Best 3 Day Workout Splits For Building Muscle & Losing Fat

Here are 8 different 3 day workout splits that you can try out. 

I have been working out for close to a decade and I’ve tried more training splits than I can count. In this article I’ll be showing you some different 3 day workout programs that I have created. 

3 day workout splits will train all muscle groups effectively while also giving you enough time to recover between workouts. 

These 3 day workout programs are made to work for everyone, regardless of your gym experience. If you are a beginner at the gym and need some guidance, or if you’ve been doing the same workout split for a while and want to change things up.

Here are the 8 best 3 day workout splits for every circumstance: 

1. Best Overall – 3 Day Upper/Lower and Full Body Workout Split
2. Best For Hypertrophy – 3 Day Full Body Workout Split
3. Best For Beginners – 3 Day Push Pull Legs Workout Split
4. Best For Women – 3 Day Superwoman Workout Split
5. Best For Strength – 3 Day 5×5 Compound Workout Split
6. Best for Weight Loss – 3 Day Body Toning Workout Split
7. Best For Athletes – 3 Day Hybrid Workout Split
8. Best For Home Workouts – 3 Day Dumbell Workout Split

Keep reading to see the workout splits. Later in the article I’ll also provide some more useful info about the programs!

#1 Best Overall – 3 Day Upper/Lower/Full Body Workout Split

Weekly schedule

Workouts

Upper body A:

Lower body A:

Full body A:

Breakdown Of The 3 Day Upper/Lower Full Body Workout Routine

Notes:

The 3 day upper/lower and full body split is perfect if you want to train each muscle group twice a week.

You train all muscle groups adequately with this workout split. It’s also a good option if you want to focus on training your legs a little extra. 

Since you do 25 sets of leg training every week you will see good leg development with this split.

#2 Best For Hypertrophy – 3 Day Full Body Workout Split

Weekly schedule

Workouts

Full body A:

Full body B:

Full body C:

Breakdown Of The 3 Day Full Body Workout Routine

Notes:

The 3 day full body workout split is an effective program for hypertrophy (muscle growth). 

The split is very balanced between all muscle groups. You hit the sweet spot for sets/week (10-25 sets/week per muscle group), and you get a lot of variation in your workouts. 

The full body split would work for both beginners who are learning the basics and advanced lifters who want to change up their routines. 

With the 3 day full body split you only get about 48 hours of recovery time between the workouts. 

This should be enough time to recover. But you need to make sure that your sleep and diet are dialed in if you want to try this workout routine!

#3 Best For Beginners – 3 Day Push Pull Legs Workout Split

Weekly schedule

Workouts

Push day:

Pull day:

Leg day:

Breakdown Of The 3 Day Push/Pull/Legs (PLL) Workout Routine

Notes:

The 3 day push/pull/legs (PPL) routine is the best workout split for beginners. This split is often used for training 6 times per week. But I’ve optimized it to work just as well if you are going to the gym 3 times a week.

This variation of a 3 day workout program is well balanced between all the muscle groups. You also get to train a lot of arms with this 3 day split. So it’s great if your arms are lagging behind and you want to develop them more.

#4 Best For Women – 3 Day Superwoman Workout Split

Weekly schedule

Workouts

Legs (rear) + Shoulders + Abs:

Legs (Front) + Arms + Abs:

Upper Body:

Breakdown Of The 4 Day Superwoman Workout Split

Notes:

This 3 day workout split is perfect for working out your legs twice a week. The training program is also glute focused to help build a stronger posterior chain.

A strong posterior chain helps maintain a good posture and is also important for stability in many other weightlifting exercises. 

Glute training often gets overlooked. But weak glutes can often cause back pain and knee problems. This happens because other muscles in your body need to overcompensate for the lack of strength in your glutes.

#5 Best For Strength – 3 Day 5×5 Compound Workout Split

Weekly schedule

Workouts

Workout A:

Workout B:

Workout C:

Breakdown Of The 3 Day 5×5 Compound Workout Split 

Notes:

This training program focuses on the main compound lifts; Squats, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press and barbell rows.

The 5×5 workout program is great for building strength while also having a lot of training volume.

5×5 means that you do 5 sets for 5 reps of the compound exercises mentioned.

When doing the compound lifts in the 5×5 training split you should aim to do about 80% of your 1RM (1 rep max) for the 5 reps and sets.

All muscle groups are balanced and trained sufficiently in this training split, which makes it a good alternative if you want to combine powerlifting and bodybuilding.

