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When I began my fitness and weight lifting journey, I had absolutely no idea what a “workout split” even meant. So for anyone reading this who may not have a clue what that means either, it’s essentially just the workout plan you follow. It’s how you choose to split up what area(s) of the body you’re going to workout on certain days. Hopefully, that makes sense! If not, then just keep reading below and you’ll totally see what I mean!
In the beginning, because I was so eager to dive right in and just get moving in the gym, I would simply follow the workout splits and exercises of other fitness influencers until I got the hang of what I was doing. After almost a year into my fitness journey, I have now customized a workout split that I love and that I believe makes sense for me and my goals.
I wanted to share this in case anyone is looking for some guidance and needs a good place to start. My workout split encompasses every major body part that you would want to work in the gym. My main goals are to burn fat, lose some weight, tone up, and build muscle. It’s certainly a process to ultimately achieve all of this. However, with patience and consistency with following my workout split, I am 100% confident I am going to see my dream results. Makes me so excited just thinking about it!
My Current Workout Split for Weight Loss
Sunday– Rest Day (also used for deep stretching and taking progress photos)
Monday– Legs | Quad focused & Glutes
Tuesday– Back & Biceps (aka Pull Day)
Wednesday– Shoulders & Abs
Thursday– Leg Day | Hamstring focused & Glutes
Friday– Chest & Triceps (aka Push Day)
Saturday– HIIT (cardio training) & Abs
So this is the workout split that I follow and it’s been working out really well! If you like how I have mine divided, but it doesn’t work for your specific schedule, you can always rearrange it. What you decide, doesn’t have to look exactly like this if it doesn’t work for your day to day routine! If anything, I just hope that this helps give you any ideas and can serve as a guide. You can even do your ab exercises on a different day and pair things together differently. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned, that has impacted me greatly in my journey, it’s that sometimes what works for someone else may not work for you. And that is OKAY!
Here are some additional things I’d like to note that are worth keeping in mind…
- Rest days are vital to anyone’s success. Make sure you have at least one a week and please do not overwork or strain your body. You will not recover and see proper results without rest.
- Try to deep stretch weekly. I will admit that I used to overlook this, but not anymore. This is so helpful with improving your mobility and flexibility as you continue to progress in the gym. It will also make your body physically feel better and less sore.
- Try to rely more on progress photos rather than constantly looking to the scale. Our weight fluctuates day to day and sometimes looking at the numbers on s scale can be defeating. It can cause you to feel as if you’re not making any progress, when that could be far from the truth. Measure your success with progress photos so that you can compare pictures of yourself to see how much your body is actually changing. Trust me on this and do not give up on yourself because of what your scale may say!
- It’s best to have at least 2 days to work on your legs. Since the legs have so many muscles, I have 2 leg days and choose to focus on my quads one day and my hamstrings on the other. Also, a lot of compound leg exercises work the glutes, which is why I pair glutes with my leg days!
- Back and biceps are commonly paired together because both muscle groups perform a *pulling* motion. Also because the biceps are involved in most compound back exercises. So training the 2 together allows you to maximize your time in the gym. This is similar for why chest and triceps are commonly worked together, too. Naturally, when you work your chest, you also work your triceps some, too.
- HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is a really great option, if you’re interested in burning calories and fat. Depending on your goals, you could do 1-3 of these a week. And you can even add them onto other days where you may be weightlifting. HIIT is a form of cardio that allows you to burn more at a quicker rate. The exercise is typically fairly short, anywhere from 10-25 minutes, for me! You do NOT need to do cardio every single day to lose weight. Weight lifting is still a great option for weight loss, as well!
I hope that this post on my current workout split for weight loss and muscle building was able to serve as a helpful resource to you! If you have any questions for me, as always, you can comment down below or you can send me a private DM on Instagram! And don’t forget to subscribe to my blog if you haven’t already, so that you can get exciting exclusives and other helpful tips straight to your inbox!