Upper lower split: the 4-day program, session by session
An upper lower split alternates two upper body and two lower body sessions a week. The exercises for each session, the sample week, the volume it gives you, and why it beats a 4-day PPL.
An upper lower split divides the week into four sessions: two for the upper body, two for the lower body. Every muscle is trained twice a week, and no session runs much past an hour. It is the simplest split for anyone who can train four times a week and already has a few months of full body training behind them.
Its strength is consistency. With four sessions, every muscle gets the same amount of work every week, which neither full body nor push pull legs gives you at that frequency. The rest depends, as always, on the weight going up on the bar.
How an upper lower split divides the week
The idea fits in one line: upper body one day, lower body the next, then repeat. The most common setup puts the two pairs at the start and end of the week, with a rest day in between.
Sessions A and B are not the same. A opens with the heavy lifts for low reps, B moves to other angles and longer sets. That way you vary the work without switching programs every month.
If Wednesday does not suit you as a rest day, any layout works as long as two sessions of the same type never land on back-to-back days. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday works just as well.
The four sessions, exercise by exercise
The rep ranges follow the same logic as the push pull legs program: low reps on the big lifts at the start of the session, more on isolation work at the end. Rest is longer on the first exercises, as the article on rest between sets explains.
Upper A
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Bench press | 4 | 5 to 8 |
| Barbell bent-over row | 3 | 6 to 10 |
| Overhead press | 3 | 6 to 10 |
| Pull-up or lat pulldown | 3 | 6 to 12 |
| Dumbbell curl | 2 | 10 to 15 |
| Cable triceps extension | 2 | 10 to 15 |
Lower A
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Squat | 3 | 5 to 8 |
| Romanian deadlift | 3 | 6 to 10 |
| Bulgarian split squat | 3 | 8 to 12 per leg |
| Leg curl | 3 | 10 to 15 |
| Standing calf raise | 3 | 12 to 15 |
Upper B
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Incline dumbbell press | 3 | 8 to 12 |
| One-arm dumbbell row | 3 | 8 to 12 |
| Lat pulldown | 3 | 8 to 12 |
| Cable fly | 3 | 12 to 15 |
| Lateral raise | 3 | 12 to 15 |
| Hammer curl | 2 | 10 to 15 |
Lower B
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Deadlift | 3 | 3 to 6 |
| Leg press | 3 | 10 to 12 |
| Hip thrust | 3 | 8 to 12 |
| Leg extension | 3 | 12 to 15 |
| Seated calf raise | 3 | 12 to 15 |
Each session has fifteen to seventeen sets. With two to three minutes of rest on the first exercises and one to two minutes after that, it fits in about an hour, warm-up included.
The volume it gives you
Across the week, this program gives you 10 sets for chest, 12 for back, 12 for quads and 9 for hamstrings, counting only exercises where the muscle is the main driver. Every group lands in the useful range of 10 to 20 sets per muscle per week, except the hamstrings, just below, which also get work from the split squats and hip thrusts.
The real advantage shows up against a 4-day PPL. Run as a rotation, Push, Pull, Legs, Push, then Pull, Legs, Push, Pull, each session comes up twice one week and only once the next two. With the Push session from the site’s article, two presses of three sets each, your chest gets 12 sets one week, then 6, then 6: 8 on average, and two weeks out of three below the range.
Quads follow the same pattern on PPL: 6, 6, then 12 sets. On an upper lower split, they get 12 every week. Same number of sessions, but steady work instead of peaks and troughs.
What the research says
With volume matched, the split itself changes little. A 2024 meta-analysis pooling 14 studies and 392 participants found no difference in strength or muscle growth between split and full body programs when the number of sets is the same.
A Norwegian study tested this exact split. For twelve weeks, 50 untrained women followed either a 4-day upper lower split or two full body sessions a week, with the same exercises and the same number of sets. Both groups gained roughly 25 to 30% on the bench press, with no difference between them.
So an upper lower split does not beat full body by magic. It lets you fit more sets into the week without endless sessions, and it is that volume, spread over two passes per muscle, that matters.
How to progress on it
The rule is the same as for any program: keep the same weight until you hit the top of the rep range on every set, then add the smallest jump available. The full method is in when to add weight, and the plate calculator tells you what to load on the bar.
Each big lift shows up once a week: bench press on Monday, squat on Tuesday. That gives you one chance a week to beat last time, which is plenty for an intermediate lifter. Log your weights: seven days later, nobody remembers the last rep of the fourth set.
Plan a deload week every four to eight weeks, or sooner if your weights drop on several exercises at once.
Who an upper lower split is for
An upper lower split suits you if you can keep up four sessions a week, if your full body sessions are starting to run past an hour, and if you have been training for at least a few months. Those are the switching criteria laid out in full body vs split.
If you are starting out, or can only manage three sessions, the beginner full body program will do just as well in less time. And if you can go up to six sessions, PPL then brings each session back twice a week, without the imbalance of the rotation.
A missed session costs less than on PPL: there is always another session of the same type left in the week. If you skip Upper A, do Upper B and pick the cycle back up as normal the following week.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between an upper lower split and other splits?
An upper lower split is the simplest split of all: it only cuts the body in two. Other splits cut it in three, like push pull legs, or by muscle group, with one session for chest, one for back, and so on.
Can you run an upper lower split on three days?
Yes, by alternating: upper, lower, upper one week, then lower, upper, lower the next. Each muscle is then trained three times every two weeks. It works, but on three days a full body program gives each muscle more work for the same time in the gym.
Where do abs go?
At the end of the lower body sessions, twice a week, with a few sets of planks or leg raises. The upper sessions are already the longer ones.
Can you do two upper sessions in a row?
Best avoided: chest, back and shoulders need about two days between two hard sessions. Alternating upper and lower exists precisely so that one half of the body rests while the other works.
Two sessions for the upper body, two for the lower, and the weight going up: on four sessions a week, the upper lower split is the most consistent way to divide the work.
Sources
- Efficacy of Split Versus Full-Body Resistance Training on Strength and Muscle Growth: A Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis, Ramos-Campo, Benito-Peinado, Andreu-Caravaca, Rojo-Tirado and Rubio-Arias, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2024.
- A randomized trial on the efficacy of split-body versus full-body resistance training in non-resistance trained women, Pedersen, Fimland, Schoenfeld et al., BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation, 2022.
- Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass: A systematic review and meta-analysis, Schoenfeld, Ogborn and Krieger, Journal of Sports Sciences, 2017.