Full body or a split?
When the weekly work is the same, both build about the same strength and muscle. Pick by your week, full body if you train three days, a split if you train five or six.
By Anthony Topalides, who lifts and makes Two Plates. Checked against the sources below on 27 October 2026.
What the research found
A 2024 review led by Domingo Ramos-Campo pooled 14 studies that compared full body training with splits, with the weekly work matched. Strength and muscle growth came out about even.
A 2019 review from Brad Schoenfeld's team found the same for how often you train a muscle. With the same weekly sets, how many days you spread them over made little difference to growth.
So pick by your week
Three days? Go full body, so every muscle still gets enough work. Five or six days? A split works fine.
Next session
Count how many days a week you can get to the gym, even in a busy week. That number decides it.
About the app
I make Two Plates, so I'm biased. Its program finder asks how many days you've got, among four questions, and hands you its best match with a plain reason why. The programs.
Where this comes from
- Ramos-Campo and others, Efficacy of split versus full-body resistance training on strength and muscle growth, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2024
- Schoenfeld, Grgic and Krieger, How many times per week should a muscle be trained to maximize muscle hypertrophy?, Journal of Sports Sciences 37(11), 2019