The Two Best Lifting Splits for Hybrid Training

For hybrid training, not all lifting structures are equal.

You need a split that will allow you to make reliable progress with regard to strength & hypertrophy, while also having sufficient training time to dedicate toward your other training pursuits.

With this in mind, only two are reasonable for most people:

• Full body training

• Upper / lower split training

First, we’ll cover some programming basics then apply them to these two splits

Lastly, finally discuss why other common splits don’t work as well.

Resistance training volume requirements

I’ve covered this in depth in this article.

For now, here’s a brief summary:

Volume is best measured by the number of sets taken close to failure per muscle group per week.

For example:

• 1 set of leg extensions taken close to failure would count as 1 set / week for the quadriceps

• 1 set of squats taken close to failure would count as 1 set / week for the quadriceps, glutes, and low back

For building muscle, the minimum effective dose seems to be 4 sets (taken close to failure) per muscle group per week.

More sets per week tends to be better, but with diminishing returns; for example, going from 4 to 6 sets per week yields more benefit than going from 6 to 8.

For strength, some studies suggest 2 sets per week is the minimum effective dose.

More also tends to be better, but 6 sets per week may be the upper limit of this.

Strength and muscle are mostly the same adaptation; building more muscle makes you stronger, and getting stronger builds more muscle.

However, there are some differences in the adaptation themselves plus how they are studied in research that produce this difference.

The key point: you don’t need a TON of lifting days to meet these volume requirements.

Let’s take the muscle building minimum effective dose mentioned before as an example: 4 sets per muscle group per week.

With the appropriate session structure and exercise selection, this can easily be accomplished with just two full body workouts per week.

In my experience, the sweet spot for most people is somewhere around ~6-12 sets per muscle group per week.

Resistance training frequency

Training frequency is how you distribute your weekly volume.

The general theme in the research is that training a muscle or movement 2x/week is better than doing so 1x/week, but 3-4x/week tends to be equivalent to 2x/week. With weekly training volume being equal, of course.

The idea here is that the quality of your average set is higher when you don’t do all of your training for a muscle or movement in one session.

So, the only ‘requirement’ for a training split to be good is for it to have you training each muscle or movement of interest at least 2x/week.

The rest of the decision is up to preference and practicality.

Full-body training

Full body training entails incorporating roughly every muscle group or movement pattern of interest into each training session.

Usually, these sort of workouts will be done 2-3x/week.

This is a training structure I use for clients when strength is higher priority than muscle building.

• Again, these are mostly the same adaptation, but there are some benefits to prioritizing one over the other.

This is because strength seems to not need as much volume as muscle building and because many typical strength movements are actually full-body movements themselves.

Take the deadlift, for example.

People will argue all day whether or not this is a leg or back exercise. The reality is that it’s both, and it doesn’t fit super neatly into an upper or lower body day.

Olympic lifting is the same way, if this pursuit is of interest to you.

Full body workouts leave plenty of time in the week to dedicate toward endurance training.

You could incorporate some sort endurance work into every non-lifting day you have, or scale this down depending on how many rest days you prefer to have in the week.

At its most time-efficient, it could look like the following:

• 2 full-body lifts per week

• 2 endurance sessions per week

At its highest volume, it could look like the following:

• 3 full-body lifts per week

• 4 endurance sessions per week

This training structure is also the most flexible of any split you could follow.

Even for those who love to train, life will happen at some point. You are very likely to need to miss a session every now and then.

With full body workouts, your total weekly volume won’t take as much of a hit since the volume is spread out more across the week.

This structure pairs well with any endurance pursuit you’re interested in.

However, the same is not true for upper / lower lifting splits (will discuss next). So, it is my general preference to pair this structure with a longer distance endurance pursuit; whatever that means for you.

This could mean just building volume over time, or it could mean pursuing a specific distance or event such as a 10k, half or full marathon, triathlon, hyrox, etc.

Upper / Lower training

With an upper body & lower body split lifting structure, you will be doing each 2x/week for a total of 4 lifts per week.

If you only have two days in the week available to lift, I would always recommend full body workouts instead.

With four total lifts across the week, your availability for volume is higher.

This is my split of choice for myself and clients when not only is muscle building higher priority than strength, but muscle building is also higher priority than your endurance goals.

Endurance responds more to volume than strength does, so dedicating more days to lifting creates a useful bias toward muscle building.

If you prefer to have a 50/50 split focus between lifting and endurance, then it is my recommendation to opt for full-body instead.

With this split, you’ll need to train 6-7 days per week to also make good endurance progress.

Or, at the very least, have small bouts of endurance throughout the week to meet your volume requirements there.

It is my general preference to pair this lifting split with a shorter distance endurance goal, such as a 5k, 10k, or max effort mile.

These sort of distances do not require as much training time, and thus can make more sense from a pure time management perspective.

Why other splits aren’t as practical for hybrid training

The above training splits were chosen because they meet the following criteria:

• There is ample time in the week to meet sufficient volume needs for lifting

• They allow you to train each muscle 2-3x/week as opposed to just 1x/week

• They allow ample time in the week to build your endurance over time as well

A push / pull / legs split allows you to train a muscle 2x/week, but only if you lift 6 days per week; leaving you with no time for endurance work.

A push / pull / legs / upper / lower is better, but there is still very little time for endurance with this structure. You would need to either train all 7 days of the week or incorporate endurance into your lifts.

A “bro split” (Chest day, back day, arm day, leg day, etc.) also leaves you with no time for endurance and only allows you to train each muscle 1x/week.

So, while I would consider the first two splits here bad for hybrid training, I would consider the bro split a bad split altogether.