Why I Love Bro-Splits
The "Bro-Split" is a decades long bodybuilding practice of training a major muscle group once a week.
A typical Bro split is anywhere from 3-5 days a week.
For example, the Push Pull Legs strategy, that can be called a Bro Split.
Push muscles, Pull muscles, and Lower body muscles each have their own day. You can repeat one of the days if you want double frequency.
Bro-Splits are often hated on and criticized because they are only 1x weekly frequency per major muscle group
The argument against them being that higher frequency, higher volume training is superior for muscle growth. Once you trained a muscle, you only need 48-72 hours rest at most for that muscle to be trained again.
Is that true though?
Is the difference so dramatic that training a muscle once a week is a waste of time?
NO.
Contrary to popular belief, full muscle recovery can take longer than 48 hours.
What does this infographic show?
While it is true that muscle protein synthesis goes back to baseline within 2-3 days, actual performance recovery can take longer
This lines up with current scientific evidence on training frequency and training volume and strength as well.
Training multiple times per week can get you stronger, but this effect is largely from the increased volume
That meta-analysis from 2018 showed that it was higher volume more than frequency that improved strength gains
This validates the once a week, blast the muscle strategy thats been used for decades
If you wanted to maximize strength gains, it would probably be wise to train some muscles only ONCE a week
and this is what Professional powerlifters and Strongman ALREADY DO
In the world of strength sports, training 3 or 4 days a week is common. Why not train more days? Because it DOES NOT help strength. Its not enough time to recover
The strongest athletes on the planet intuitively realized that high intensity, low frequency training works best for strength
And going beyond the academic study, there is also the historical practice. Bro-Splits have endured because they WORK. Before the high volume, high frequency training took off in the 1970s, training 3-4 days a week was a common practice.
The reality is that strength and muscle gains require LESS training than anyone wants to believe
If you train a muscle hard once a week, you WILL get stronger. And you will be fully recovered by the next workout.
The minimum effective volume for strength and muscle gains is only 2-3 sets A WEEK. That does not mean optimal gains, but it is enough to make slow progress.
That can easily be done in one workout. In fact, you could much more if you wanted to maximize muscle and strength gain
The research shows that higher volume can lead to more muscle, and this increased muscle building effect peaks at around 10 sets a week.
10 sets is also the reasonable limit that can be performed in one workout
So a Bro-Split where you train your major muscle groups hard once a week with lots of sets...that is not contradicted in any way by the formal scientific evidence
The truth is that there is no such thing as a "most optimal program"
If your goal is to be a professional bodybuilder or some kind of fitness influencer, workout as much as you want. Push recovery to the limit
Be in the gym 7 days a week. Do 40 sets for legs.
have fun.
Sustainability and CONSISTENT improvement matter more than trying to redline your training hours and test your limits.
You dont grow in the GYM, you grow from rest and recovery.
And for rest/recovery, nothing reasonably beats 3x weekly training.
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So that was the long form contextual explanation for my
Which is 3x days a week, time efficient (1 hour workouts), and makes use of both Myo-reps and cluster sets for hypertrophy and strength development
100%! In particular for straight-up hypertrophy and building a nice whole body accumulation phase, bro splits work like a charm 🤘