There is the classic "push, legs, pull", which looks something like this:
Monday: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps.
Tuesday: Off/LISS Cardio. e.g., 30 minutes on a bike in zone 2/@ a HR of 120–140 BPM.
Wednesday: Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Glutes, Adductors, Calves.
Thursday: Off/LISS Cardio.
Friday: Back, Biceps, Upper Trapezius.
Saturday and Sunday: Off/LISS Cardio.
This is effective and how I trained in the months before bodybuilding competitions. You can train abdominals wherever you fancy, but perhaps keep them non-fatigued for big things like squats and deadlifts. I have also done extra LISS cardio on training days for periods during show prep—at a different time of day to the weights training.
If you would rather be lifting more than three days per week, and would rather dig smaller holes more frequently, you can compress these down into a four-day rotation:
Day 1: Push.
Day 2: Legs.
Day 3: Pull feat. Abdominals.
Day 4: Off.
You will need to be mindful of recovery here. It is probably prudent to actually take the fourth day off—i.e., no cardio, take it easy.
Similarly, you will need to adapt your training: as an example, it would be unwise to do heavy deadlifts on the pull day after having done heavy squats on the legs day—so you could focus on supported rowing work on pull day and perhaps bring deadlifts across to the legs day, or instead do them light and focus on fast concentrics.
Vibe that out.
There is another four-day loop that I am quite fond of, it is one that Lee Haney used to deploy:
Day 1: Chest and Arms.
Day 2: Legs.
Day 3: Back, Shoulders, Abdominals.
Day 4: Off.
I remeber Lee saying that he encountered less tendonitis with this split than he did when training biceps with back and triceps with chest. I especially like that shoulders are trained with back here, because if you are training your shoulders comprehensively, other than posterior, anterior, and middle deltoids, you are training everything else that attaches to your scapulae—rhomboids major and minor, upper, middle, and lower trapezius, levator scapulae, infraspinatus, supraspinatus, subscapularis, serratus anterior, latissimus dorsi, teres major and minor, basically all the muscles you might train on back day except those responsible for extending and rotating the spine. Thus, it works well to group shoulders and back together.
This does mean that anterior and middle deltoids get tickled twice per rotation as they will also recieve load on Day 1. So, a deciding factor might be which you would rather hit twice per rotation: most scapulae musculature, or just anterior and middle deltoids. Your development and recovery would determine this, and perhaps it is safer to give your posterior shoulder stuff more time to recover.
You can also run these two splits together:
Day 1: Push.
Day 2: Legs.
Day 3: Pull feat. Abdominals.
Day 4: Off.
Day 5: Chest and Arms.
Day 6: Legs.
Day 7: Back, Shoulders, Abdominals.
Day 8: Off.
There are indeed lots of ways to split the body up. A super simple and effective one is:
Day 1: Upper Body.
Day 2: Lower Body.
Day 3: Off.
You can vibe this one out and do something like:
Monday: Upper Body.
Tuesday: Lower Body.
Wednesday: Off/LISS Cardio.
Thursday: Upper Body.
Friday: Lower Body.
Saturday and Sunday: Off/LISS Cardio.
I am currently deploying this split and particularly enjoy that my knees, shoulders, and elbows get ample recovery time, albeit more load on the days they are trained.
If you are say 50+/have a more stressfull or jam-packed life/or aren't recovering quickly enough you can do this:
Monday: Upper Body.
Tuesday: Off/LISS Cardio.
Wednesday: Lower Body.
Thursday: Off/LISS Cardio.
Friday: Upper Body.
Saturday and Sunday: Off/LISS Cardio.
And then do the inverse the next week with lower body recieving stimulation twice.
Another interesting split is:
Monday: Upper Body.
Tuesday: Off/LISS Cardio.
Wednesday: Lower Body.
Thursday: Off/LISS Cardio.
Friday: Full Body.
Saturday and Sunday: Off/LISS Cardio.
A perk of being able to train the whole body in one day is that you can bounce between upper body and lower body on each set—e.g., military presses alternated with squats, deadlifts alternated with bench press, and so on. This style certainly has more of an athletic vibe about it.
On the althletic vibe front, I used to prescribe or generally orient around this following split for general sporting athletes like football players and such, military people, female bodybuilders of the bikini variety, and females generally like soon-to-be-in-shape mammies/mums/moms:
Monday: Full Body.
Tuesday: Off/LISS Cardio.
Wednesday: HIIT. e.g., 100m sprints, then walking back—10 sets kind of a thing. Perhaps on sand.
Thursday: Off/LISS Cardio.
Friday: Full Body.
Saturday and Sunday: Off/LISS Cardio.
Here's another note about a six-day split:
I have spent a lot of time obsessing about gym programming and how to split the body up across the week, particularly for hypertrophy. I find myself currently reverting to an old Miloš Šarčev six-day split I deployed with great success when I was 16.
I met Miloš when I was in my early twenties. He was nice, and I thanked him for what his split and ideas about pre- and intra-workout nutrition had done for me.
I have slightly modified this split to mention glutes and adductors, as well as to hit abdominals twice.
Monday: Quads, Glutes, & Adductors.
Tuesday: Chest & Calves.
Wednesday: Back & Abdominals.
Thursday: Shoulders & Calves.
Friday: Hamstrings, Glutes, & Upper Trapezius.
Saturday: Arms & Abdominals.
Sunday: Off.
If you are aiming for 10–30 sets per group, you will probably want to mostly stay away from fatigue and failure if you are going to be able to deploy this for eight weeks (prior to a deload week) without burning out. That being said, you should probably also deload in some way on days when you aren't "feeling it", or when you are perhaps feeling things you shouldn't . . . like a sore knee or an inflamed glenohumeral joint.
Lifting six days per week can be demanding, but it can also be a lot of fun.
Listen to your body.
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I am fond of all of these splits.
Perhaps one suits your persuits.
Happy lifting!
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