Upper/Lower/Full Body – 3 Day Split

If you want a complete 3-day upper/lower/full-body split you can use to build muscle, this page will show you exactly what to do.

What is an Upper/Lower/Full-Body Split?

The 3 day upper/lower/full-body split combines an upper/lower split with a full-body workout.

The default version of the upper/lower/full-body split looks like this.

• Monday: Upper Body
• Tuesday: Off
• Wednesday: Lower Body
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Full Body
• Saturday: Off
• Sunday: Off

You hit the upper body on Monday, the lower body on Wednesday, and both the upper and lower body on Friday. Each muscle group is trained twice a week.

However, the days you train aren’t set in stone, and you can move things around from one week to the next depending on your schedule.

Because you’re only training three days a week, the upper/lower/full hybrid gives you plenty of flexibility in terms of what days of week you train.

That is, you can move the workouts around to fit your schedule, just as long as you give yourself a day of rest both before and after the full-body workout.

For example, if you’ve got a busy week coming up, and you know you won’t make it to the gym on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, you might do your first two workouts on consecutive days, take a few days off, then do the full-body workout at the weekend.

• Monday: Upper Body
• Tuesday: Lower Body
• Wednesday: Off
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Off
• Saturday: Full Body
• Sunday: Off

Or, if you prefer to do most of your training at the weekends, your week might look like this.

• Monday: Off
• Tuesday: Off
• Wednesday: Full Body
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Off
• Saturday: Upper Body
• Sunday: Lower Body

Here’s what each training day looks like.

Upper/Lower/Full-Body 3-Day Split

Upper Body Workout

• Bench Press 3 sets x 5-8 reps
• Wide Grip Lat Pulldown 3 sets x 12-15 reps
• Cable Crossover 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Single-Arm Dumbbell Row 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Overhead Press 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Incline Curl 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Triceps Pressdown 3 sets x 8-12 reps

Lower Body Workout

• Squat 3 sets x 5-8 reps
• Romanian Deadlift 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Leg Extension 3 sets x 12-15 reps
• Seated Leg Curl 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Standing Calf Raise 4 sets x 5-8 reps

Full Body Workout

• Incline Dumbbell Press 3 sets x 10-15 reps
• Seated Cable Row 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Leg Press 3 sets x 10-15 reps
• Romanian Deadlift 3 sets x 10-15 reps
• Lateral Raise 2 sets x 15-20 reps
• Dumbbell Hammer Curl 2 sets x 10-15 reps
• Overhead Triceps Extension 2 sets x 10-15 reps

While there’s no work for your abs listed, just add one or two ab exercises – rollouts, fallouts, crunches, or reverse crunches – to the end of your workouts 2-3 times a week.

Upper/Lower/Full Body: The Pros

Flexibility and Convenience

One of the major benefits of any 3-day workout routine is that it tends to make for a more consistent training schedule. By that, I mean it’s a lot easier to carve out the time for three workouts each week than it is four or five.

On a 3-day workout routine, you can train:

• Monday, Wednesday, Friday
• Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday
• Wednesday, Friday, Sunday

But with a training program that requires you to lift weights 4-5 days a week, there’s a lot less flexibility when it comes to shifting your training days around.

The odd missed workout here or there isn’t a problem. But if you’re constantly missing workouts, your progress is going to suffer. 

It’s far better to choose a training frequency that you’re able to stick with for the length of time necessary to add a substantial amount of muscle mass to your frame than attempt to follow a routine that doesn’t fit your schedule.

Allows for an Optimal Training Frequency

With the upper/lower/full-body split, you’re training each muscle group twice a week, which tends to work well for muscle growth.

When you work a muscle at least twice every seven days, it tends to grow more quickly compared to once a week.

Assuming you’re not overdoing it in the gym, eating the right food and recovery, and your workout volume in the gym isn’t excessive, your muscles don’t need a full week to recover before they’re ready for action again.

A More Enjoyable Way to Train

Many people like the idea of having an upper and lower body day, where they dedicate an entire workout to a few muscle groups. It’s just a more enjoyable way to train.

Gaining 10, 15 or 20 pounds of muscle mass requires a lot of hard work and consistency over several years. To stay consistent, you need to want to go to the gym. 

If you find a particular workout split more enjoyable, that’s a major benefit. A training program that’s ideal for muscle growth isn’t ideal if you don’t do it.

One of the downsides of a full-body workout is that you’re working your whole body – chest, back, legs, shoulders and arms – in a single training session. 

As a result, a typical workout can end up lasting anywhere between 1-2 hours, which doesn’t suit everyone.

Some people will run out of steam towards the end of a training session. The muscles being worked towards the end of that workout receive less effort than the ones trained at the start.

Including an upper and lower body workout in your training schedule means that your energy and focus is distributed across fewer muscle groups, which should translate into a faster rate of growth.

More Time and Energy for Other Things

For some people, all they want to do is lift weights and nothing else. Their entire focus is gaining as much muscle as they can, as quickly as possible.

However, that’s not the case for everyone. While they still want to build muscle and get stronger, many folks just enjoy being physically active on a daily basis, and want a bit of variety from one day to the next.

With a 3-day workout routine, you can lift weights three days a week, and still have both the time and energy to run, swim, cycle, kayak, play sport or whatever you like on the days you’re not lifting weights.

Upper/Lower/Full Body: The Cons

The main downside with most 3-day routines is that they’re far from ideal for advanced lifters, who typically need a higher volume of training to make their muscles grow.

And by a higher volume of training, I’m talking about the number of hard sets you do for each muscle group.

Newbies will often see impressive results lifting weights three times a week. But as the months and years go by, you’ll need to ramp up the amount of work you do to keep the gains coming. 

In most cases, that’s going to require more than three weekly training days. The more training miles you have on the clock, the more likely it is that you’ll benefit from some kind of split routine that involves lifting weights 4-6 days each week.