About this workout
The Arnold split is six days of high-volume bodybuilding: chest and back together, shoulders and arms together, then legs each trained twice a week. It is named after exactly who you think, and it is built for the advanced lifter who has the work capacity, the recovery, and the years of technique to justify this much volume. If that is not you yet, this program will bury you. I am telling you that up front because most people who start an Arnold split should not be on one.
Who This Program Is For
- You are genuinely advanced: several years of hard, consistent training and a physique that shows it.
- You can train six days a week and recover from it; sleep, food, and stress all handled.
- You have paired antagonist training before, and your joints tolerate high volume.
- Full gym access, no exceptions; this program uses everything.
Who this is NOT for: almost everyone reading this. If you are a beginner or intermediate, six days of this volume will cost you more in recovery than it gives you in growth, and you will grow faster on the Push Pull Legs: 6 Day Split or the 5 Day Muscle Building Split. It is also not for anyone with a physical job or a broken sleep schedule, this much volume on poor recovery is how you get hurt, not big.
I will be blunt: the honest use case for this program is a lifter with an advanced base who specifically wants to run the classic Arnold template. If you just want maximum growth and do not care about the name, a well-run PPL is a better tool for most people.
What You'll Need
- Full commercial gym: barbell, rack, bench, dumbbells to real working weights, cables, pulldown, leg press
- Pull-up bar
- Six days you can actually give, and the recovery to back them
- A training log: 36 working sets a day across six days is impossible to progress by feel.
The Program
Six days: Chest & Back, Shoulders & Arms, Legs, then the same three again with different exercises and slightly higher reps. One rest day. The second rotation is deliberately varied different angles, with a touch more volume, not a copy of the first.
| Day 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Chest & Back | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Barbell Bench Press | 4 | 6-8 | 2-3 min |
| Incline Barbell Bench Press | 4 | 8-10 | 2 min |
| Dumbbell Flys | 3 | 10-12 | 90 sec |
| Bent Over Row | 4 | 6-8 | 2-3 min |
| Lat Pulldown | 4 | 8-10 | 2 min |
| Seated Cable Rows | 3 | 10-12 | 90 sec |
| Day 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Shoulders & Arms | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Seated Barbell Shoulder Press | 4 | 6-8 | 2-3 min |
| Dumbbell Lateral Raise | 4 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Face Pulls | 3 | 15-20 | 60 sec |
| Barbell Curl | 4 | 8-10 | 90 sec |
| Skull Crushers (Lying Tricep Extensions) | 4 | 8-10 | 90 sec |
| Hammer Curls | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Tricep Pushdown | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Day 3 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Legs | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Barbell Squat | 4 | 6-8 | 3 min |
| Leg Press | 4 | 10-12 | 2 min |
| Romanian Deadlift | 4 | 8-10 | 2-3 min |
| Lying Leg Curl | 3 | 10-12 | 90 sec |
| Standing Calf Raise | 5 | 10-15 | 60 sec |
| Day 4 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Chest & Back (Variation) | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Incline Dumbbell Bench Press | 4 | 8-10 | 2 min |
| Chest Dips | 3 | 8-12 | 90 sec |
| Cable Crossover | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Pull-up | 4 | 8-10 | 2 min |
| One Arm Dumbbell Row | 4 | 8-10 each arm | 90 sec |
| Straight Arm Pulldown | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Day 5 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Shoulders & Arms (Variation) | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Arnold Press | 4 | 8-10 | 2 min |
| Cable Lateral Raise | 4 | 15-20 | 45 sec |
| Reverse Flyes | 3 | 15-20 | 45 sec |
| Incline Dumbbell Curls | 4 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Overhead Tricep Extension | 4 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Preacher Curl | 3 | 12-15 | 60 sec |
| Bench Dips | 3 | AMRAP | 60 sec |
| Day 6 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Legs (Variation) | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Barbell Front Squat | 4 | 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 |
| Leg Extension | 4 | 15-20 | 60 sec |
| Seated Calf Raise | 5 | 15-20 | 45 sec |
How to Progress
Ten weeks. At this volume, progression is about managing fatigue as much as adding load.
Weeks 1-3, establish. Set your loads with one to two reps in reserve everywhere. Do not max out in week 1, you cannot recover six days a week if you start at your ceiling. Log everything.
Weeks 4-6, add. On the first exercise of each day, add weight when you top the rep range on all sets. On accessories, add reps then weight. Volume stays fixed; load creeps up.
Weeks 7-9, intensify. Take the last set of each day's first two exercises to one rep short of failure. This is the hardest block and the one that will expose whether your recovery is really advanced-level. If it is not, this is where you will find out.
Week 10, deload. Non-negotiable at this volume and past 8 weeks. Halve the sets, drop to 60% loads, keep the six-day rhythm but make every day easy. Then reset heavier or rotate off to a lower-volume block, most people should not run back-to-back Arnold blocks.
A word on autoregulation: at six days and this volume, some weeks your body will not cooperate. Trained hard, slept badly, stressed at work? Drop a set off each exercise that day rather than grinding. Advanced training is as much about knowing when to pull back as when to push.
Warm-Up and Recovery Notes
Ramp the first heavy lift each day properly. Beyond that, at this frequency your muscles are rarely cold, one feeder set per exercise is plenty.
Recovery is the entire limiting factor here, so it gets more attention than the training. Eight-plus hours of sleep is not a bonus on this program, it is a requirement. One full rest day, and it means rest, walking, not another session. If two lifts go backwards in the same week, that is your body telling you the volume is over your recovery; take an unscheduled easy day.
Because this runs 10 weeks at very high volume, watch your joints closely. Elbow, shoulder and knee aches are the early warning. Back off the volume before they become something you cannot train through.
Nutrition and Supplementation
Six high-volume days demand real food. Eat at maintenance or a slight surplus, 0.8-1g of protein per pound of bodyweight, and do not attempt this in an aggressive deficit, you will not recover and you will lose muscle while training six days a week, which is the worst of both worlds.
Supplements support the recovery you are asking a lot of: protein powder to hit a high intake, creatine monohydrate at 5g a day, and a pre-workout for the days motivation runs low, and on six days a week, some will. They supplement hard training and good food. They do not rescue bad recovery.
FAQ
Is this really how Arnold trained? It is the template popularly credited to that era of bodybuilding: high frequency, high volume, antagonist pairings. Whether every detail is historically exact matters less than this, it only works if your recovery is advanced. The programming is sound; the prerequisite is real.
Can I run it five days instead of six? Then it stops being an Arnold split. Run the five days in rotation and take rest days as they fall, so the six sessions spread across more calendar days. It works, it just shifts the schedule.
This is a lot of volume. Is it too much? For most people, yes, which is why the 'who this is not for' section is blunt. If you are auto-regulating, deloading and recovering and still going backwards, it is too much for you right now. That is not a failure; it means a different program will grow you faster.
Why is chest and back on the same day? Antagonist pairing, training opposing muscles in one session lets each recover slightly while the other works, and many lifters find they press and row better back to back. It is also why this is not a true push/pull/legs split.
Can women run this? Yes, unchanged, if the advanced prerequisites are met. The volume tolerance is individual, not gendered.
Questions and results
Ask a coach
Running this program? Tell us what week you are on and how the progression is going. A coach answers every question here.