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Hello Fiteniers, today we are going to talk about another of the most popular training schemes and the best results. It’s usually a natural step when a 3-day Fullbody routine falls short on training days and you want to hit the gym more. The 4-day Torso-Leg routine continues to have a base of multi-joint exercises, but ending each session with one or two isolated exercises to end the session.

In this case, we recommend this 4-day Torso-Leg routine for intermediate athletes. If you are a beginner, we believe that it is better that you start your journey in the gym for a few months with the 3 day fullbody routine a few months, and if you are advanced, although this routine is valid, we believe that there are other more interesting options such as Pull-Push-Legs.

Guidelines:

1. Weekly Division of the Routine:

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Monday: Torso 1 Workout
Tuesday: Leg 1 Workout
Wednesday: Active Rest
Thursday: Torso 2 Workout
Friday: Leg 2 Workout

Although in general this routine is designed to go to the gym four days, if for some reason one week you can only go three days, you can do three days of this routine and start the following week with the training that was missing. An example would be like this.

What is active rest? It consists of resting from our usual 3-day routine, but continuing to be active by doing some moderate activity with a moderate pace and duration. Examples of active rest: yoga or stretching session, 45-60 minute walk, foam roller routine, riding a bike… there are options for all tastes.

2. Rest between sets:

In multi-joint exercises such as Squats, Deadlifts or Bench Press, we recommend taking long breaks of 3-4 minutes without any problem, since by recruiting a lot of muscle, our CNS needs a little more time to recover. For isolation exercises, short rests of 60-90 seconds are enough to go for another set.

3. Effort:

Given the predominance of multi-joint exercises, we do not recommend training near failure if we want to maintain performance and technique throughout our sets. As a general rule in compound exercises we recommend training with a weight that allows us to do 2 or 3 more repetitions. In the more analytical exercises we recommend training with a weight that allows us to do 1 or 2 more repetitions.

If we are beginners we can apply a linear weight progression and almost every week we will be able to lift more weight than the previous one, but if we are already intermediate we recommend other types of more complex progressions that we will talk about later.

4. Warm up and stretch:

The warm-up will be the same every day, it is VERY IMPORTANT never to skip the warm-up and stretching if we want to continue progressing without injuries.

5. Substitutions:

We highly recommend doing our 3-day routine with the scheduled exercises, but if for whatever reason you can’t do any of the exercises, you can substitute them as follows.

• Squat: Press + 15 reps of lower back extension (i.e. if you have 3×8 of Squat, replace it with 3×8 of press and 3×15 of lower back extension).
• Deadlift: Hip Thrust `+ 15 repetitions of lumbar extension.
• Romanian Deadlift: Nordic Curl.
• Stride: Unilateral Hip Thrust with Dumbbell.
• Hip Thrust: Hip Thrust on a quadriceps extension machine.
• Calf Raise standing machine: Calf Raise with dumbbell.
• Femoral Curl: Femoral Curl with Dumbbell (between the feet).
• Quadriceps Extension: You can eliminate them.
• Barbell Bench Press: Dumbbell Bench Press.
• Incline Dumbbell Press: Incline Barbell Press.
• Military Press: Standing Military Press with Dumbbells.
• Pulley Openings: Dumbbell Openings or Pec Deck.
• Funds: Bench Press Declined Dumbbells.
• Supine Pulley Pulldown: Biceps Pull Ups.
• T-Bar Row: Dumbbell Bench Row.

6. Progression

Once we are intermediate, the linear progression is no longer realistic for us in this 4 day Upper-Leg routine.

In this routine, we recommend an undulating progression that works as follows:

• Let’s take as an example an exercise from our 4-day Torso-Leg routine that has 3 series for 6-8 repetitions.
• We load a weight that allows us to do 6 repetitions.
• We do the series of 6 repetitions until with the increase in our strength, we can do 8 repetitions with the same weight.
• Once we can do 3 sets of 8 repetitions, we increase the weight (1-2.5kg disc in isolated exercises and 5kg in compound exercises).
• With this new weight we start again doing 6 repetitions. If we fail we return to the previous weight.

7. And the diet?

To make truly significant progress in the gym, diet is just as important as training if not more. Avoid processed foods, eat a reasonable amount of protein for your weight and training level, and calculate a caloric deficit/surplus based on your goals. Read our article if you want to have a Body 10.

