First things first: this article is not for beginners. An upper/lower split can absolutely work for a beginner, but this particular program assumes you already know your way around the gym, understand your limits, and have built a decent base of strength. We are going to train hard. Really fucking hard. But there’s a difference between pushing your body and beating it up for no reason.
I don’t have just one goal for my body. I want it to be flexible, strong, fast, and good-looking. And of course, reaching all of those goals with one type of training is not realistic. Depending on how you look at it, reaching those goals completely isn’t possible either.
If you have a perfectionist mentality, you probably know what I mean. You keep getting closer, but you never really arrive. Why not get flexible enough to fold yourself like a toast? Why not get strong enough to lift a car? Why not get faster than Usain Bolt? Why not look fucking good enough to compete in bodybuilding? Yeah, some of these examples are far-fetched, but I hope you get the mentality behind them. There is always another level.
There isn’t a single perfect workout routine you can just copy and use forever. Everyone is different: body type, recovery, mentality, work shifts, things you enjoy, time available, all of it. We could make an infinite list. But we can build a base and shape it around ourselves.
We’re going to split the training into two main parts: upper and lower. It’s a classic, and you’ve probably heard of it before. Maybe you’ve even tried it. I like to think of the body as one unit, but when you’re trying to develop different qualities, you need to manage where your effort goes. On a serious leg day, I want my energy going into legs, not wasted on chest or shoulders first. The same goes the other way around. And just to be clear, being unable to walk after leg day isn’t the goal. Progress is.
Diet matters just as much as the work you do in the gym, and the basics are pretty simple. Eat in a calorie surplus if you want to gain weight and support muscle growth. Eat in a deficit if you want to lose fat. Around maintenance, you can aim for body recomposition (gaining muscle while losing fat) although it’s usually slower and depends on your training history and starting point. Get enough protein (roughly 1.6–2.0 g per kilogram of bodyweight per day is a solid target), eat enough carbs to fuel training, and don’t cut dietary fat so low that you’re neglecting your overall health.
Creatine monohydrate is worth considering, well-studied approach for healthy adults. Magnesium, zinc, and vitamin D are worth paying attention to if your diet or a medical assessment shows you need them, but they’re not supplements everyone should blindly take. I sometimes use L-citrulline before training, although the evidence for a meaningful performance benefit is mixed. That’s enough nutrition talk for now. We can get into the details later; I want to focus on the workout plan in this post.
The upper-body philosophy
There are three exercises I focus on more than anything else: dips, pull-ups, and rows. Three exercises, two basic movement patterns: pushing and pulling. These are my main upper-body builders.
Imagine you need to push yourself over a wall or pull yourself up into a tree. You’re pushing and pulling. Obviously, there are more movements worth training, and different angles build different muscles, but these three are the foundation for me. Everything else is seasoning. Important seasoning, but seasoning.
I’ve seen my best results by keeping the number of working sets per exercise relatively low, lifting challenging weights, and trying to do more quality reps over time. We’re not training for pure endurance, and we’re not specializing in one-rep-max strength either. I want a mix of muscle, strength, and the ability to keep producing force when a set gets ugly.
For example, let’s say you weigh 80 kg and can do two sets of 10 weighted dips with an extra 10 kg. If you work your way up to two clean sets of 15 with that same weight, you’ve improved your performance. You’ll probably have built some muscle and muscular endurance along the way, too. And when 15 reps become comfortable, add a little weight and build the reps back up.
There’s nothing unscientific about progressing this way. Different rep ranges can build muscle; heavier loads are generally more specific to maximal strength. My goal isn’t to win one of those categories at the expense of everything else. I want muscles, strength, work capacity, and tendons that gradually adapt to harder loading. The key word is gradually. Your tendons and joints don’t care how motivated you feel on a random Friday night.
For context, my personal records at 88 kg bodyweight are a dip with +80 kg, a pull-up with +60 kg. Those numbers aren’t proof that this is the perfect system. They’re just some context for what I’ve been doing and why I like it.
So here’s the upper-body part of the system: Upper A and Upper B.
Upper A is the heavy day. Upper B keeps the same basic pushing and pulling movements but uses more controlled, higher-rep work. That lets me push hard twice without pretending every session has to be a max-effort competition.
Before the lists, two things:
RIR means reps in reserve. If a set says 1–2 RIR, stop when you think you could still complete one or two more clean reps. Use a weight that makes the prescribed rep range feel like that. The exact percentage of your one-rep max isn’t the important part here.
The sets below are working sets. Warm up before your first heavy movement and take a few lighter sets to build up to the weight. Rest roughly 3-4 minutes on heavy compounds and 2-3 minutes on smaller exercises, or longer if your performance needs it.
