4 Day Full Body Workout Routine With PDF

The default version of this 4-day full body workout routine involves training on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

4 Day Full Body Workout Schedule

• Monday: Workout A
• Tuesday: Off
• Wednesday: Workout B
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Workout A
• Saturday: Workout B
• Sunday: Off

However, the days of the week you train aren’t set in stone. For example, if you prefer to get your workouts done and dusted during the week and leave the weekend free, your weekly schedule might look like this:

• Monday: Workout A
• Tuesday: Workout B
• Wednesday: Off
• Thursday: Workout A
• Friday: Workout B
• Saturday: Off
• Sunday: Off

One thing you’ll notice about both weekly schedules is that at least two of the full body workouts are performed on consecutive days.

Isn’t doing full body workouts on consecutive days going to mess around with recovery and stunt your gains?

Not necessarily.

In fact, some research shows that hitting a muscle group 5-6 times a week can deliver gains in muscle mass that are on par with a more conventional training frequency of 2-3 times a week.

In one study, training a muscle either three or six times a week, under volume-equated conditions, led to similar gains in both muscle size and strength in resistance-trained men [1].

In another, hitting a muscle group five times a week delivered significantly greater gains in muscle thickness compared to a more conventional split routine that involved working a muscle once or twice a week [2].

That’s not to say every type of full-body workout can be done 4-6 days a week. If you’re using one of the popular 5×5 training programs, for example, performing a high volume of heavy squats and deadlifts with a high level of effort on consecutive days isn’t a great idea.

But as long as your workout routine is appropriate in terms of overall volume (which I’m defining as the number of hard sets performed in a given workout, and over the course of a training week) and exercise selection, hitting the same muscle groups on consecutive days is a viable option.

If you want to know more about high frequency training and muscle growth, I wrote a detailed article on the subject here.

However, if you do want to insert a recovery day between each workout, here’s what your workout schedule would look like over a 2-week period.

WEEK 1

• Monday: Full Body Workout A
• Tuesday: Off
• Wednesday: Full Body Workout B
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Full Body Workout A
• Saturday: Off
• Sunday: Full Body Workout B

WEEK 2

• Monday: Off
• Tuesday: Full Body Workout A
• Wednesday: Off
• Thursday: Full Body Workout B
• Friday: Off
• Saturday: Full Body Workout A
• Sunday: Off

In week three, the first workout of the week is back on Monday, and you start the cycle all over again.

With this approach, you hit your muscles four times every seven days (although not always every calendar week).

However, there’s no rule that says you have to align your workout schedule to a calendar week, and this one-on, one-off approach can work well for a lot of people.

4-Day Full Body Workout Routine

Workout A

• Bench Press 3 sets x 5-8 reps
• Reverse Grip Lat Pulldown 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Squat 3 sets x 5-8 reps
• Leg Curl 3 sets x 12-15 reps
• Overhead Press 2 sets x 8-12 reps
• Incline Curl 2 sets x 8-12 reps
• Triceps Pressdown 2 sets x 12-15 reps

Workout B

• Incline Dumbbell Press 3 sets x 12-15 reps
• Dumbbell Row 3 sets x 5-8 reps
• Leg Extension 3 sets x 15-20 reps
• Romanian Deadlift 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Lateral Raise 2 sets x 15-20 reps
• Dumbbell Hammer Curl 2 sets x 8-12 reps
• Overhead Triceps Extension 2 sets x 8-12 reps

If you’re pushed for time, just do the first 4-5 exercises in each workout. Your shoulders and arms will get some stimulation from the other exercises.

4-Day Full Body Workout PDF

You can download the routine as a PDF here.

How to Warm Up

The number of sets listed are the actual work sets only, and don’t include warm-up sets.

It’s always a good idea, especially if you’re using heavy weights, to do several progressively heavier warm-up sets. This will prepare the joints, the muscles and the nervous system that controls those muscles for the heavy work to come.

Your muscles will be able to perform better in the work sets to come, as well as being more resilient to injury.

In most cases, somewhere between 1-3 warm-up sets will do the job. However, the exact number of warm-up sets you do will vary depending on a number of factors, including the temperature of the gym you’re training in, how your joints feel, the amount of weight you’re lifting, and where that exercise is placed in the workout.

There have been times when I’ve been training in a cold gym, it’s early in the morning and my joints are feeling a bit stiff, where I’ve ended up doing 7-8 warm-up sets before getting into the heavy stuff.

On the flip side, with some of the exercises that come later in the workout, the muscles being worked are already warm, so you won’t need many, if any, warm-up sets.

Because the first exercise is the pull-up, I’d suggest a few light warm-up sets on the lat pulldown machine.