#6 Best For Weight Loss – 3 Day Body Toning Workout Split

Weekly schedule

Workouts

Bodypump A (full body):

Bodypump B (full body):

Bodypump C (full body):

Breakdown Of The 3 Day Body Toning Workout Split

Notes:

The body sculpting workout routine combines cardio and weightlifting. This is the best 3 day workout program for losing weight!

HERE’S WHY!

The workout program is packed with functional weightlifting exercises such as weighted sled pushes and farmers’ walks. 

These exercises will build muscle mass while also burning more calories than regular weightlifting exercises would.

This optimizes your time in the gym since you won’t have to worry about doing cardio separately.

Increasing your muscle mass will also force your body to burn more energy (calories) to maintain the muscle you have built. 

#7 Best For Athletes – 3 Day Hybrid Workout Split

Weekly schedule

Workouts

Strength:

Explosiveness:

Stability:

Breakdown Of The 3 Day Athlete’s Hybrid Workout Split

As a former soccer player I know how important strength, mobility and explosiveness are when playing competitive sports.

I made this training program for you who want to improve your performance and excel in your sport. It is the perfect 3 day training split for athletes.

The hybrid workout split combines strength training with explosiveness and balance training. 

It is packed with exercises that will give you an edge on the field. Being both stronger and faster than your opponent will make you unstoppable.

#8 Best For Home Workouts – 3 Day Dumbell Workout Split

Weekly schedule

Workouts

Dumbbell Push:

Dumbbell Pull:

Dumbbell Legs:

Breakdown Of The 3 Day Dumbbell Workout Routine

Notes:

The dumbbell workout routine is perfect if you want to work out at home. Everything you need is a bench and a set of adjustable dumbbells.

You get a good balance between all the muscle groups. With only a set of dumbbells and a workout bench I can’t imagine a simpler and more optimized training program for working out at home.

How Are These 3 Day Workout Splits Structured?

All workouts in the programs begin with compound movements. It’s best to do these lifts at the beginning of the workout when you have the most energy.

Compound lifts are the heaviest and most demanding. You want to have as much energy as possible when doing them in order to perform them optimally and get the best results. 

The compound exercises have the highest strength and muscle-building potential. They are great for overloading your muscles and are the most bang for your buck exercises in the gym. 

Overloading means that you expose your muscle to a weight that they aren’t used to. This forces your body to adapt to that weight by building more muscle.

Overloading your muscles is the most effective way to build muscle and progress in the gym.

The second half of the workouts are accessory exercises and isolation movements. These exercises target specific muscles and are generally less time-consuming and strenuous. 

Isolation exercises target specific muscles and the weights that you use are usually lighter.

This means that you won’t overload the muscle as much. But you can still build muscle with isolation exercises. A key aspect of these movements is to improve your mind-muscle connection.

The mind-muscle connection is essentially how well you can contract and activate muscle fibers in the muscles you are working out.

With a good mind-muscle connection you can overload your muscles more effectively when doing compound exercises. Which will lead to more hypertrophy (muscle growth).

How Many Sets And Reps Should You Do Per Muscle Group Every Week?

10-25 sets per muscle group per week is optimal for hypertrophy (muscle growth) according to the latest literature. 

That is a pretty wide range and all muscle groups don’t need the same amount of volume for optimal growth. To make it easier you can think that the set range depends on the size of each muscle group. 

This means that your arm and shoulder muscles don’t need to be trained as much as your larger leg, chest and back muscles. 

10-15 sets of arms and shoulders are enough, while your legs, chest and back need closer to 15-25 sets per week.

The upper limit of the optimal set range is pretty vague. But doing more than 25 sets per muscle group per week would be too time-consuming for what it accomplishes.

The amount of reps you do per set isn’t super important. But doing over 30 reps per set is excessive, and doing 2 reps is not enough either. 

A general rule of thumb that I use is to do 8-15 reps on 70-80 % of your max for each exercise. 

How Long Should You Rest Between Sets?

30-90 seconds of rest is usually enough between sets. You don’t need to count exactly how long you rest. Just go when you feel ready for the next set.

As a general guideline, about 60-90 seconds of rest is good for compound exercises. Your muscles need more time to recover after doing heavy sets. 

30-60 seconds should be enough for isolation exercises as small muscles will recover faster between sets.

How Long Will The Workouts Take?

I rarely spend more than 90 minutes in the gym, and you can finish these programs within this time frame.

The workouts can take even less time if you implement supersets.

Supersets are when you do two exercises simultaneously. For example alternating between doing seated dumbbell press and dumbbell lateral raises.

You effectively get two exercises done at once as you skip the rest period in between sets.

