edge on top.
FAQ
Is a bro split good for natural lifters? It is not the best option on paper. Training a muscle twice a week beats once a week in most of the research, and that gap is real. But it is not the disaster the internet says it is either. Natural lifters have built serious physiques on body part splits for decades. If the alternative is a theoretically better program you dread and skip, run this one and run it hard.
What do I do if I miss a day? Push everything back a day and keep the order. If you miss chest on Monday, do chest on Tuesday and slide the rest of the week down. Do not double up two body parts in one session to catch up, and do not simply delete the missed day, because the same muscle gets shortchanged every single week and that is how one body part falls behind the rest of you.
How do I train legs without a squat rack? You do not need one. The Smith machine squat loads the quads and glutes plenty for hypertrophy, and the leg press lets you go heavy with no balance demand at all. Add Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift and Lying Leg Curl for the hamstrings and Dumbbell Walking Lunges for single leg work, and you have covered everything a rack would have given you. Your legs cannot count plates; they respond to tension and effort.
Questions and results
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Running this program? Tell us what week you are on and how the progression is going. A coach answers every question here.