The Best Muscle Building 3 Day Split

In today’s article, I’m going to give you the best muscle building 3 day split out there.

We’re going to go over the principles that make this split so effective, and why it’s better than any other 3 day splits.

Then I’ll give you a template where you can plug in exercises and create your own muscle building 3 day split.

If that sounds good, then keep reading.

All I ask is that you don’t skip around! I want you to understand why this muscle building split works so well. 

So grab a protein shake and let’s get started.

Can you build muscle working out 3 days per week?

You might be wondering if you can build muscle by working out only 3 days per week, especially when a lot of bodybuilders workout 5 to 6 days per week.

If you’re a bodybuilder reading this, I hate to break it to you but I’m probably not the guy to help you. Most of my clients are everyday people looking to build muscle, lose fat, and improve their health.

The reality is that unless you’re looking to step on a bodybuilding stage, you can absolutely build muscle working out 3 days per week. In fact, that’s exactly what I did when I first started working out.

Building muscle is pretty simple, and can be broken down into 5 major principles. As long as you are incorporating each principle in your workouts, you’ll be able to build muscle working out 3 days per week.

Let’s go over each one.

Principle #1: Volume

How much overall work, or sets and reps, you’re doing during your workouts is defined as training volume. 

When designing your workouts, you need to do enough training volume to stimulate new muscle growth.

This should make sense from a practical standpoint.. You can’t expect to just do one workout each week and build muscle!

In terms of building muscle, volume refers to how many challenging sets (more on what this means in a minute) you’re doing over the course of a week.

The sweet spot for volume appears to be between 10-20 sets per muscle group per week (1).

So, our muscle building 3 day split should allow for us to get 10-20 sets per muscle group each week for the muscle groups we want to grow.

Principle #2: Intensity

In strength training, intensity refers to how close to failure you are taking each set. This just might be the most important principle when it comes to building muscle!

When you finish a set of an exercise, you should only be able to do between 1-3 more reps with the weight you just used.

If you finish a set and you could have done 4, 5, or 6 more reps with the weight you just used.. You need to be lifting heavier! It is only when you use weights that challenge you that you will tell your body to build muscle. 

Here’s a video explaining exactly how heavy you should be lifting.

Principle #3: Frequency

How often you workout a muscle group is defined as frequency.

As a rule of thumb, it’s a good idea to spread out your training volume over at least 2 days. 

Think about this practically. If you tried to do 10-20 challenging sets of an exercise in one workout, it’s probably not going to go very well!

You would be exhausted by the time you got to the last part of your workout, and you would not be able to put as much effort into the end of your workout as you would the beginning. That means that the exercises you do later in your workout will not be as effective as they could be.

This is why I’m not a big fan of a traditional bodybuilding split where you workout a muscle group only once per week.

The muscle building 3 day split I’m going to go over has you training each muscle group twice per week.

Principle #4: Progressive overload

To build muscle, your workouts need to get more difficult over time. This is called progressive overload.

Simply put, you need to be trying to improve your workout performance each week. This could mean adding more weight, doing more repetitions, or a combination of the two.

As long as you’re training with enough intensity, this should happen pretty naturally. Over time, you’ll get stronger and lift heavier weights for more reps. 

There are a few other ways you can progressively overload exercises:

• • Using better technique: Sometimes it’s a good idea to keep the same weight for an exercise for a few weeks, while trying to use better technique. If you do the same weight but use better technique, your performance is still improving.
  • Performing an exercise with more range of motion: You can increase the difficulty of an exercise by increasing how much your muscles have to work. For example, you can add a step to reverse lunges to increase the amount of work your quad and glute muscles have to do.
  • Doing more work in the same amount of time: This is a great method when you’re short on time. You’ll set a time limit for yourself, like 10 or 15 minutes, and then perform the most amount of reps you can while resting as little as possible.

The best way to make sure you’re progressively overloading your workouts is to keep a workout log. You can use your phone or go old school and just use a notebook.

Principle #5: Nutrition

To build muscle, you need to give your body the right fuel and building blocks. Imagine trying to build a house without any building materials. You wouldn’t get very far!

When your goal is to build muscle, you need to be eating in a calorie surplus. This means that you’re eating more calories than you’re burning.

If you don’t know how many calories you need to be eating, you can use my calorie calculator below.

Cal’s calorie calculator

Once you’ve figured out how many calories you need, you need to make sure you’re eating enough protein. Protein is the primary macronutrient that will help you build muscle.

For most people, I recommend eating around 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight when trying to build muscle.

So somebody who is 180 pounds and looking to build muscle would eat 180 grams of protein per day.

The best muscle building 3 day split

By far my favorite muscle building 3 day split is a full body workout, upper body workout and lower body workout. This split allows you to get enough total volume during the week while also  hitting each muscle group twice per week.