This is also another way to overload your muscles since you basically train them nonstop for maybe 6-8 sets.

How Long Do You Need To Recover?

This mainly depends on factors outside of the gym such as nutrition and sleep. 

As a guideline, smaller muscle groups such as arms and shoulders will recover in about 24-48 hours (1-2 days).

Larger muscle groups such as legs and back can take up to 72-96 hours (3-4) to recover fully. 

You can decrease these times with the right nutrition and sleep protocols. 

Eat enough protein (1 gram/pound of body weight) to help rebuild muscle. Eat enough carbohydrates to refill glycogen stores in the muscle. And eat enough fats to have normal hormone levels.

Getting your vitamins and minerals is also important, and you should aim for 8 hours of sleep. 

This is especially important if you plan on doing a 3 day full body workout split. Since you only get about 48 hours of rest until the next full-body workout.

Benefits Of 3 Day Workout Splits

3 day workout splits are effective for building both muscle and strength. Having 4 days off will also give you time to do other hobbies besides the gym.

Training  3 days a week is manageable even If you have a busy life outside the gym.

3 day splits work great both for beginners and experienced lifters. You can program a 3 day workout routine in many different ways to adapt them to your lifting experience and training level. 

Beginners can ease their way into working out instead of going all in and working out every day. Going all out in the beginning can drain you and make you unmotivated to keep training.

Intermediate and experienced lifters can experiment with a lot of different 3 day splits and get a lot of variation in their training which is important for progress which I will expand on later.

Having a lot of different workout plans at your disposal will make the muscle-building progress easier. You can have a rotation of programs that you can switch between to avoid plateauing.   

A 3 day workout split has a good balance of training and recovery time. You get at least 3 days (72 hours) of rest before working out the same muscle groups again (with the exception of the full body split)

How Do 3 Day Workout Splits Compare To Other Workout Splits?

People always argue if a 3, 4 or 5 day split is better for building muscle.

And the simple answer is that all of them work. As long as you do at least 10 sets/week per muscle group, preferably closer to 15-25 sets/week for maximal muscle growth. 

With a 3 day workout split you get more recovery time than with a 4 or 5 day workout split. 3 day workout splits are also easier to fit into your schedule if you have a lot to do besides the gym.

3 day workout splits can also be easier to commit to for beginners. Working out 3 times a week can feel more manageable than 4, 5 or 6 days a week while still giving you great results.

How Many Times Should You Train Each Muscle Group Per Week?

Most people tell you that you need to train each muscle group at least two times a week to get the best results, but this isn’t necessarily true.

The literature on this subject has changed a lot lately, and it seems that the most important factor for muscle hypertrophy is the training volume (sets/week). 

You can basically train each body part as many times as you want in a week as long as you hit the 10-25 sets/week goal for each muscle group. 

And this works great for a 3 day workout program. 

You can for instance do the upper/lower split and hit every muscle group only once a week, or the full body split and hit each muscle group 3 times a week. 

I’ve made sure that you will hit the 10-25 set range when you follow these workout programs.  

How Long Should I Follow A 3 Day Workout Program?

At least 8-12 weeks. After 4-6 months it can be a good idea to switch up your routine for optimal progress. 

When you stick to the same split for too long you usually get less muscle soreness after workouts and your strength gains might slow down significantly. 

This is called “plateauing”. It happens to everyone at some point and basically means that your muscles have adapted to the exercises and workload you expose them to.

Switching to a new workout program is a good way to break out of a plateau. New workouts and exercises will expose your muscles to new stimuli which result in muscle growth. 

You can also switch between exercises in your workout program to avoid plateauing too early. You can for instance do pull-downs one week and pull-ups the following week.

How Long Until I See Results From A 3 Day Workout Split?

After 8-12 weeks you will see some strength gains and some muscle development.

The progress will be faster if you are a beginner. These are the famous “noob gains” and usually last for about 6-12 months. 

During that time you make a lot of progress fairly quickly. Eventually it slows down and you might start thinking that you are doing something wrong.

But you are not!

Building muscles takes a LOT of time! Don’t be discouraged if you don’t think that you are making enough progress.

It takes many years until you’ve built a good physique. It took me almost 5 years to realize that I had actually put on a lot of muscle.

It’s easy to be overly critical of your own physique. Seeing yourself in the mirror every day makes it easy to think that you aren’t making any progress.

But take a picture of yourself now and compare yourself to that picture again a year or two later. That’s when you realize how much progress you’ve actually made.

Being the one who sticks to it and doesn’t give up is what’s going to differentiate you from most other people. Just enjoy the process.