The 4-day Torso-Leg Routine

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Day 1 – Heavy Torso

Day 2 – Heavy Leg

Day 3 – Light Torso

Day 4 – Light Leg

If you want to go to the gym more days and spin more finely in each workout, this 4-day Torso-Leg routine is a perfect option to continue progressing once we are no longer newbies.

Don’t forget to record your progress and upload it to Fitenium!

If you don’t already know Fitenium is a free, mobile, video-based social network for athletes who train strength or bodyweight exercises. At Fitenium users can follow their performance, compete and get discounts in nutrition and sports equipment stores. Download it here.

It is very nice to read on social networks that there are no excuses and that if you want to achieve goals you cannot fail in the gym and all those motivating comments, but for most people there are moments in life that responsibilities are greater than the desire to train. Having children, that incredible job opportunity or other responsibilities that cannot – and should not – be taken lightly and in most cases means that we do not have time for more than a couple of weekly training sessions. That is why we propose some examples of a 2-day routine for those mothers and fathers who have little time but who want to continue to stay healthy and strong.

Although to progress in strength or hypertrophy doing 4-6 weekly sessions varying the volume per session is surely optimal, that does not mean that we cannot progress by training two days a week as indicated by this study. That is why we should not get discouraged but try to optimize these two weekly sessions that we have and adjust our expectations.

That is why in this article we propose 5 ways to divide the weekly work into two sessions according to different parameters. The material is not too important either, depending on your options and preferences there is no problem in using bars, dumbbells or body weight while executing the movement pattern. We also offer some options for each pattern. If you have a little more time and can do 3 weekly sessions, we recommend a 3-day Fullbody routine.

2-day routine: Anterior Chain – Posterior Chain

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Day 1: Previous Chain

a) 4×8 – Horizontal Pectoral Press (Bench Press with Bar or Dumbbells, Weighted Push-ups…)
b) 4×8 – Squat (With Barbell or Dumbbell, Unilateral…)
c) 4×10 – Vertical Shoulder Press (Military Press with Bar or Dumbbells, assisted handstand push-ups…)
d) 4×12 – Stride (With Barbell or Dumbbell, adding instability…)
e) 4×12 – Curl Biceps (With bar or hand, preacher, concentrate, on polea…)
f) 4×15 – Lateral Raises (With dumbbell, kettlebell, pulley…)

Day 2: Posterior Chain

a) 4×8 – Deadlift (With Barbell or Dumbbell, Unilateral…)
b) 4×8 – Vertical Pull (Pull-ups, Pulley Pulldown…)
c) 4×10 – Back Horizontal Pull (Pendlay Row, Pulley…)
d) 4×12 – Hip Push (Hip Thrust, Gluteal Bridges…)
e) 4×12 – Triceps Extension (French Press, Cable Extensions…)
f) 4×15 – Rear Shoulder Horizontal Pull (Facepull with Cable, with Dumbbells…)

2 day routine: Torso – Leg

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Day 1: Torso

a) 4×8 – Horizontal Pectoral Press (Bench Press with Bar or Dumbbells, Weighted Push-ups…)
b) 4×10 – Vertical Shoulder Press (Military Press with Bar or Dumbbells, assisted handstand push-ups…)
c) 4×8 – Vertical Pull (Pull-ups, Pulley Pulldown…)
d) 4×10 – Back Horizontal Pull (Pendlay Row, Pulley…)
e) 4×12 – Curl Biceps (With bar or hand, preacher, concentrate, on polea…)
f) 4×12 – Triceps Extension (French Press, Cable Extensions…)

Day 2: Leg

a) 4×8 – Squat (With Barbell or Dumbbell, Unilateral…)
b) 4×12 – Stride (With Barbell or Dumbbell, adding instability…)
c) 4×8 – Deadlift (With Barbell or Dumbbell, Unilateral…)
d) 4×10 – Hip Thrust (Hip Thrust, Gluteal Bridges…)
e) 4×12 – Quadriceps Extension (Machine Extension, Sissy Squat…)
f) 4×12 – Femoral Curl (Machine Curl, Nordic Curl…)

