Building the Program: Training Split

We’ve laid the foundation: principles, objectives, and how we organize training. Now it’s time to structure the week—starting with your training split for resistance training.

Step One: Choose Your Frequency

Before choosing a split, we need to identify how many days per week you're realistically going to train. Here’s how most resistance training splits break down based on weekly frequency:

• 2 Days/Week → Full Body

• 3 Days/Week → Full Body OR Upper / Lower / Full Body OR Push / Pull / Legs

• 4 Days/Week → Upper / Lower (x2) OR Chest / Legs / Back / Shoulders

• 5 Days/Week → Chest / Legs / Back / Shoulders / Arms

Sounds great in theory. But we’re not building this system for theory—we’re building it for real life.

Step Two: Consider Your Constraints

This is not a program for the professional athlete. It’s for full-time humans.
Athletes with careers, families, responsibilities, and a calendar that doesn’t always cooperate. That’s why:

• Available training days might vary week to week

• Training may need to move around life (not the other way around)

• We need a structure that works for a wide range of Evergreen Athletes across various schedules

The Best Fit: 3-Day Split (Full Body)

After years of coaching adults with busy lives, this is the split I’ve found works best—and here’s why:

✅ It’s Realistic

Most busy adults can carve out 45–75 minutes, 3 times per week. If you’re serious about staying athletic for life, this is the minimum requirement.

✅ It’s Resilient

Miss a day? No problem. You’ll still hit your full body 2 out of 3 days. You won’t lose momentum or skip a major component.

✅ It’s Flexible

Got extra time? Add an Edge Day—a fourth session focused on a specific need (conditioning, hypertrophy, mobility).

Need to double up? No problem just stack the Movement Quality day before or after your Strength/Power day.

Coming Up Next: The Framework

With your training split locked in, we’re ready to lay out the structure. Next up: Physical Qualities, Exercise Classification, and Order

Let’s keep building.