Are 3 Day Workout Splits Good For YOU?

3 day workout splits work great for mostly everyone! They are perfect for beginners in my opinion.

The hardest thing for most people is to actually START going to the gym. It might feel overwhelming and too time-consuming to go to the gym every day. 

Working out only 3 days a week can feel more manageable and less time-consuming. It can be a good way to get into weightlifting and start going to the gym without being overwhelmed.

As you’ve seen there are a bunch of ways to structure a 3 day workout program. They can be easily modified depending on your goals and needs. 

No matter if you are a beginner, intermediate or even an advanced lifter you can without a doubt make great progress with a 3 day workout routine.

If you’ve got a lot going on outside the gym I know exactly how difficult it can be to find time to squeeze in workouts every day. Working out 3 days a week is manageable especially if you have the weekends off. 

Adjusting The 3 Day Workout Programs

The exercises that I have chosen in the program are my personal preference, I’ve also adapted them a bit to suit everyone. But I figured I could give you some examples of how you can modify the program to fit your experience level.

Adjusting The Programs For Beginners

If you are just starting out in the gym some of the exercises in the training programs I’ve shown might seem a bit daunting. Exercises like pull-ups and dips also require a lot of strength and technique.

BUT DON’T WORRY! 

Pretty much all of the exercises in the programs have machine alternatives. Machines have a fixed range of motion and you won’t have to worry about stability and handling weights that your muscles and ligaments aren’t used to yet.

When you have built up some strength you can move on to the free weights. You’ll notice that your stability improves very fast. As you progress you will be able to perform the exercises better but choose a weight that you can manage, ego lifting won’t take you far.

Adjusting The Programs For Intermediate And Advanced Lifters

Personally I like to implement drop sets and supersets into my workouts, you’re probably using them in your workouts already, but here are some interesting ones you might want to try out.

1. Superset incline dumbbell curls with seated dumbbell curls: Set the bench to a 30 or 45-degree angle. Do your first set leaning backward and when you are done sit upright and continue with the superset. 

You can usually go a bit heavier when you are upright, I’ve also found that alternating bicep curls work better for me than doing them simultaneously as I can really focus on one bicep at a time. 

2. Drop-set Bulgarian split squats: I prefer doing Bulgarian split squats with kettlebells over a barbell since you’ll have a lower center of gravity while holding kettlebells. This also makes it easier to do drop sets.

Drop-setting Bulgarian split squats might be the most painful exercise in the gym but the results are insane! If you are really crazy you can even do a triple or quadruple drop-set, but then you might have to call in sick to work the next day.

3. Superset skullcrushers with bench press: After finishing your set of skullcrushers, bring the bar or dumbbells over your chest and start repping out the bench press until failure. You can do this for all 3 sets if you want.

4. Extra tip: You can finish the last set of all your exercises with a drop-set just for fun!

What Supplements Should You Consider For A 3 Day Workout Split?

Pre-Workout 

Pre-workout is without a doubt my favorite supplement. It allows you to train harder, get a better pump and improve your focus.

These effects will allow you to plow through the workouts. You get the energy to do a few more sets and lift a bit heavier. This will result in more muscle growth in the long run.

I could go on forever about pre-workouts, so make sure to read my article about the best beginner pre-workouts to find out more about them!

Protein Powder

Having enough protein in your diet is very important for muscle growth and recovery.

After a heavy workout your body will need to repair the micro-damage in your muscle fibers. Your body does this with the help of amino acids which are the building blocks of proteins.

This is the process that results in muscle growth. Your body rebuilds your muscles a bit larger and stronger in order to endure the load you place on them.

Read my protein powder guide to learn more and find the best protein supplements for you.

Creatine

Creatine is one of the most popular and by far the most researched workout supplement. 

And for good reason!

Your body uses creatine to create ATP which is a vital energy source. And ATP is your body’s first choice for creating energy during sudden explosive exercise.

When exercising your body will deplete its ATP stores within 3-8 seconds. But supplementing with creatine increases the ATP levels enough to last a few more seconds.

This will allow you to do a few more reps with heavier weight. Exposing your muscles to this extra load will result in more hypertrophy (muscle growth) over time.

But creatine has SO many other benefits for your training and health, make sure to read my article about creatine to find out more about its amazing benefits! 

What To Do Next?

Try these 3 day splits out for yourself and unlock some new gains, but until it’s time to hit the gym again here are some more articles you should read: 

• 2 day workout split
• 4 day workout split
• 5 day workout split 
• 6 day workout split