2-day routine: Pull – Push

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Day 1 – Push

a) 4×8 – Horizontal Pectoral Press (Bench Press with Bar or Dumbbells, Weighted Push-ups…)
b) 4×10 – Vertical Shoulder Press (Military Press with Bar or Dumbbells, assisted handstand push-ups…)
c) 4×8 – Squat (With Barbell or Dumbbell, Unilateral…)
d) 4×10 – Hip Thrust (Hip Thrust, Gluteal Bridges…)
e) 4×12 – Triceps Extension (French Press, Cable Extensions…)
f) 4×12 – Quadriceps Extension (Machine Extension, Sissy Squat…)

Day 2 – Pull

a) 4×8 – Deadlift (With Barbell or Dumbbell, Unilateral…)
b) 4×12 – Stride (With Barbell or Dumbbell, adding instability…)
c) 4×8 – Vertical Pull (Pull-ups, Pulley Pulldown…)
d) 4×10 – Back Horizontal Pull (Pendlay Row, Pulley…)
e) 4×12 Femoral Curl (Machine Curl, Nordic Curl…)
f) 4×12 – Biceps Curl (With barbell or dumbbell, preacher, concentrate, cable…)

2-Day Workout: Fullbody

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Day 1: Fullbody A

a) 4×8 – Squat (With Barbell or Dumbbell, Unilateral…)
b) 4×8 – Horizontal Pectoral Press (Bench Press with Bar or Dumbbells, Weighted Push-ups…)
c) 4×10 – Back Horizontal Pull (Pendlay Row, Pulley…)
d) 4×12 – Stride (With Barbell or Dumbbell, adding instability…)
e) 4×12 – Triceps Extension (French Press, Cable Extensions…)
f) 4×15 – Lateral Raises (With dumbbell, kettlebell, pulley…)

Day 2: Fullbody B

a) 4×8 – Vertical Pull (Pull-ups, Pulley Pulldown…)
b) 4×8 – Deadlift (With Barbell or Dumbbell, Unilateral…)
c) 4×10 – Vertical Shoulder Press (Military Press with Bar or Dumbbells, assisted handstand push-ups…)
d) 4×10 – Hip Thrust (Hip Thrust, Gluteal Bridges…)
e) 4×12 – Curl Biceps (With bar or hand, preacher, concentrate, on polea…)
f) 4×15 – Rear Shoulder Horizontal Pull (Facepull with Cable, with Dumbbells…)

What are we looking for in these 2-day routine?

Get the most out of each workout, having few sessions available, each of them should affect the largest part of the body in the most effective way possible. This is achieved with multi-joint exercises and focusing on movement patterns rather than the exercise itself. Working in supersets is also a very interesting option for people with even less time, in which case we recommend antagonistic supersets doing the 2-day Torso – Leg or Fullbody routine.

The antagonistic movement patterns are as follows:

1) Horizontal Press – Horizontal Pull
2) Vertical Press – Vertical Pull
3) Biceps Curl – Triceps Extension
4) Squat – Hip Thrust
5) Deadlift – Lunge
6) Quadriceps Extension – Leg Curl
7) Lateral Raises – Rear Shoulder Pull

Complement this 2-day routine.

It may be the case that we only have time to go to the gym the time we need only 2 times a week, but that we also have some “breaks” throughout the week in which we can do a quick routine of 15-20 minutes, which we can take advantage of to do a quick routine in intervals. The routine that we propose lasts a total of 15 minutes, divided into 3 rounds of 5 exercises in which we work for 40 seconds and rest for 20.

Exercise 1: Jumping Jacks or Comba
Ejercicio 2: Mountain Climbers
Exercise 3: Squat or Jump Lunge
Exercise 4: Abdominal Plank
Exercise 5: Push-ups

Three rounds of these exercises with the breaks mentioned above are a great addition to any of our 2-day routines and will keep you reasonably fit. We must not forget that a large part of our physical condition does not come so much from training but from a good diet that adapts to our energy needs and is healthy.

conclusions

Life takes many turns and we can’t always go to the gym 5 days a week. In these cases we have to adapt to our new situation and try to get the most out of each training session, taking advantage of the fact that we have more rest days between sessions, each of which must be more intense to maximize our progress. Even if it’s not optimal, you shouldn’t get discouraged and stop training, since that will mean that we don’t progress and also lose what we’ve gained.

Good luck and see you at Fitenium!