Arnold Split: Old-School Training, Timeless Results

The Arnold split is a six-day, high-volume, high-frequency bodybuilding routine named after the Austrian Oak himself.

Simple structure, demanding execution. And potentially great results if you can handle the old-school bodybuilding intensity.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Arnold split and whether this legendary training routine is for you.

Come with me if you want to grow.

Or click here to go directly to Arnold’s Basic Mass Routine in the app.

What Is the Arnold Split?

The Arnold split is the legendary high-volume, six-day routine that helped build Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic physique.

You train chest and back one day, shoulders and arms the next, then legs, before repeating the whole thing twice a week.

Here is what the weekly calendar looks like:

• Monday: Chest and Back
• Tuesday: Shoulders and Arms (Biceps/Triceps)
• Wednesday: Legs and Calves
• Thursday: Chest and Back
• Friday: Shoulders and Arms
• Saturday: Legs and Calves
• Sunday: Rest

Abs are trained every single workout.

Alternative Arnold Split Schedule

Your biceps don’t know what day it is, so you can easily add a rest day between the two blocks, like this:

• Monday: Chest and Back
• Tuesday: Shoulders and Arms (Biceps/Triceps)
• Wednesday: Legs and Calves
• Thursday: Rest
• Friday: Chest and Back
• Saturday: Shoulders and Arms
• Sunday: Legs and Calves
• Monday: Rest

This is the better option for bodybuilders who feel like they don’t get enough recovery between sessions. You still train each major muscle group with high frequency.

The only downside is that you don’t have a set rest day anymore, so you can’t plan your schedule around your training the same week. Even if your muscles don’t know what day it is, work, school, and life do.

StrengthLog’s Arnold Split

Here’s what the Arnold split (Arnold’s Basic Mass Routine) looks like in our workout log app, and how the program was presented in The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bill Dobbins.

The original blueprint is legendary for a reason, but you can swap exercises for ones you like better and that fit the equipment you have available.

For example, feel free to do lat pulldowns instead of pull-ups, use dumbbells in the bench press instead of a barbell, or do seated leg curls instead of lying leg curls (recent research has actually shown that seated leg curls are superior to the lying variant).¹

As long as it’s a similar movement, you’re good.

Aim for 8–12 reps if nothing else is stated, and try to increase the weights when you can do 12 reps in all sets.

Note: The Arnold split is not a beginner routine. It demands as much from your recovery as it does from your muscles. If you’re new to strength training, check out one of our beginner programs:

• Beginner Barbell Program
• Beginner Powerlifting Program
• Beginner Strength Training Program
• Bodybuilding for Beginners

Even if you are an intermediate-level lifter, it can be too much to jump straight into six days of heavy lifting. You might want to consider one of these programs first:

• Full Body Workout Routine
• Upper/Lower Body Split Program
• PHUL Workout Routine

But if you have time, the experience, and the recovery capacity, this is the program for maximum hypertrophy through high volume and high frequency:

Workout 1: Chest and Back

Pecs, lats, upper back, lower back, abs

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Notes
Bench Press	5	8–12	Your big chest mass builder.
Incline Bench Press	5	8–12	Upper chest focus.
Dumbbell Pullover	5	8–12	Pecs and lats hybrid.
Pull-Up	4	As many reps as you can	Back width.
Barbell Row	5	8–12	Back thickness.
Deadlift	3	10,6,4	Full body strength and mass.
Hanging Leg Raise	5	25	Core and hip flexors.

Workout 2: Shoulders and Arms

Delts, biceps, triceps, forearms, abs

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Notes
Overhead Press	5	8–12	Shoulder mass and strength.
Dumbbell Lateral Raise	5	8–12	Side delt isolation.
Push Press	5	8–12	Upper body power.
Barbell Curl	5	8–12	Sun’s out, guns out.
Dumbbell Curl	5	8–12	More direct biceps work.
Close-Grip Bench Press	5	8–12	Heavy triceps mass builder.
Barbell Lying Triceps Extension	5	8–12	Long head focus.
Barbell Wrist Curl	5	8–12	Forearm flexors.
Barbell Wrist Extension	5	8–12	Forearm extensions.
Crunch	5	25	Ab isolation.

