Push Pull legs upper lower full body split a body part split which is best for muscle growth welcome back Dr Milo wolf here PhD in sports science with wolf coaching and today we're breaking down with the best rouas according to science in a good routine we're looking for two things first we're looking for sufficient rest between two instances of a given muscle group being trained such that both instances are productive for hypertrophy theoretically if you don't take enough recovery time between one day for a muscle group and the next your performance on that second day
could be compromised to such an extent that the stimulus you're able to impart upon that muscle in that second session takes a meaningful hit the second thing we look for is that we want to train a muscle group as often as is beneficial if every time you train a muscle group you eventually cause it to grow surely we want to train it as often as possible to result in as much growth as possible let me give you an analogy with protein we know protein contributes to to muscle growth yet we wouldn't want to have all
of your protein in a single meal across the whole week and then go the rest of the week without having protein we would want to spread that protein out somewhat across the week to see your best muscle growth in other words a good routine should have adequate rest between sessions for a muscle and a good training frequency let's touch on the first Factor first how long should you rest between sessions well the truth is how long you should rest after a session really depends on how much volume you did for that muscle group and how
close to failure that volume was indeed both volume and proximity to failure are going to be the two main variables impacting how long lasting fatigue is and how long it takes you to recover for example in a full body split you could train the same muscle group on two days back to back if the volume and relative intensity are properly managed on that first day so how long you should rest between sessions for the same muscle group really depends on the specifics of your routine in that case what does the research on frequency say how
often should we train a muscle group for hyper the most upto-date research on frequency is the metanalysis by Brad shonfeld from 2018 and including a variety of studies that measured the impact of frequency on muscle growth here what it found when volume was equated for in these studies frequency played little to no role in modifying hypertrophy however when volumes weren't equated for there may have been a slight benefit in favor of higher frequencies of three or more times a week compared to once a week just to explain what a volume equated means here it means
that both groups the higher frequency group and the lower frequency group perform the same total tonnage that's sets times reps time weight across the week the reason this isn't necessarily realistic is that you do fatigue within a session and so when you do the same sets and Reps but you do everything on one day versus sprad out across 3 days you may get more total volume across 3 days simply because the fatigue from earlier in that session doesn't impact subsequent performance as much to summarize these findings there were essentially no differences in hypertrophy between higher
frequencies and lower frequencies but if you look closely you might notice very small differences potentially in favor of slightly higher frequencies of three or more times a week with that said the effect size from a statistical standpoint was generally trivial the effect was also more apparent in the lower body versus the upper body all right so this metanalysis suggests that frequency doesn't play a huge role but that there may be a neutral to positive effect of slightly higher frequencies what did previous research find well there are also two in-house metanalysis by James creger of weightology
and Greg Knuckles of strong by science depending on the exact studies included these studies either found a slight benefit of higher frequencies for hypertrophy in the case of GRE knuckles's metanalysis or no relationship between frequency and hypertrophy in the case of James Creer metanalysis an even earlier metanalysis by sh and Feldon colleagues in 2016 did find that training and muscle group at least twice a week was better than once a week for hypertrophy at the time this metanalysis included fewer studies compared to more recent ones all right to summarize that section higher frequencies of three
or potentially more times a week may be slightly beneficial particularly for a lower body but the effect is very small if there is one however if you're someone who is concerned with maximizing your hypertrophy this may still be relevant higher frequencies may be beneficial in that they allow you to maintain your performance better across the week and get a greater volume in when volume is measured as sets times reps times weight because the muscle group your training is relatively fresh compared to a lower frequency approach you're able to perform better and get a higher tonnage
in and ultimately since tonnage is sowhat reflective of tension applied to the muscle and tension is the most wellestablished mechanism for hypertrophy this makes some sense all right I've broken down all the signs on training frequency and hypertrophy but what about training splits which is the best routine well the research on frequency tells us a few things first the Bro split where in you train each muscle group only once a week should very likely be avoided if your aim is maximum hypertrophy second we almost certainly want to train each muscle group at least twice a
week for maximum hypertrophy since the amount of volume perform per week and the amount of tension you impose upon your muscles does seem to matter more for muscle growth than say frequency if a higher frequency allows you to perform more volume while still recovering there may be an additional benefit to going above twice a week this benefit is likely mostly mediated by just having a higher volume throughout the week versus a super huge benefit of having higher frequencies in and of itself here's the checklist for Optimum frequency you should use the frequency that you enjoy
the most is at least twice a week and is the frequency that allows you to perform the most volume and maximize your performance in a given week while seeing your performance maintain or increase week to week that is to say you're still recovering looking at that checklist that means a push pull leg split only really works if you're consistently able to train 6 days a week otherwise your frequency for certain muscle groups can fall below that two times a week threshold that is very very likely necessary to maximize hypertrophy likewise an upper lower split only
works if you can train at least four times a week otherwise you're again falling below that effective threshold finally a full body split maybe the most flexible of all the approaches and that it hits the threshold and sometimes allows you to hit more volume in a given week while still recovering thus potentially leading to more growth if you want to see a full video on how I set up a full body split check out the video in this corner to see how I set up my own training using a full body approach that's the video
while body part splits probably aren't ideal pushable legs can work up or lower can work but full body may just be the most flexible approach that may allow you to get a bit more hypoy if you enjoyed the video please comment like subscribe and I'll see you guys in that next one peace
