Upper lower split: a complete 4-day routine

The short answer

An upper lower split alternates two kinds of session:

• Upper: chest, back, shoulders, biceps and triceps.
• Lower: quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves, with some ab work.

Run each one twice a week and every muscle gets trained twice in four sessions. That is the whole idea, and it is why the split is so popular: it hits the frequency most lifters aim for with three rest days left over.

The routine in this guide uses two versions of each day. Upper A and Lower A are built around heavier sets of the main barbell lifts; Upper B and Lower B use different exercises in higher rep ranges. Alternating them gives each muscle two different stimuli a week and keeps the main lifts fresh enough to progress.

Three rules make it work. Do the big lifts first in every session, while you are fresh. Keep the upper days under control, because they cover more muscles and run long. And progress something every week, using the rep ranges in the tables as your guide for when to add weight.

If four days a week is realistic for you, an upper lower split is one of the easiest programs to stick to for a long time. If it isn’t, the three-day version or a full-body routine will serve you better than a four-day plan you keep missing.

How an upper lower split works

The split divides the body at the waist. Upper days train everything that pushes and pulls above it; lower days train everything below. Because the two halves barely overlap, one can recover while the other works: your legs rest on upper days, and your chest, back and arms rest on lower days.

That arrangement has a few practical advantages over other splits.

Twice-a-week frequency in four days. Push pull legs needs six sessions to train each muscle twice; an upper lower split does it in four. For most people with jobs, families or other sports, those two extra rest days are the difference between a plan they follow and a plan they abandon.

Room for heavy and light days. With two sessions for each half of the body, it is natural to make one heavier and one lighter. The heavier day focuses on strength in the main lifts, the lighter day on volume and different exercises. That mix suits both strength and muscle goals.

Simple scheduling. Upper and lower days can follow each other in any order, as long as you don’t run the same half twice in a row. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday is the classic layout, but any four days with a rest day somewhere in the middle works.

The trade-offs are real too. Upper days are long, because they cover more muscle groups: chest, back, shoulders and both arms in one session. Without care, they turn into 90-minute marathons. Lower days are hard, with squats, deadlifts and lunges in the same week, and they are the days people quietly shorten. And because each upper day trains many muscles, the smaller ones, like side delts, rear delts and arms, can end up with too little direct work unless the plan makes room for them.

The routine below is built around those trade-offs: four to six main movements per session, accessory work for the small muscles on every upper day, and lower days that split the squat and the deadlift across the week so neither one buries the other.

The four-day routine: upper days

Here are the two upper-body sessions. Every set listed is a working set taken close to failure, after your warm-ups. Rest about 2 to 3 minutes on the first three exercises and 90 seconds to 2 minutes on the rest; the guide to rest between sets explains why.

Why the pairs. Every upper day has a horizontal press and a horizontal pull, a vertical press or pull, and direct work for the shoulders and arms. Upper A puts the bench press and barbell row first, at lower reps, because they are the two lifts you will most want to get stronger at. Upper B uses dumbbells and cables in higher rep ranges, which are easier on the joints and good for building volume.

Keeping the session short. Each upper day has 22 working sets, which is about 70 to 80 minutes with warm-ups and full rest. Pairing the small exercises saves the most time: do a set of curls, then a set of triceps work, then rest, and alternate lateral raises with face pulls the same way. That brings an upper day close to an hour without cutting the rest on the bench press or rows.

Swapping exercises. If something doesn’t suit your gym or your shoulders, replace it with an exercise that trains the same muscles in the same direction: a machine chest press for the bench press, a chest-supported row for the barbell row, a cable curl for a dumbbell curl. Keep the sets and the rep range and the plan still adds up.

The four-day routine: lower days

The two lower-body sessions split the week’s heaviest work: Lower A is built around the squat, Lower B around the deadlift, so each big lift gets its own day and its own recovery.

Why the deadlift has fewer sets. A heavy deadlift is the most tiring lift in the program, so three hard sets of 3 to 6 is enough; more mostly adds fatigue that shows up in your next squat session. If conventional deadlifts bother your back, a trap bar deadlift is a fine swap and easier to learn.

Hamstrings get direct work twice. Squats barely train the hamstrings, so both lower days include a leg curl, and Lower A adds the Romanian deadlift. That gives the back of the thighs roughly as much work as the front, which most programs skimp on.

Glutes don’t need their own exercise here. Squats, Romanian deadlifts, deadlifts and split squats all train the glutes hard. If they are a priority, add 2 or 3 sets of hip thrusts to Lower B.

Calves and abs at the end. They are small, they recover quickly, and they are the first thing people skip when a session runs long, so they sit last and take only a few minutes each. If you are short on time, finish the main lifts and do the calf and ab work on an upper day instead; it doesn’t interfere with anything there.

Lower days take about 60 to 70 minutes. They are shorter than upper days on paper, but they are harder, so don’t be surprised if they feel longer.

Laying out the week

The standard schedule is two upper and two lower days, with the rest days spread so neither half of the body trains on back-to-back days.