Workout 3: Legs

Quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves, abs

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Notes
Squat	5	8–12	The king of all leg exercises and the number one leg mass builder.
Barbell Lunge	5	8–12	Balance, coordination, and hypertrophy all in one.
Lying Leg Curl	5	8–12	Hamstring isolation.
Standing Calf Raise	5	8–12	The classic exercise for building big calves.
Stiff-Legged Deadlift	3	10,6,4	Hip hinge and hamstrings.
Good Morning	3	10,6,4	Glutes, lower back, and more hamstrings.
Hanging Leg Raise	5	25	More core action.

Workout 4: Chest and Back

Just like Workout 1.

Workout 5: Shoulders and Arms

Repeat Workout 2.

Workout 6: Legs

The same as Workout 3.

Remember that you can choose other, similar exercises you like better. If you follow the Arnold split in StrengthLog, the app has a built-in function that can suggest alternative exercises.

Warm-Up for the Arnold Split (Fast, Effective Template)

You don’t want to jump straight into your heavy sets without preparing your muscles (and mind). A warm body can lift more with less risk of injury.

Try this short warm-up routine before your workouts:

1. Start with 5–8 minutes of easy cardio (optional but recommended) + 2–3 dynamic drills for the day’s joints (e.g., high knees, hip openers, arm swings, scapular pull-ups).
2. Ramp your first big lift with a few increasingly heavy warm-up sets until you reach your working sets.
3. For accessory exercises, one or two ramp-up sets are enough. You might not need any at all for high-rep isolation work later in the workout.

Progressive Overload: How to Keep Making Gains

To get stronger or bigger, you must do more over time. If the stimulus doesn’t increase, your muscle size won’t either.

That process is called progressive overload and it’s the number one factor for becoming bigger.

In the Arnold split, you’re going for 8–12 reps in most exercises. Once you can do 12 reps in every set, you increase the weight.

That’s the easiest example of progressive overload and is called double progression.

Why “double”? Because you focus on increasing reps first, and then weight second.

Now, here’s a practical example using the bench press.

1. Let’s say you’re doing 5 sets of bench presses in the classic 8–12 rep range the Arnold split uses.
2. If you can do 12 reps with 100 lb. in the first set, maybe you’re down to 8 reps by set 5.
3. Within a few workouts, you’ll get stronger, and soon enough, you’ll hit 12 reps on all sets with good form.
4. That’s your cue to bump the weight by 5–10 pounds next session, say, to 105 or 110 lb., and drop back to aiming for 8 reps again.
5. Rinse and repeat this cycle, and before you know it, you’ll be pressing weights that would make your old self green with envy.

Important note: log your lifts. If you’re not logging your workouts, you make it almost impossible to implement progressive overload properly.

You might think you’ll remember that on the third set of incline bench presses last Monday, you did 105 lb. for 9 reps with a 2-minute rest.

Trust me: you won’t.

If you want to look the same next year as you do today, don’t track anything. If you want to grow like the Governator, track everything.

Fortunately, StrengthLog does the tracking for you, down to the last rep. And makes cool charts so you can see where you’ve been and where you’re going.

Plus, the Arnold split is already in the app, so you can just start lifting.

Arnold Split vs. PPL Split: What’s the Difference?

PPL stands for Push/Pull/Legs and is one of the most popular bodybuilding splits.

Both the PPL split and the Arnold split are typically run as 6-day routines ( 6 days on, 1 day off, or 3 days on, 1 day off), meaning you hit every muscle group twice a week.

That is where the similarities end (almost).

