Organizing Weekly Workouts by Upper/Lower Body

I think that even if you're doing a split you should only lift 4x per week...lifting 5-6 days per week is going to negate a lot of the work you are doing. Did your trainer ever teach you anything about the benefits of rest? That's where the actual magic happens.

If you want to hit the gym 5-6 days per week I would suggest spending a couple of days doing things other than lifting...maybe work on balance and flexibility and throw in some mild cardio in there.

There is no "right" answer. It depends on how close to your maximum you are working each time and how quickly your muscles recover from each workout. The closer to your maximum that you're lifting, the more time the muscles will need to recover.

You have to listen to your body to find what works best for you.

- If, at the end of the workout, you feel like you could do 15 more minutes: you probably went too easy. This doesn't necessarily mean you have to lift to exhaustion. But you do have to lift to completion if you want to see real progress.

- If you're running out of steam before the end of the workout: you probably are going too hard. You have to find the balance between "I can't take this any more" and "That felt good, but I'm done here."

Once you've found the right intensity, then you can focus on body parts and splits.

- Are those particular muscles still sore from your previous workout? Then wait until they aren't.

- Are those particular muscles ready to go days before you're scheduled to work them? Then you might consider working them more often.

It's going to be trial and error, and there's really no getting around it.

As mentioned, there is no "right" way that works for everyone. Splits are great if you lack time or are focusing on particular body parts, but IMO if you're just doing it for general health, then stick to full body workouts. Goals will help to dictate how you may want to set up your training.

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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Generally speaking if you're aiming for strength mostly, a full body routine would be more than fine, especially as a relative beginner (to training seriously at least) A full body routine does not mean you don't take it seriously, it just means you're early enough into it that you still benefit greatly from that level of frequency. As you get further along and with a year or 2, you may find that you can't handle that frequency any more, and may switch to twice a week per body part to give yourself more rest (ie: upper/lower) You may find you're at that point now even. Or that you continue to benefit from high frequency way down the line. There are programs out there such as Smolov for squats, where you're squatting 4x a week, and that itself is for fairly advanced lifters at least.

I'd say body part splits where you only train a single muscle group once a week, is mostly just for bodybuilding goals. Improving strength IMO is going to need more than that, and more focus on the lifts you want to improve as opposed to the body part. I don't know what your specific goals are with relation to the gym so I'm not quite sure what to suggest exactly beyond that.

I train for Powerlifting mostly. My own personal routine is, Monday: Squats+Bench, Wed: Deadlifts+Bench, Fri: Squats+Bench. My upper body generally needs the frequency to improve on as it's not as strong as the rest, and recovers faster. Deadlifts are so taxing on the body I only need them once a week, and squats I need the volume (so do a lot of sets!) but also need the rest and recovery from in between sessions. Accessory work is included in all those days (a mix of flyes, good mornings, lunges, dips, sit ups,....not all of them in 1 day though!) I get on well with this approach, been following it since February. I do upper back work (chin ups / barbell rows) and a little shoulders (OHP) on Saturdays.

I think it's so different for everyone it's most likely going to be a case of doing some research, speaking to your trainer, experimenting with different ways and seeing what works best for you and your goals.

3 days a week is good for a beginner, but after a while, you find yourself wanting to work out on the days you are not (at least I did).

5 days a week (working 1 body part per week) I don't really care for. I did try it and found it wanting.

If you want to work each body part twice a week, you're needing to choose between 4 days a week and 6.

I tried 6 days a week, splitting things up so I could work each area twice, but I found it hard to get to the gym 6 days a week. Something would always come up (family, work, etc.) to prevent me from getting all my days in. The nice thing was I could get my whole training done in less than an hour.

I'm now working out at the gym 4 days a week, splitting things up as follows -

Day 1 - Upper body (Push exercises) - chest, triceps, and shoulders
Day 2 - Lower body & Pull exercises - legs, back, biceps
Day 3 - Cardio
Day 4 - Upper body (Push exercises) - chest, triceps, and shoulders
Day 5 - Lower body & Pull exercises - legs, back, biceps
Day 6 - Cardio
Day 7 - Cardio

The nice thing about splitting the push/pull exercises is that you don't wind up working same muscles on back to back days. For example working chest one day and shoulders the next (or vice versa) hits your deltas twice in a row since you can't work your chest and not hit them, like you obviously do on shoulder days. Same with back and biceps. You'll hit your biceps when you do back, and if you do the two on separate days, you're hitting them more frequently than you might really intend.

Also, if something comes up and I can't work out one day (like this week, I had to travel for business on my normal Day 4), you just shift things so your 2 days of cardio (or rest) are mid-week instead of the weekend,.

Cardio can be whatever you like. I do steady state on my days off because I feel like I have to do something. No HIIT at this point, because I work that into my gym workouts by super-setting an exercise with jump rope, and working true cardio on the off days helps with my workout HIIT. But, I may switch it up soon and build in some sprinting on off days.

Only down side to my 4-day split is that my workouts are longer. Upper body days run from 1 hour to 1 1/4 hours, but leg days go a good 90 minutes (and I'm racing through the workout with very little rest).