Here’s how you would set it up:

• • Monday- full body workout
  • Wednesday- upper body workout
  • Friday- lower body workout

You’re going to want to take at least one day of rest after the full body day so that you don’t work the same muscle groups back-to-back. If you need to train on consecutive days, you can train the upper body and lower body days back-to-back.

Here’s how that might look:

• • Monday- full body workout
  • Wednesday- upper body workout
  • Thursday- lower body workout

Who is this split good for?

This muscle building split is a great way to train if you’re a beginner or you’re short on time and you want the best results possible training 3 days per week.

When you’re a beginner in the gym, you don’t need quite as much volume as someone who’s more advanced. You can get away with less overall volume because you aren’t as used to training.

For someone who’s short on time, 3 workouts per week are more manageable than 4 or 5. The key to any good training program is being consistent. You’re going to get better results working out 3 days per week consistently than 4 or 5 days per week inconsistently.

It’s also a great option if you want to build muscle, but it’s not your entire life’s mission. Working out 3 days per week allows you to have a life outside the gym. When you’re working out 4 or 5 days per week, it can get difficult to schedule workouts and figure out how to fit them into your week.

Workout template

This is a template that you can use to design your own workouts. Plug in exercises into each category that align with your goals, you can perform with great technique and with a full range of motion.

Full body workout

1. Squat variation (Examples: barbell back squat, goblet squat, Bulgarian split squat)

3-4 sets of 5-8 reps

2. Upper body pull variation (Examples: chin-ups, lat pulldowns, dumbbell rows)

3-4 sets of 8-10 reps

3A. Lower body hinge variation (Examples: dumbbell Romanian deadlifts, barbell Romanian deadlifts, dumbbell straight leg deadlifts)

3 sets of 8-10 reps

3B. Upper body push variation (Examples: dumbbell bench press, push-ups, chest press)

3 sets of 8-10 reps

4. Finisher*

Upper body workout

1. Upper body push variation (Examples: barbell bench press, dumbbell bench press, machine chest press)

3-4 sets of 5-8 reps

2. Upper body pull variation (Examples: chin-ups, lat pulldowns, dumbbell rows)

3-4 sets of 8-10 reps

3A. Upper body push variation (Examples: incline dumbbell bench press, dumbbell shoulder press, decline push-ups)

3 sets of 8-10 reps

3B. Upper body pull variation (Examples: T-bar rows, pronated cable rows, TRX rows)

3 sets of 8-10 reps

4A. Bicep curl variation (Examples: alternating bicep curls, dumbbell hammer curls, cable face-away curls)

3 sets of 8-10 reps

4B. Lateral raise variation (Examples: cable lateral raises, dumbbell lateral raises, cable Y-raises)

3 sets of 10-12 reps

4C. Tricep extension variation (Examples: cable cross body tricep extensions, dumbbell incline skull crushers, cable lengthened tricep extensions)

3 sets of 10-12 reps

Lower body workout

1. Deadlift variation (Examples: barbell deadlift, barbell Romanian deadlift, dumbbell single leg Romanian deadlifts)

3-4 sets of 5-8 reps

2. Single leg squat variation (Examples: dumbbell reverse lunge, dumbbell split squat, dumbbell walking lunges)

3-4 sets of 8-10 reps

3. Leg curl variation (Examples: stability ball leg curls, machine leg curl, TRX leg curl)

3-4 sets of 8-10 reps

4. Finisher*

*The finisher is meant to help you reach your overall weekly volume goal. I would pick an exercise that trains a muscle group you want to improve, like your glutes, arms, or calves.

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The bottom line

Here’s the deal. 

While you can build muscle on a 3 day split, and it’s a fantastic way to train if you’re short on time, at some point you’re probably going to have to add a day or two of training if you want to continue building muscle.

You will get to the point where your workouts are going to take a long time to finish, and it’s going to make more sense to add a day or two so that your workouts can be a little shorter.

At this point, you would transition to a 4 day or 5 day split. This will allow you to work each muscle group with more intensity, because you’ll be spreading out your volume over more days.

This totally depends on your goals though. I have plenty of clients who stick with 3 days of workouts per week because it makes sense with their schedule and they are happy with the muscle they’ve built. 

Wrapping up: The Best Muscle Building 3 Day Split

Now the only thing left to do is start training!

You should have everything you need to make sure you get the most out of your muscle building 3 day split.

If you got to the end of this article and said to yourself “this all sounds way too complicated for me..” I’ve got your back. You can apply for coaching to see if we’d be a good fit for each other. I’ll take all the guesswork out of your training and nutrition, and create a plan to help you reach your goals.

If you have any questions, leave them below. Thanks for reading!