The main difference lies in how they combine muscle groups.

PPL groups exercises by how your body moves:

• Push days train chest, shoulders, and triceps because they all extend your arms away from your body.
• Pull days train back and biceps because they pull the weight toward you.

The Arnold split, on the other hand, is based on muscle opposition.

Here, you train antagonist muscles (muscles that work in opposition to move joints) in the same session. Chest pushes, back pulls. Biceps flex, triceps extend.

How you train your legs doesn’t differ between PPL and Arnold splits.

The Arnold Split Is Better for Building Arms

In a PPL split, your triceps and biceps are almost like an afterthought.

You hit chest and shoulders first, so by the time you get to triceps, they are already pre-fatigued. Same goes for back and biceps.

Time-efficient for sure, but it makes it harder to specialize on arm growth.

In the Arnold split, your arms get first seat.

Because you are doing chest and back on Day 1, your arms are relatively fresh on Day 2 (24 hours to recover after only being trained indirectly). You can hammer your biceps and triceps with heavy weights and high volume without them being fried from bench presses or rows right beforehand.

The Arnold split, being so arm and shoulder focused, aligns very much with the zeitgeist of bodybuilding at the time.

The PPL Split Is Better for Recovery

PPL allows you to both train a muscle often and have it recover properly. The Arnold split… maybe not so much.

When you do a Push day, you use your chest, shoulders, and triceps. Then, you let all those pushing muscles rest for 2 to 3 days while you do Pull and Legs. Same with Pull day.

The Arnold split, on the other hand, has an overlap zone:

• Day 1 (Chest/Back): Chest presses blast your chest, front delts, and triceps.
• Day 2 (Shoulders/Arms): Shoulder presses use front delts and triceps, and you add direct triceps work.

See the potential problem? Your front delts and triceps get hammered pretty hard two days in a row. Again, same with back/biceps.

If you are young, eating like a horse, and sleeping nine hours a day, you can recover. An average mortal with a physical job might eventually run into recovery issues.

The Arnold Split Is Better for Supersets

The Arnold split is famous for antagonist supersets.

Supersets are when you train two exercises back-to-back with as little rest between them as possible. An antagonist superset is when you train opposing muscles back-to-back, like chest and back (bench press and barbell row) or biceps and triceps (barbell curl, barbell triceps extension).

Supersetting isn’t more effective than regular straight sets for muscle growth, but it gives you an awesome pump and saves a ton of time.

PPL doesn’t really allow for this type of antagonist supersetting because you are only working muscles that move in the same direction.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Arnold Split

Here are some quick answers to the most common questions about the Arnold split.

Follow the Arnold Split in StrengthLog

What’s the best way to track the Arnold split?

In StrengthLog, our workout log app. It’s one of our many free bodybuilding programs.

That way, it’s super easy to keep track of your weights and reps and make sure you’re on the right path to tremendous gains.

StrengthLog remembers what weights you used in your last session, and automatically loads them into your next one. And trying to improve on your last workout is the key to improving and getting stronger over time.

Download it and start tracking your gains today.

Final Rep

The Arnold split is definitely an old-school approach, but unlike bloodletting or smoking on airplanes, it holds up.

There is a reason this split has survived for half a century, after all. If you have the time to commit to six days a week and can recover from Mr. Olympia-level training volume, this program is an absolute blast.

Fire up StrengthLog, track your workouts, watch your graphs go up, and let the app handle the math while you handle the iron.

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Last reviewed: 2026-02-03

The cover image comes from the Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection at the UCLA Library. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

References

1. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 53(4):p 825-837, April 2021. Greater Hamstrings Muscle Hypertrophy but Similar Damage Protection after Training at Long versus Short Muscle Lengths.
2. Front Sports Act Living. 2024 Aug 14:6:1429789. Give it a rest: a systematic review with Bayesian meta-analysis on the effect of inter-set rest interval duration on muscle hypertrophy.