And by light, I’m talking about a weight that’s around 40-50% of the weight you’d typically use in a work set.

What about stretching?

In most cases, there’s very little benefit in stretching, be it dynamic or static, as part of a warm-up.

While the adverse effects of stretching on strength and power have been exaggerated, most studies show that pre-exercise stretching does little for injury prevention and has no beneficial effects on lifting performance.

Can you stretch as part of your warm up? Yes. Do you have to? No. It’s certainly not mandatory, and many people will do just as well without it.

You can read more about how to warm up for weight training here.

How To Progress Your Workouts

No matter how your training split is set up, it’s important to train hard and focus on improving your performance in the gym over time.

Do the same exercises, for the same number of sets and reps, while lifting the same amount of weight, for the next five years. Nothing much is going to happen.

That’s because the training you’re doing is a challenge your body has already adapted to. As a result, no new muscle mass will be gained.

I’m not saying you’ll make progress every time you go to the gym. To do so indefinitely would be impossible, and there’ll be times when you end up lifting the same amount of weight, for the same number of sets and reps you did before.

However, you should be pushing yourself to increase the amount of work your muscles are doing in the gym, whether that’s lifting heavier weights, doing more reps with the same weight, or doing more sets (up to a point, anyway).

You need to give your muscles a reason to get bigger, or you’ll remain stuck at the same size you are right now.

So make sure to keep a training journal, write down your numbers, and always try to beat your previous workout in some way.

You’ll notice that the workouts use rep ranges, such as 5-8 or 8-12, rather than a fixed number of reps in each set.

For example, let’s say that the prescription for a particular exercise is 3 sets of 5-8 reps.

The idea is that you select a weight that allows you to perform at least 5 reps in each set, but no more than 8.

Every time you go to the gym, you try to do more reps than you did the workout before. Once you’re able to do 8 reps in every set, increase the weight for the following workout.

It’s a form of progression known as the double progression method. Here’s an example of how it might look in practice:

Workout 1

• Set 1: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 2: 100 pounds x 7 reps
• Set 3: 100 pounds x 5 reps

Workout 2

• Set 1: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 2: 100 pounds x 7 reps
• Set 3: 100 pounds x 7 reps

Workout 3

• Set 1: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 2: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 3: 100 pounds x 7 reps

Workout 4

• Set 1: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 2: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 3: 100 pounds x 8 reps

Workout 5

• Set 1: 105 pounds x 7 reps
• Set 2: 105 pounds x 6 reps
• Set 3: 105 pounds x 5 reps

As you can see, in workout four, once you’re able to do 8 reps in all 3 sets, you add weight in the fifth workout and repeat the cycle. 

This simple double progression method can work well for most exercises, and will produce decent gains in muscle mass over several months, just as long as you stay consistent and work hard.

It’s also important to make sure that your technique remains solid from one workout to the next. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that you’ve gotten stronger, when all you’re doing is cheating on those last few reps to get the weight up.

The exact number of workouts it takes to reach this point will vary from person to person, and from exercise to exercise.

It might take 10 workouts or it might take 5. But wait until you can do 3 sets of 8 reps before adding weight.

The Benefits of 4 Full Body Workouts a Week

One of the main benefits of doing 4 full body workouts a week is that it can make for shorter workouts.

That is, dividing the same amount of training across four training days, rather than two or three, can make for shorter workouts, making them easier to fit them into your day.

New lifters typically see their muscles grow relatively quickly when they start lifting weights, even with a relatively small amount of training.

But over time, those gains will tend to slow down.

Getting the message to your muscles that they need to keep on growing will often require more volume in the gym. And by more volume, I’m talking about an increase in the number of sets you do.

There’s a link between the number of hard sets you do for a muscle and the speed at which that muscle grows. Put differently, a higher volume of training, up to a point at least, will lead to a faster rate of muscle growth.

If you’re currently lifting weights two or three times a week, and your muscle-building progress has come to a halt, the addition of an extra training day may well be all you need to get things moving in the right direction.

For lifters who have moved beyond the beginner stages of training, increasing your weekly training volume (which I’m defining here as the number of hard sets you do for a muscle group) is sometimes all the stimulus your muscles need to start growing again.

If you’re getting enough rest between each set, which you should be if you want to maximize muscle growth, more sets will mean longer workouts. For a lot of people, longer workouts are neither practical nor convenient.

Moving from two or three to four workouts a week allows you to get some extra volume in while still keeping the workouts down to a reasonable length.

Other 4-Day Workout Splits

• Push/Pull/Legs/Full Body
• Upper/Lower Split
• Push/Pull Split
• Push/Pull/Legs