Upper/Lower Split: complete programming guide
The upper/lower split is the most underrated program in lifting. Push/pull/legs gets the hype, full body gets the science papers, and bro splits get the YouTube views. Meanwhile, upper/lower quietly outperforms most of them for natural lifters training 4 days a week.
This is the complete programming guide. Not theory — the actual template, exercise selection, set counts, progression scheme, and the mistakes that turn a great split into a stalled mess.
Why upper/lower works so well
The split divides training into two sessions: one hits everything from the waist up (chest, back, shoulders, arms), the other hits everything from the waist down (quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves, core). Run on a 4-day schedule, every muscle gets trained twice a week — which lands right in the sweet spot for hypertrophy frequency.
Three things make it work:
Frequency hits the research target. Meta-analyses on training frequency consistently show 2x/week per muscle group beats 1x/week for both strength and hypertrophy when volume is equated. Upper/lower delivers this without the schedule chaos of full-body 4x/week.
Recovery is built in. You’re never doing legs the day after legs. Upper days don’t load the lower body, lower days don’t fry your shoulders. Each session targets fresh muscle groups, so quality stays high session after session.
Volume is manageable. An upper day can fit 4-5 chest/back/shoulder movements without becoming a 2-hour grind. A push/pull/legs split forces you to cram everything into separate days, which often means longer sessions or skipped accessories.
If you’re stuck choosing between this and other approaches, the full body vs split strategy guide walks through which fits which lifestyle.
The 4-day template
Standard schedule: Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday, with Wednesday and the weekend off. You can also run Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat or any rotation that gives you at least one rest day after two consecutive training days.
Mon — Upper A (strength bias)
Tue — Lower A (strength bias)
Wed — Off
Thu — Upper B (hypertrophy bias)
Fri — Lower B (hypertrophy bias)
Sat/Sun — OffThe A/B distinction matters. A-days lean heavier (3-6 reps on main lifts, longer rest, lower total volume). B-days lean toward hypertrophy (8-15 reps, shorter rest, more total sets). This way you’re not redundantly hammering the same rep ranges twice in a week.
Upper A — strength focus
| Exercise | Sets x Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Bench press | 4 x 5 | 3 min |
| Weighted pull-up or barbell row | 4 x 6 | 3 min |
| Overhead press | 3 x 6 | 2-3 min |
| Chest-supported row | 3 x 8 | 2 min |
| Dips or close-grip bench | 3 x 8 | 2 min |
| Barbell curl | 3 x 8 | 90 sec |
Lower A — strength focus
| Exercise | Sets x Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Back squat | 4 x 5 | 3 min |
| Romanian deadlift | 3 x 6 | 3 min |
| Bulgarian split squat | 3 x 8/leg | 2 min |
| Leg curl | 3 x 10 | 90 sec |
| Standing calf raise | 4 x 8 | 90 sec |
| Hanging leg raise | 3 x 10 | 90 sec |
Upper B — hypertrophy focus
| Exercise | Sets x Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Incline dumbbell press | 4 x 10 | 2 min |
| Lat pulldown | 4 x 10 | 2 min |
| Seated dumbbell shoulder press | 3 x 12 | 90 sec |
| Cable row | 3 x 12 | 90 sec |
| Cable fly or pec deck | 3 x 15 | 60-90 sec |
| Lateral raise | 4 x 15 | 60 sec |
| Hammer curl + triceps pushdown superset | 3 x 12 each | 60 sec |
Lower B — hypertrophy focus
| Exercise | Sets x Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Front squat or hack squat | 4 x 8 | 2-3 min |
| Hip thrust | 3 x 10 | 2 min |
| Walking lunge | 3 x 12/leg | 90 sec |
| Leg extension | 3 x 15 | 60-90 sec |
| Seated leg curl | 3 x 12 | 90 sec |
| Seated calf raise | 4 x 12 | 60 sec |
The rest periods aren’t suggestions — they’re load-bearing. Rest matters more than most lifters think. The rest time hypertrophy science and rest time for strength breakdowns explain why the gap between sets is doing as much work as the sets themselves.
How to pick exercises
The template above isn’t sacred. The principles behind it are.
One heavy compound per session. Upper A starts with bench, Upper B starts with incline DB press. Lower A opens with squat, Lower B opens with front squat or hack. The first movement is always the most loaded, most fatiguing, most stable — pick what you can progress reliably for years.
Pair pushing and pulling. Every upper day should have roughly equal pushing and pulling volume. If you bench 8 sets, row/pull-up 8 sets. Imbalance is the fastest path to shoulder problems.
Hit hamstrings as hard as quads. Most lifters squat and call it a leg day. Each lower session needs a dedicated hip-hinge or hamstring movement (RDL, leg curl, good morning, hip thrust) totaling 6-9 weekly sets.
Use machines for accessories, free weights for main work. A 4-day split has 24-30 working sets per session if you’re not careful. Putting machines and cables in the back half lets you push close to failure safely without the technique breakdown that comes from fatigued barbell work.
Skip what you hate, replace what doesn’t fit. Don’t have a hack squat? Goblet squat works. No cable column? Dumbbell flies. The template is a frame, not a cage.
