The four-day upper / lower week.
If your week is Monday chest, Tuesday back, Wednesday shoulders, Thursday arms, Friday legs, Saturday cardio, you're running a bodybuilder's bro split. Wrong tool for the lean aesthetic. This is the right one.
The week, day by day.
Four lifting days, three rest days. Every muscle hit twice. About three hours of training per week, total.
Chest, anterior delts, lateral delts, triceps. Heavy compound press, then accessories.
| Lift | Sets × Reps | Rest | Effort | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| i. | Incline DB press | 4 × 6–8 | 2:30 | RIR 2 |
| ii. | Strict overhead press | 3 × 6–8 | 2:30 | RIR 2 |
| iii. | Weighted dip | 3 × 6–10 | 2:00 | RIR 2 |
| iv. | Cable lateral raise | 4 × 12–15 | 90 s | RIR 1 |
| v. | Triceps cable pushdown | 3 × 10–12 | 60 s | RIR 0–1 |
Quads, glutes, calves. Squat-pattern as the main lift, accessory work for whatever's lagging.
| Lift | Sets × Reps | Rest | Effort | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| i. | Hack squat (or front squat) | 4 × 6–10 | 2:30 | RIR 2 |
| ii. | Leg press | 3 × 10–12 | 2:00 | RIR 1 |
| iii. | Walking lunge or split squat | 3 × 8–10 / leg | 90 s | RIR 1 |
| iv. | Standing calf raise | 4 × 10–15 | 60 s | RIR 0–1 |
Optional walking, optional easy cardio, no lifting.
Back, biceps, rear delts. Heavy compound pull, then accessories.
| Lift | Sets × Reps | Rest | Effort | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| i. | Weighted pull-up (or lat pulldown) | 4 × 6–8 | 2:30 | RIR 2 |
| ii. | Chest-supported row | 4 × 8–10 | 2:00 | RIR 2 |
| iii. | Cable rear-delt fly | 3 × 12–15 | 90 s | RIR 1 |
| iv. | Hammer curl or incline DB curl | 3 × 8–12 | 90 s | RIR 1–2 |
| v. | Cable lateral raise (second hit) | 3 × 12–15 | 60 s | RIR 1 |
Hamstrings, glutes, lower back. Hinge-pattern as the main lift, accessory work.
| Lift | Sets × Reps | Rest | Effort | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| i. | Romanian deadlift | 4 × 6–8 | 2:30 | RIR 2 |
| ii. | Lying leg curl | 3 × 10–12 | 90 s | RIR 1 |
| iii. | Hip thrust or 45° back extension | 3 × 10–12 | 2:00 | RIR 1 |
| iv. | Standing calf raise (second hit) | 4 × 10–15 | 60 s | RIR 0–1 |
Or play a sport. Don't lift.
Sleep, eat, walk. Reset for Monday.
The numbers, weekly.
Frequency twice. Volume in the band. Effort calibrated to RIR. Three hours total.
Why it works. The two rules.
Most lifters get one of these wrong. The split is built around getting both right.
i. Frequency · twice a week.
Every muscle recovers from a session in 48–72 hours. Train it once a week (the bro split) and you spend four days with that muscle untrained when it could have been training. Schoenfeld 2017 confirmed it: training a muscle twice per week produces measurably more hypertrophy than once per week, when total volume is matched. Helms, Nippard, Israetel all recommend twice as the floor for naturals.
ii. Volume · ten to fifteen hard sets.
Per muscle, per week. Not warm-up sets — hard sets, where the last 1–2 reps are uncomfortable. Below ten you're under-stimulating. Above twenty, recovery becomes the bottleneck. On the four-day split, that's roughly 5–7 hard sets per muscle per session, hit twice a week. Sam Sulek does 25–30 sets per muscle. Don't copy him.
Most working sets sit at RIR 1–2. The last set of an isolation exercise — laterals, curls, pushdowns — can hit RIR 0. You're better off doing four sets at RIR 2 than three sets at RIR 0. Failure costs more recovery than the marginal gain in stimulus. The effort rule
How to use this template.
Print it. Bring it. Pencil in real loads. Run double progression on every working set.
i. Week one.
Pick a starting weight that lets you complete the bottom of the rep range with RIR 2. If you nail 4 × 6 on incline DB press at 60s, that's your starting load. Conservative is correct in week one.
ii. Week two onward.
Add a rep at the same weight next session. When you hit the top of the range across all working sets — say 4 × 8 — add 5–10 lb the next session and reset to the bottom of the range. Helms / Nippard double progression. Cleanest natural-lifter scheme.
iii. Week six.
Most lifts will have moved up two to three small jumps. If a lift hasn't progressed in three sessions, swap a variation — incline barbell press for incline DB, hack squat for front squat. The pattern stays the same.
iv. Every eight to twelve weeks.
Run a deload. One week at 50 % volume and 60 % intensity, then come back fresh. Cleanest deload signal: performance drops in the gym for two sessions in a row at the same effort level. That's accumulated fatigue. Take the week.
What this won't get you. Powerlifter strength numbers, eighteen-inch arms, a 405 squat. What it will get you. The lean defined silhouette in a fitted t-shirt, sustainable for years, three hours of training per week. If you want raw size, this isn't your program. If you want the Pitt / Hardy / Bruce-Lee / David-Laid-2016 silhouette, this is exactly the lane.
The complete twelve-week mesocycle, with the five-day and six-day variants, the deload weeks, and the substitution table for every lift, lives behind the $5 unlock at Volume 03 — Training.