About this workout
Most 5-day splits are just a bodypart split with a fancy name: one muscle a day, once a week, and you hope it works. This one trains your upper body three times and your lower body twice, every week, with the heavy work up front and the volume work behind it. It is built for the lifter who has been training a year or more and has stopped seeing the scale and the bar move at the same time.
Who This Program Is For
- You have been training consistently for at least 12 months, and you know how to hit a real set of 8.
- You can train five days a week, and you will actually show up five days a week.
- You want size, but you are not willing to get weaker to chase a pump.
- You have access to a full gym — barbells, dumbbells, cables, a pull-up bar.
Who this is NOT for: beginners. If you have been lifting for under six months, this is too much volume, and you will get more out of three full body days. Go run the 3 Day Full Body Workout for Beginners and come back in six months bigger than the guy who started here.
It is also not for anyone who can only train three or four days. Five days means five days. A 5-day program run four days a week is not a 5-day program; it is a mess.
What You'll Need
- Barbell and rack
- Dumbbells up to a working weight for pressing and rowing
- Cable station
- Pull-up bar
- A leg press or hack squat, or a willingness to substitute
- A notebook or an app. You cannot progressively overload what you do not write down. This is the single most common reason intermediate lifters stall.
The Program
Train Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Or any five days that give you at least one rest day inside the week. Do not run five straight and then take two off — the fifth day will be garbage.
Rest periods are prescriptions, not suggestions. If you rest 45 seconds on a heavy squat because you are in a hurry, you are training conditioning and calling it leg day.
| Day 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Upper (Heavy Push Emphasis) | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Barbell Bench Press | 4 | 5-7 | 3 min |
| Military Press (Overhead Shoulder Press) | 3 | 6-8 | 2-3 min |
| Incline Dumbbell Bench Press | 3 | 8-10 | 2 min |
| Chest Supported Row | 3 | 8-10 | 2 min |
| Dumbbell Lateral Raise | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Tricep Pushdown | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Day 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Lower (Heavy) | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Barbell Squat | 4 | 5-7 | 3 min |
| Romanian Deadlift | 3 | 6-8 | 2-3 min |
| Leg Press | 3 | 10-12 | 2 min |
| Lying Leg Curl | 3 | 10-12 | 90 sec |
| Standing Calf Raise | 4 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Hanging Leg Raise | 3 | 10-15 | 60 sec |
| Day 3 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Upper (Heavy Pull Emphasis) | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Bent Over Row | 4 | 6-8 | 3 min |
| Pull-up | 3 | 5-8 | 2-3 min |
| Seated Cable Rows | 3 | 8-10 | 2 min |
| Dumbbell Bench Press | 3 | 8-10 | 2 min |
| Face Pulls | 3 | 15-20 | 60 sec |
| Barbell Curl | 3 | 8-10 | 60 sec |
| Day 4 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Lower (Volume) | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Barbell Front Squat | 3 | 8-10 | 2-3 min |
| Bulgarian Split Squat | 3 | 10-12 each leg | 90 sec |
| Hip Thrust (Weighted Hip Extension) | 3 | 10-12 | 2 min |
| Seated Leg Curl | 3 | 12-15 | 90 sec |
| Leg Extension | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Seated Calf Raise | 4 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Day 5 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Upper (Volume, Delts and Arms) | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Dumbbell Shoulder Press | 3 | 10-12 | 2 min |
| Lat Pulldown | 3 | 10-12 | 90 sec |
| Incline Dumbbell Flys | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Dumbbell Lateral Raise | 4 | 15-20 | 45 sec |
| Incline Dumbbell Curls | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Cable Rope Overhead Tricep Extensions | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
How to Progress
This is the part every free program on the internet skips, and it is the reason you have run four of them and look the same.
Weeks 1-2 — establish. Pick weights where the last rep of your top set is hard but clean. You should finish every session knowing you had one more rep in you. Write down every load.
Weeks 3-6 — add. On the first exercise of each day, when you hit the top of the rep range for all your sets, add weight next session: 5-10 lbs on lower body lifts, 5 lbs on upper body lifts. On everything else, add reps first. When you hit the top of the range on every set, add weight and drop back to the bottom of the range.
Week 7 — push. Take the top set of each day's first exercise to a genuine hard set. Not failure. One rep left.
Week 8 — deload. Same exercises, same sets, 60% of the weight you used in week 7. You will feel like you are wasting a week. You are not. You are letting your joints and your nervous system catch up so week 1 of the next block starts higher than week 1 of this one.
Then run it again with heavier numbers, or move to Push Pull Legs: 6 Day Split for Muscle and Strength.
Warm-Up and Recovery Notes
Warm up the first heavy lift of the day properly: 40% of your working weight for 5 reps, 60% for 3, 80% for 1, then your first work set. Everything after that needs one light feeder set at most.
Five minutes of general movement before you touch a bar — bike, rower, whatever raises your temperature. Skip the 20 minute mobility routine on YouTube. It is not making you bigger.
Sleep is the recovery variable that actually moves the needle, and it is the one most people ignore while buying a $60 recovery powder. Seven hours minimum. If you are getting five, cut this to four days a week — you will make better progress on four days recovered than five days fried.
Nutrition and Supplementation
You cannot build muscle in a calorie deficit past the beginner stage, not meaningfully. If size is the goal, eat at a slight surplus and get 0.8-1g of protein per pound of bodyweight. That is the whole strategy.
Supplements do not substitute — they supplement. On a program like this, the three that have the research behind them are protein powder for hitting your intake, creatine monohydrate at 5g a day, and a pre-workout if your training time is when your energy is worst. Everything else is optional.
FAQ
Can I run this four days a week? No. Drop to a 4 day upper/lower instead. Running five days of programming across four days means one session gets cut every week and it is always the same one.
What if I don't have a leg press? Substitute hack squat, goblet squat, or add a set to your Bulgarian split squats. Substitute freely on accessory work. Do not substitute the first exercise of each day.
How long before I see anything? Strength on the bar in 3-4 weeks. Visible size in 8-12 weeks if your nutrition is right. Anyone promising faster than that is selling you something.
Should I add cardio? Two or three 20-30 minute low intensity sessions a week is fine and good for you. Adding HIIT on top of five lifting days will cost you recovery you need.
Can women run this? Yes, unchanged. The programming does not care.