Why We DON'T Use Upper Lower Splits For Athletes

This is why we don't recommend upper

lower splits for athletes. There's a

really common pathway of learning where

a child starts playing a sport or a

teenager starts playing a sport and then

at some point they come across gym

training through watching online videos

or following people on social media.

Then they decide, "I'm going to start

using gym work to make me better at my

sport or just getting better shape." If

this sounds like you, then you're not

alone. The problem is the people who

cast the widest net are the ones you're

going to see first on the internet and

it just so happens the people who are

most common in terms of gym con that

online bodybuilders. And sure, it makes

perfect sense, right? You look at these

guys and girls, you think, "I want to

get better at gym work or being in the

gym." And they spend their entire lives

in the gym and they have a very good

understanding of that. So, why would you

not listen to them? And then you might

say, "I want to gain some muscle and get

a bit more jacked and look a bit

better." And they're super jacked and

look amazing. So, why would they not be

the people you should follow? And why

would you not follow their kind of gym

splits? But the problem is, if you're

playing a sport, whether that is rugby,

soccer, football, tennis, whatever the

sport is, we can do so much better than

an upper lower split. The problem here

is bodybuilders are here to gain muscle,

to lose fat, and that's about it. They

don't worry about speed, coordination,

power, motor skill learning, any of

that. They're there to be jacked and

that's their main job. To give you an

example, right? Bodybuilders will

literally lament the thickening and

developing of their core musculature

from doing back squats. So, they'll wear

belts or they'll try and limit the

degrees of freedom at the movement

itself so they don't get this thickening

of their midline. They are anti-fridges.

They want this line to be as aggressive

as possible. But as athletes, we need to

think about these things like developing

muscle, being good and lean and in good

condition, and much, much more. So,

certainly, there's a lot we can learn

from the bodybuilding community, but

there's quite a bit else to it aside

from just smashing the muscles. Right,

upper lower splits. Athletes need big

strong legs and they need big strong

upper bodies. So, why might this not be

the most effective thing? So, the best

way of explaining this is to start off

by explaining why this split is so

popular. So, the first reason it's so

popular is it works. Volume is one of

the main drivers of hypertrophy and boy,

oh boy, does an upper lower split make

it super simple to get a lot of high

volume training done. So, on a

traditional lower body day, you'll come

in, start with some sort of general

warm-up.

Once you're good and warm, then you're

going to go on to one of your main

exercises. Probably going to be

something like high bar back squats on a

Smith machine or just normal back

squats. Nice high volume, let's say four

sets of 15. Once those legs are good and

pumped, then you're going to move on to

something like a Bulgarian split squat.

So, we're going to load up, go a bit

lighter weights, and then we're going to

go for, let's say, three or four max

sets each side.

So, at this point now, our legs are

getting pretty pumped up. We've done

some maximal sets, we've done some high

volume squatting, both bilateral and

unilateral. Next thing, let's start

hitting the hammies up. Let's start

getting into the posterior chain. So, a

super common thing to do would be

getting into your deads and RDLs.

You're probably then going to finish off

the session with a couple of supersets,

maybe a finisher or two. You see how

these sessions run, right? It's an

absolute smash fest. You're going to

destroy your legs. Once that part of

your leg is destroyed, you're going to

move on to the next part and it's super

focused site-specific training. So, for

a bodybuilder, right? That session is

great. Come back later on the week, do

something very similar again, and we're

really getting closer and closer to our

goals. We've surged a massive amount of

blood to all those capillary beds, which

gives us good trigger for angiogenesis.

We've done a lot of damage to those

muscle which triggers hypertrophy. We're

now getting to the point where we're

going to be gaining muscle, getting in

better shape, doing exactly what we want

a bodybuilder to do. But what in God's

name do you think is going to happen if

you show up to your soccer, tennis,

rugby, or any sporting session, let's

say later on that evening or even the

next day? I'll tell you exactly what's

going to happen. You're going to be

walking around the place like John Wayne

after getting off his horse and it

doesn't matter what sport you're trying

to play, no matter what athletic

endeavor you're trying to do, if you're

that sore and that fatigued, even if the

pain isn't that bad, you're just not

going to be in a position to do anything

reasonably athletic. The challenge here

is, right? There's a contrast between

the goals of a gym-goer, gym monkey

bodybuilder, and the goals of an

athlete. On one side, the athlete must

maintain readiness, whether it's

readiness throughout the week, a month,

a year, or a training block. Certainly,

there are periods of every athlete's

year where they can kind of mess

themselves up a bit more. In the

off-season, they can do a lot of high

volume training, but generally speaking,

if you're playing a sport, you have to

be ready and capable to play that sport

for most of the year. For this reason,

athletes are concerned with finding

something called minimum effective dose.

It's not the most training we can do, it

is the least amount of training to get

us the best possible results. On the

other hand, then we have bodybuilders,

right? So, they want to do as much

damage to those muscle tissues as

possible and then signal the most amount

of muscle growth following on from that.

They're looking for how much training

can I get away with doing before I

either negatively influence the next and

upcoming session or damage those muscle

tissues to the point where they can't be

repaired easily. This is the contrast

between these two things. On one side,

we're looking for efficiency, on the

other side, we're looking for maximizing

one specific silo. So, the first reason

is pretty clear. We don't like athletes

using upper and lower splits because

they mess athletes up a little bit too

much. Whether that's through DOMS,

whether that's through local muscular

fatigue, and all the rest that comes

along with it. But that is definitely

not the only negative to them. Our next

reason then is strength development. So,

in the first part, we talked about the

hypertrophy side of things. And this is

where athletes and bodybuilders have

very concurrent goals. Both of them want

to gain more muscle tissue. But the real

issues with the upper lower style splits

is when we start looking at their

non-concurrent goals. The first of these

is strength training. Well, the reality

of it is, we look at strength training

athletes, powerlifters, weightlifters,

strongmen, whatever, a lot of them are

going to have training splits that might

necessarily be too different from the

specificity of upper and lower because

they'll have a big day where they squat,

a big pull day, a big press day, and so

on. So, if it gets such good results for

them in the strength training realms,

why would we not use it for athletes to

get stronger? This really isn't too far

from the truth, right? This isn't too

far away from how most athletes would