Volume, intensity, and progression
Per muscle group, target ranges across the week:
- Chest: 12-18 sets
- Back: 14-20 sets
- Shoulders (delts): 10-16 sets (more for side delts)
- Quads: 10-14 sets
- Hamstrings/glutes: 8-12 sets
- Biceps/triceps: 8-12 sets each
These are total weekly sets taken close to failure (RIR 0-3). Junk volume — 6 sets of curls at RIR 5 — doesn’t count.
For progression, use double progression on accessories and linear progression on main lifts:
Main lifts (Upper A and Lower A primaries): Add 2.5kg to upper, 5kg to lower whenever you hit the top of your rep range with 1-2 reps in reserve. When you stall, deload 10% and rebuild.
Accessories: Pick a rep range like 8-12. Start at the bottom. Add reps each week until you hit 12 across all sets. Then bump the weight and reset to 8.
This sounds simple. It isn’t, because the real challenge is tracking it accurately week after week. Most people forget what they did last session and end up grinding the same weight for months. If you’re guessing your numbers, you’re not progressing — you’re just lifting. The AI workout progression breakdown covers how to make progressive overload actually happen instead of staying a Reddit buzzword.
The mistakes that stall most lifters
After watching thousands of programs, the same five mistakes account for the majority of stalled upper/lower splits:
1. Treating Upper B like Upper A round two. If both upper sessions are 5x5 bench, 5x5 row, 5x5 OHP, you’re not running upper/lower — you’re running the same workout twice. Differentiate the rep ranges and exercise selection.
2. Cutting rest because it feels lazy. Resting 90 seconds between heavy squats so the workout “feels intense” is how you turn a strength session into a cardio session. The bar speed drops, the weight stays light, and you wonder why you’re not progressing.
3. Adding volume instead of intensity. When progress stalls, the instinct is to add a 4th and 5th and 6th exercise. Usually the fix is the opposite: remove an exercise, push the remaining ones harder, sleep more.
4. Skipping deloads. Every 6-10 weeks of hard training, take a deload week (50-60% of your normal weight, same exercises, half the sets). Lifters who skip deloads stall by week 12 and blame the program.
5. Not tracking. You cannot run double progression without a log. Period. Whether it’s a notebook, a spreadsheet, or Repstack, the system has to remember every set so you don’t have to.
Who upper/lower is for
This split is ideal if you:
- Train 4 days a week (occasionally 3, never 5+)
- Want both strength and size, not one or the other
- Have at least 6 months of consistent training
- Can train for 60-75 minutes per session
- Want a program that’s flexible enough to run for years
It’s not ideal if you can only train 2-3 days a week (run full body), if you have specific bodybuilding goals requiring extreme volume per muscle (push/pull/legs 6x), or if you’re brand new to lifting (a beginner full-body program will progress faster).
FAQ
How long should I run an upper/lower split before changing?
Run it for at least 12 weeks before evaluating. Most “the program isn’t working” complaints come at week 4 — which is too early to judge anything. After 12-16 weeks, look at your numbers: are the main lifts up? Are the accessories progressing? If yes, keep going. The split itself can run productively for 1-2 years with periodic exercise rotation.
Can I add a 5th day to an upper/lower split?
Yes — the most common addition is an arm day or a weak point day. Schedule it as Saturday: Mon Upper / Tue Lower / Thu Upper / Fri Lower / Sat Arms or Weak Points. Keep that 5th session shorter (45 min) and lower intensity. Don’t turn it into a third upper day or you’ll fry your recovery.
Should I do cardio on rest days?
Light cardio (zone 2, 30-45 min walks, easy bike) is fine on rest days and actually helps recovery by promoting blood flow. High-intensity cardio (sprints, HIIT, hard cycling) competes with lifting recovery and should be used sparingly — twice a week max, ideally on lower days after the lift, not on rest days.
How do I program an upper/lower split for cutting?
Keep the same template. Reduce volume by 15-20% (drop one accessory exercise per session). Maintain intensity on main lifts — strength loss during a cut is mostly volume-driven, not intensity-driven. Push hard on the heavy compounds, accept that pumps will be smaller, and accept that PRs will likely pause until you’re back at maintenance calories.
What if I miss a day?
Missing one session out of four is recoverable — just shift the schedule. Mon Upper / Wed Lower / Fri Upper / Sat Lower works fine. Missing two sessions in a week means you didn’t really run a 4-day program that week. One week of that is normal life. Three weeks of that means the schedule isn’t working and you should drop to a 3-day full body until your life calms down.
Stop guessing your sets
A great upper/lower program lives or dies on the details: which weight you used last Thursday, how many reps you hit, what rest period you took, when to push and when to deload. Trying to hold all that in your head is how programs stall.
Repstack handles the bookkeeping. AI builds the session, the timer manages your rest, the weight tracker remembers every lift, and the conversational coach knows your full history when you ask “should I push for 5 plates today or back off?” — same way a good human coach would, without the €80/hour bill.
Free to start, €5.99/month for the premium AI coach.