Full body or split routine?

The short version: both work, as long as each muscle gets enough work over the week. The best choice depends on how often you train: full-body workouts suit one to three gym days a week, and splitting the body into parts suits four or more.

Chango picks the split for you from the number of workouts you have time for.

What full body and split mean

A full-body workout trains your legs, back, chest, shoulders and arms in the same session. A split divides the body between workouts: for example upper body one day and lower body the next, or pushing, pulling and legs on separate days.

People argue about which is better, but the question has a fairly calm answer.

Why the weekly work matters more than the split

Research comparing full-body and split routines finds similar gains in strength and muscle when the total weekly work is the same [1]. What matters is how many hard sets each muscle gets over the week, not how you divide them [2].

There's one condition: training a muscle at least twice a week tends to build more muscle than training it once [3]. With only two or three gym days, a split would leave each muscle with one session a week. A full-body workout gives every muscle two or three.

Why Chango changes the split with your schedule

That's why Chango doesn't ask you to pick a split. You tell it how many workouts a week fit your life, and it chooses:

• one to three workouts a week: full body
• four workouts: upper body and lower body in turns
• five or more: pushing, pulling and legs in turns

In our own simulations, three full-body workouts a week covered the muscles more evenly than alternating upper and lower body, because with three days the lower body got one session in some weeks and two in others.

If you prefer a particular split, you can choose it in the training settings, and Chango plans the workouts within it.

Why the order bends when you need it to

With a split, it's easy to get stuck: you missed leg day, so now the plan says legs while your legs are rested and your back is far behind. Chango keeps the order but lets it bend. If the muscles in the workout that's next in turn are much less behind than the muscles in the other workout, Chango trains the other one first and comes back to the skipped one next time.

What you'll notice

You'll stop thinking about splits. Whether you go twice a week or five times, the workout is ready, and your 3D figure shows whether every muscle got its share of the week.