Any of these works. The classic layout is popular because it keeps the weekend free and puts a rest day in the middle of the week, right when the first two sessions have taken their toll. The spread-out layout suits lifters who recover slowly or can only train every other day.

The three-day version. If you can only train three days a week, keep the same four sessions and run them in order on a rolling basis: Upper A, Lower A and Upper B one week, then Lower B, Upper A and Lower A the next, and so on. Each muscle gets three sessions every two weeks instead of four, so progress is a little slower, but the program stays intact and you never have to rewrite it.

When you miss a day. Don’t skip the session to stay on the calendar; do it next, and shift the rest of the week back a day. If you miss a whole week, restart with the session after the last one you did, at the same weights if you feel fresh or about 10% lighter if you don’t.

Adding a fifth day. Some lifters add a short fifth session for arms and shoulders, or for conditioning. That’s fine as long as the four main sessions still get done well. If a fifth day starts making the lower days worse, drop it first.

Whichever layout you pick, keep it the same for a training block. A stable week makes it much easier to see what your numbers are doing.

Weekly sets per muscle on this plan

Weekly sets per muscle are the quickest way to check whether a plan has the right amount of work. Here is how the four-day routine adds up, counting direct sets of exercises aimed at each muscle.

Those numbers line up with the ranges in the guide to sets per muscle group for an intermediate lifter, with some caveats worth knowing.

Arms look low but aren’t. Every press trains the triceps and every row and pull-down trains the biceps. Counting those as half sets puts triceps at about 9 sets a week and biceps at about 10, comfortably in range.

Rear delts get help from rows. The face pulls are the only direct work, but the barbell row, cable row and pull-downs all train the rear delts too. If yours are lagging, add 2 sets of rear delt flies to Upper A.

Chest sits just under 10. That is enough for most people, and the bench press is trained heavy. If chest is a priority, the first fix is a third set of cable flies on Upper B, or a fourth set of incline presses.

Glutes aren’t listed because every squat, deadlift and split squat trains them; they get plenty.

Checking the plan works. Run it for four to six weeks before changing anything. If most of your main lifts are climbing, the volume is right. If one muscle has stalled while you recover well, add two sets a week for it, one on each of its days. If several lifts are going backwards at once, the plan has outrun your recovery, and a deload is due.

A beginner version

If you are coming from a full-body routine, or are in your first year of training, start with a lighter version of the same split. It uses the same four days with fewer exercises and fewer sets, which leaves room to learn the lifts and recover between sessions.

Run the same upper session twice a week and the same lower session twice a week. Repeating the sessions is the point: you practice each main lift twice a week, which speeds up learning the technique, and you only need to track a handful of exercises.

That works out to 6 to 10 hard sets a week for each main muscle, the range most beginners grow well on, and plenty for your first months. Each session has 11 or 12 working sets and takes about 45 minutes.

When to move up. Switch to the full routine once progress on the main lifts slows to a rep or two every couple of weeks, which for most people is somewhere between six months and a year. Make the change gradually: add the B-day exercises first, then the extra sets, over two or three weeks, rather than doubling your weekly volume overnight.

What to focus on first. For beginners the biggest gains come from technique and consistency, not exercise choice. Learn to squat, hinge, press and row well, log every session, and add weight as soon as all your sets reach the top of the rep range. The warm-up sets calculator helps with the ramp up to each working weight, and the plate calculator with loading it.

How to progress on an upper lower split

The heavy and light days call for two slightly different ways of progressing, both of them simple.

The A days: add weight when every set reaches the top of the range. The bench press, barbell row, squat and deadlift work in low rep ranges, like 5 to 8 or 3 to 6. Start each block at a weight you can lift for the bottom of the range on every set. Add reps where you can, and when every set reaches the top, add the smallest jump you can load, 2.5 kg or 5 lb, and drop back to the bottom of the range. Beginners often add weight every week on these lifts; intermediates every two to four weeks.

The B days and accessories: double progression. The same rule applies with higher ranges, like 8 to 12 or 12 to 15. Smaller exercises progress slowly, so expect weeks of adding a rep here and there before you can move up a dumbbell size or a cable stack. Small jumps matter here: 1 to 2 kg or 2.5 to 5 lb.

What done looks like. Over a six- to eight-week block, most of the main lifts have gained weight, most accessories have gained reps, and sets that should feel like an RPE 8 still do. That is a block that worked; run another one the same way.

If you’re behind. If a lift hasn’t moved in three sessions, check the basics first: rest, sleep, food, and whether your sets really go close to failure. If several lifts have stalled together, take a deload week, then restart at about 90% of your recent weights. The deload guide explains how to run the easy week. If only one lift is stuck, change only that one: a variation, a different rep range, or one extra set.

Track the A and B days separately. Upper A’s bench press and Upper B’s incline press are different lifts with different numbers. Comparing each session with the same session last week, not with the day before, is what makes progress visible. The one-rep max calculator turns your heavy sets into an estimated max if you want a single number to follow, and the progressive overload page covers how Arclift sets those next targets for you.

Upper lower vs push pull legs vs full body

All three splits can build muscle and strength. The research suggests the total amount of hard work matters far more than how you divide it.

