Best Workout Split for 4 Days a Week: Upper/Lower Plan

The best workout split for 4 days a week is upper/lower, run twice. Two upper days, two lower days, every muscle trained twice a week with 10 to 16 hard sets. Push/pull twice a week works if you prefer it. Full body four times a week suits beginners.

Why upper/lower is the default for four days

Four days gives you two sessions per muscle. That's the number that matters. Schoenfeld, Ogborn and Krieger (2016) pooled ten studies that compared training frequencies with weekly volume held equal, and training a muscle twice a week grew more muscle than once a week. The effect size was 0.49 for the higher frequency against 0.30 for the lower. A later meta-analysis from the same group (Schoenfeld, Grgic and Krieger, 2019) found that once volume is equated, frequency beyond that stops mattering much. So the job of a four-day split is to get every muscle trained twice with enough sets, and upper/lower does that with the least thinking.

There's a recovery reason too. Damas and colleagues (2016) measured muscle protein synthesis at 24 and 48 hours after sessions across a 10-week program and found that growth came from the accumulated rises after each session, once the early muscle damage had settled. Each session buys a short building window. Two sessions a week means two windows. One means one.

Upper/lower also splits fatigue sensibly. Heavy squats and deadlifts land on days when your shoulders and elbows rest. Bench and rows land on days your knees and lower back rest. Push/pull puts pressing and pulling on separate days, which works, but the lower body gets folded into both days and sessions run long. Full body four times a week means four sessions with a squat or a hinge in each, and for anyone past their first year that beats you up.

Upper/lower vs push/pull vs full body on four days

Push/pull on four days usually means push (chest, shoulders, triceps, quads) and pull (back, biceps, hamstrings, glutes). It's a fine split. My issue with it is that squats sit on push day with bench and overhead press, so something in that session always gets the tired version of you. If you'd rather run it, see push pull legs vs upper lower for how the two compare.

Full body four times a week is what I'd hand a beginner. Light loads, every movement practised four times a week, and technique improves fast. Once you're squatting well over bodyweight, four squat days a week stops being a good idea. That's when you move to upper/lower.

The complete 4-day upper/lower program

Every muscle gets two sessions, one heavier and one lighter. Rest periods are real rest periods. Sit down.

Upper A (heavier)

Lower A (heavier)

Upper B (lighter)

Lower B (lighter)

Weekly sets land at roughly 14 for chest, 14 for back, 13 for quads, 12 for hamstrings, 10 for shoulders, and 8 for calves and arms plus the indirect work they get from the compounds. That's inside the range the volume research supports. Schoenfeld, Ogborn and Krieger (2017) found each extra weekly set added about 0.37% more growth, with 10+ sets per muscle doing best. If you want to argue the exact set count, read how many sets per week per muscle.

Warm up the first compound of each day with three ramping sets: 50% for 8, 70% for 5, 85% for 2. Everything after it needs one feeler set at most.

Progression rules for every set

Pick a weight that lands you at the bottom of the rep range with 1 to 2 reps left in the tank. Then:

1. Keep the weight until every set hits the top of the range.
2. When every set hits the top, add weight next session. 2.5 kg on upper body lifts, 5 kg on squats and deadlifts, the next dumbbell up for anything else.
3. Reps drop back to the bottom of the range. Build them back up.
4. If a set falls below the bottom of the range two sessions in a row, drop 5% and rebuild.

That's double progression. It works because it gives you a decision rule that doesn't depend on how you feel. The longer version is in how to progressive overload.

How to place the four days across the week

The default is Monday upper, Tuesday lower, Thursday upper, Friday lower. Two on, one off, two on, two off. Every muscle gets 72 hours between sessions and you get a full weekend.

Other placements that work:

• Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat. Good if weekends are your best training days. Friday upper and Saturday lower back to back is fine because they don't share muscles.
• Mon, Tue, Thu, Sat. Good if Friday is always a mess.
• Every other day, rolling. Upper, rest, lower, rest, upper, rest, lower. Works if your schedule allows it.

Don't put the two lower days back to back. Lower B has deadlifts and Lower A has squats, and your lower back needs at least 48 hours between them. Two upper days back to back is more tolerable.

How to adjust for your equipment

Home gym with a rack, barbell and bench. Swap the leg press for front squats or a goblet squat with your heels raised and the heaviest dumbbell you have. Swap the leg curl for Nordic curls or a slider leg curl. Swap cable work for band work with the same reps. Chest-supported row becomes a dumbbell row with your chest on an incline bench.

Dumbbells only. Bench press becomes dumbbell press. Barbell row becomes a two-arm dumbbell row. Squats become goblet or dumbbell front squats, and once those top out at your heaviest pair, move to Bulgarian split squats as the main lower lift. Deadlift becomes a dumbbell Romanian deadlift. You'll run out of load on the lower body first, so push the reps to 12 to 15 there.

Commercial gym, but the racks are always taken. Swap the barbell bench for a plate-loaded chest press machine and the squat for a hack squat or pendulum. Machines are not a downgrade for growth. They're a downgrade for skill transfer, which only matters if you compete in the barbell lifts.

How to progress week to week

Run the program in five-week blocks.

• Weeks 1 to 4: Double progression as above. Take the first set of each compound to 1 rep in reserve, the rest to 1 to 2.
• Week 5: Deload. Same exercises, same weights, half the sets, stop each set 3 to 4 reps short.
• Then start a new block. Keep the exercises that are still progressing. Swap any lift that stalled for two blocks straight for a close cousin (barbell bench to dumbbell bench, back squat to front squat).

The reason for a scheduled deload is that fatigue on a 4-day upper/lower stacks quietly. Week four feels fine, week six doesn't. Deload week how often covers the signs that you need one sooner.

Mistakes I see on 4-day splits

1. Upper days that take two hours. Twenty sets is the ceiling. If you're doing more, you're padding with arm work that would fit better on lower days. Add 3 sets of curls to the end of Lower A if you must.
2. Skipping the lighter day. Upper B and Lower B look easy on paper. They carry a third of your weekly volume. Treat 12 to 15 rep sets as hard sets, because they are.
3. Changing exercises every week. You can't progress a lift you only see once a month. Keep the program for at least two blocks.
4. Resting 45 seconds because the gym is busy. Short rests between heavy compounds cost you reps on the next set, and the reps are the point.
5. Adding a fifth day just for arms. Then it's a 5-day split and your recovery budget has changed. If four days is what you have, four days is the plan.

How to run this in Ultra+

When you sign up for Ultra+, the quiz asks how many days you train and what equipment you have, and your starter plan is built from those answers before you open the app. Say four days with a full gym and you get a finished first week of upper/lower waiting in your templates. Nothing to build, nothing to import.

Once you're training, every set shows your previous set for that exercise and your all-time best set, right on the input. You see 80 kg x 8 from last Thursday, and the target is obvious. After each session, the summary shows total volume and the change against the last time you ran that same template, so you know whether Upper A went up, held or slipped.

If you want to change the program, ask Blaze. He reads your real sessions and proposes changes for you to approve. He won't touch the plan on his own.

Start your free trial and your first four-day week is ready when you open the app.