Upper A: Heavy day
The focus here is moving heavy weight with good form. Muscles are fresh, your nervous system is ready, and it’s time to lift some heavy-ass weights.
Pulls
- Weighted pull-ups (or a pull-up variation you can load consistently): 2 × 6–8, 1–2 RIR, followed by 1 bodyweight back-off set for as many clean reps as you can, stopping before technique breaks down. That last set is extra practice and volume, nothing more.
- Wide-grip cable row: 2 × 6–8, 1–2 RIR. Keep the elbows somewhat out and pull toward the upper torso. I use this to put more emphasis on the upper back, especially the middle traps and rear-delt area. Grip width changes the emphasis and it doesn’t isolate one muscle.
- Close-grip row (cable, barbell, or dumbbell): 2 × 6–8, 1–2 RIR. Different angle, different intention. Drive the elbows back and pull toward your waist, main focus is pulling with your back not with your biceps. The lats get plenty of work here.
- Face pulls: 2 × 12–15, 2 RIR. Do these for the rear delts and upper-back muscles. I like them, and they’re a useful addition.
Pushes
- Weighted dips: 2 × 6–8, 1–2 RIR, followed by 1 bodyweight back-off set for clean reps. Use full range of motion.
- Incline dumbbell press: 2 × 6–8, 1–2 RIR.
- Machine fly: 2 × 10–12, 1–2 RIR.
Shoulders
- Cable lateral raises: 3 × 12–15, 1–2 RIR. Use whatever weight lets you control the reps. Five or ten kilos isn’t a universal target, and there’s no prize for turning laterals into a full-body swing.
Arms
- Incline dumbbell curls: 2 × 6–8, 1–2 RIR.
- Incline hammer curls: 1 × 10–12, 1–2 RIR.
- Skull crushers: 2 × 8–10, 1–2 RIR.
- Triceps pushdowns: 1 × 10–12, 1–2 RIR.
Yeah, that’s a lot of exercises. The individual set counts are low, but the total session volume still adds up. If you can’t recover from all of it, the smartest thing you can do is reduce some accessory work, always listen to your body.
Upper B: Volume and control
Upper A is where I test how much quality work I can do with the heaviest weights. Upper B is where I build on it without trying to break a record on every set.
I still want pull-ups and dips here because they’re the backbone of this whole thing. But this time the goal is cleaner reps, a bit more time under tension, and enough work to grow without beating up the elbows and shoulders. We’re also adding an overhead press, because pushing shouldn’t only mean pushing forward or down.
Pulls
- Pull-ups (light added weight): 2 × 8–12, 2 RIR. Full, controlled reps.
- Chest-supported row (dumbbell or machine): 2 × 10–12, 1–2 RIR. This takes some lower-back fatigue out of the equation so I can focus on the upper back instead of cheating the weight up.
- Reverse pec deck: 2 × 12–15, 2 RIR. Get some rear-delt work without turning every pull into a heavy row.
Pushes
- Dips (light added weight): 2 × 10–12, 2 RIR. Keep the reps smooth. If your shoulders don’t like dips twice a week, use a comfortable chest-press variation instead.
- Incline dumbbell press or Flat dumbbell press: 2 × 8–12, 1–2 RIR. I prefer incline beacuse my upper chest is not good as lower chest, check yourself.
- Machine fly: 1 × 12–15, 1–2 RIR.
Shoulders
- Seated dumbbell overhead press: 2 × 8–10, 2 RIR. Control the bottom, press hard, and don’t force a range your shoulders can’t comfortably handle.
- Cable lateral raises: 3 × 12–15, 1–2 RIR.
Arms
- Incline dumbbell curls: 2 × 10–12, 2 RIR.
- Cable triceps extension: 2 × 10–12, 1–2 RIR.
How I run it
I actually hit Upper A twice per week most of the time, with at least a couple of days between them when possible. The lower-body sessions go between or around those days, and I adjust the schedule based on recovery. The full weekly split will make more sense once we get into the lower-body post. You have to test and listen to your body, you can hit Upper A and Upper B once per week if Upper A twice per week is too much.
For progression, keep it simple. If an exercise says 2 × 8–12, use a weight you can control for at least eight reps with the target RIR. Over the following weeks, build toward 12 on both sets. Once you’re there without sacrificing technique, add the smallest practical amount of weight and start building again. Don’t force a PR every workout just because the spreadsheet says so.
If your reps keep dropping, your joints are complaining, or you’re still exhausted by the next upper day, something needs to change. Drop a set, remove an accessory, or give yourself more recovery.
And that’s part one of the workout system: upper body. Next post, we’re going into Lower A and Lower B, the leg work, the main lifts, and how I approach building strength with making every session a survival test. After that, we’ll talk about the part people love to skip: stretching, mobility, and cardio. Because being strong and looking good is great, but I also want a body that can move and actually do shit.