The direct comparison. A 2022 trial by Hanne Pedersen and colleagues, Brad Schoenfeld among them, put 50 untrained women on either an upper lower split, four sessions a week, or a full-body routine, two sessions a week, for 12 weeks. Both programs used the same exercises and the same weekly sets, so each muscle was trained twice a week either way. Strength, muscle mass, jump height and power improved by about the same amount in both groups.

The wider evidence. A 2016 analysis of ten studies found that training a muscle twice a week built more muscle than once a week when the weekly work was matched. A 2019 analysis of 25 studies found that once weekly volume is matched, the number of sessions it is split across makes little difference. And a 2024 review of 14 studies found split and full-body routines gave similar gains in strength and muscle.

So the choice is practical, not scientific:

Upper lower is the middle ground. It trains each muscle as often as a six-day push pull legs routine with two fewer gym days, and each session is shorter and more focused than a full-body day. If you can train six days and like short sessions, the push pull legs routine does the same job in smaller pieces. If you can only train two or three days, full body is the better fit.

Common upper lower mistakes

Most upper lower plans that stop working fail in the same few ways.

Upper days that never end. With chest, back, shoulders and arms all in one session, it is easy to keep adding exercises. Past about 22 working sets, the last exercises are done tired and count for little. If an upper day runs past 80 minutes, pair the small exercises or move one to the next upper day.

Shortening lower days. Lower days are hard, and the leg curls, calf raises and ab work at the end are the first things to go when you’re tired. Over a few months that leaves you with strong quads and little else. Keep the order, and if something has to give, cut a set from every exercise rather than an entire exercise.

Too much pressing, not enough pulling. Many lifters treat upper days as chest days. This routine has about as many pulling sets as pressing sets, which keeps the shoulders healthy and the back growing; keep that balance if you change exercises.

Same exercises, same reps, both days. Running Upper A twice a week works for beginners, but intermediates stall faster without the heavy and light variation. If you do the same session twice, at least change the rep ranges.

Back-to-back lower days. Squatting on Friday and deadlifting on Saturday leaves your lower back and hamstrings no time to recover. Keep a rest day or an upper day between lower sessions.

Adding volume when progress stalls. More sets aren’t always the fix. If several lifts stall together, the more likely answer is too much fatigue, which calls for a deload, not more work.

Not logging the A and B days separately. Mixing them up makes it impossible to tell whether your bench press is progressing, because Upper B’s incline numbers get in the way. Keep them as separate sessions in your log.

Running an upper lower split in Arclift

Arclift is the app I build, so read this section knowing I have a stake in it. It is also where the four sessions above become something you can follow set by set.

Four templates, built once, free. Save Upper A, Lower A, Upper B and Lower B as workout templates. Templates are unlimited on the free plan, and each exercise keeps its own rest time and set types, so the bench press gets its three minutes and the lateral raises their ninety seconds without you touching the timer. If you change an exercise mid-session, you can write the change back to the template when you finish. Arclift doesn’t come with a ready-made upper lower program, so building the four templates is a one-time job; if you would rather pick from a library of ready-made plans, JEFIT has a very large one, and the JEFIT comparison covers where each app is stronger.

Logging that keeps up with long upper days. Each set takes a tap or two on Arclift’s own keypad, with last time’s weight and reps beside the field, and the rest timer starts on its own and keeps running with the screen locked, so pairing curls and pushdowns stays easy to time.

The weekly check, done for you (Pro). The body map counts the last seven days of sets for every muscle group, so you can see whether your four sessions added up to the table above, and it ranks the groups you have been neglecting, like rear delts on an upper lower split. The bodybuilding page shows how it fits a split like this.

Progression, set for you (Pro). Set each exercise’s rep range, 5 to 8 for the bench press and 12 to 15 for lateral raises, and the progression coach sets the weight and reps for every set of the next session, with a one-line reason. It treats Upper A’s bench press and Upper B’s incline press as the separate lifts they are, catches stalls after three sessions and calls a deload. Logging and templates are free, and Pro is optional.

What the research can’t tell you yet

The evidence on splits is encouraging, but it has gaps worth knowing about.

Few trials test upper lower splits directly. The 2022 trial is one of the best direct comparisons, but it studied untrained women for 12 weeks. Whether the same holds for experienced lifters over years is mostly inferred from broader frequency research rather than tested.

Most studies are short. Eight to twelve weeks is typical. The long-term differences between splits, if there are any, may only show up over much longer periods, as fatigue, injuries and motivation come into play.

Heavy and light days are rarely studied. Alternating heavier A days with lighter B days is common coaching practice with sound reasoning behind it, but there is little direct research comparing it with running the same session twice a week.

People respond differently. Every result is an average, and within the same program some people gain a lot and others little. Nobody can predict in advance which split will suit you best.

Real life decides more than the research does. The split you can keep doing through busy months matters more than any small difference a study could find, and that depends on your schedule, not on the science.

So the honest summary: an upper lower split is a well-supported way to train each muscle twice a week in four days. Run the version that fits your experience, log every session, track the A and B days separately, and let your own numbers tell you when to change it.