If you're not on steroids, your training needs to reflect that reality. Because natural lifters don't recover the same way enhanced athletes do. You can't train six days a week, hammer the same body part into oblivion twice in 72 hours, and expect growth.
That's just not how your natural physiology works.Β
The question then becomes what training split gives you the most muscle growth, the best recovery, and the highest return on effort?
Let's break it down so you can understand the differences between natural lifters and enhanced lifters and how that affects you, and how it relates to strength and hypertrophy training.
The biggest difference between natural and enhanced lifters is the ability to recover from intense training. Enhanced lifters recover faster, build muscle more easily, and can tolerate far more volume. That's because anabolic steroids dramatically increase protein synthesis, blunt muscle damage, and improve nutrient partitioning.
Natural lifters don't have that luxury, so it needs to be accounted for in your programming.
Recovery has to be respected. Sleep, nutrition, stress, and training structure all play a role. That means your training split has to balance frequency, intensity, and volume so your muscles grow without burning out, and without excessive fatigue accumulation.
A training split simply refers to how you divide your weekly workouts across muscle groups. There are many ways you can do it, and some people spend years dialing in what works best for them. Things to consider when deciding on your preferred training split are how much time you have to train each day, how you feel after you train hard.Β For example, if you train in the morning are you exhausted and need time to rest before moving on with your day? And much more.Β
But another thing to consider is much more simple: What type of split do you like doing?
Because the best training split is the one you like doing because it is the one that will keep you coming back for more.
Common splits include:
Each of these can work, but some work better than others depending on how often you can train and how well you recover. Alright, now that we've got our definitions straight, let's walk through the most important considerations for choosing the right split as a natural lifter.
Most research shows that training each muscle group 2x per week is ideal for hypertrophy, especially for natural lifters(1). Research by Schoenfeld et al. shows that training a muscle 2x per week leads to significantly greater hypertrophy than once per week when total volume is equated(2).
For enhanced lifters who recover quicker, that may not matter. But for natural lifters, more frequent stimulation is key. Hitting a muscle once per week, like the old-school bro split, often doesn't provide enough stimulus unless volume is extremely high, and naturals often find it challenging to recover well from that much work in a single session. So the better option is spreading the volume across the week.
Think about it like this: Would you rather beat your chest into the ground on Monday and spend the next six days too sore to move, or stimulate it on Monday and Thursday in a way that provides more frequent growth signals and keeps recovery manageable?
Let's look at how different splits allow or restrict that frequency.
Traditional bro splits with once-per-week frequency are not ideal for most natural lifters. They often leave muscle groups under-stimulated and over-rested.
For example, if you hit chest on Monday and don't touch it again until the next week, you're missing the opportunity to trigger more frequent growth signals. That said, modified bro splits with higher frequency, like combining a chest/shoulders day with an arm/push day later in the week, can work if intelligently programmed to hit muscle groups twice per week. But as a default, traditional once-per-week bro splits may not be the best option for natural lifters.
PPL is popular and effective, but only if you're training six days a week. That way you hit each muscle group twice. But if you're only training 3β4 days per week, PPL quickly drops to a once-a-week frequency, which isn't optimal. For naturals training less than six times a week, traditional PPL doesn't make much sense. It spreads the week too thin.
However, modified PPL approaches (like PPL-PPL over 10 days or alternating patterns) can work with different schedules if programmed to maintain adequate frequency.
An upper/lower split is a strong option for naturals. With four sessions per week (e.g., Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri), you can hit each muscle group twice with a balanced push/pull ratio. It also lets you manage fatigue better because you're not cramming too many movements into one day.
This split gives you:
It's also scalable. You can rotate between strength and hypertrophy blocks, and the structure holds up.
Absolutely, especially beginners or those with limited time. Full-body workouts allow you to train each muscle group 3x per week with moderate volume and excellent recovery windows.
Research supports this too.
A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that full-body training 3x per week produced comparable hypertrophy to split routines when volume was equal(3).
This is likely due to the increased amount of recovery time a 3x per week training schedule permits.
The challenge is that full-body sessions can be longer and harder to recover from if intensity is too high. But if programmed correctly, they're an excellent tool, especially if you're short on time or when simplicity is key.
If you train 3x per week:
If you train 4x per week:
If you train 5β6x per week:
The key is balancing volume, intensity, and recovery, not just blindly following what enhanced athletes do. Remember that recovery capacity varies significantly among natural lifters, so what works for one person may need adjustment for another.
Whatever split you choose, the real results come from execution.Β
Here's how to get the most out of your training:
And remember, your program is a guide, not a hard and fast rule you must live by. So modify it to fit your schedule, goals, and recovery.
You may have noticed a theme throughout this blog post: recovery. That's because it's the most important part of your growth and development. No matter if you're natural or enhanced if you're not recovering sufficiently your training will suffer, and so will your goals.
As a natural lifter, your recovery is everything. While you can't enhance your recovery through external means like enhanced athletes, you can optimize what your body does naturally, and it all starts with sleep.
During deep sleep, your body releases growth hormone, increases protein synthesis, and repairs muscle tissue damaged during training. This is when the real magic happens for natural lifters. Poor sleep quality doesn't just leave you tired, it directly sabotages your gains by reducing these critical anabolic processes.
That's why we developed RESTED-AF.Β
It's a pharmacist-formulated sleep aid specifically designed to help you fall asleep faster and reach deeper, more restorative REM sleep. When you achieve high-quality sleep consistently, you tap your body's natural recovery potential.Β
This includes:
For natural lifters who can't afford to waste recovery opportunities, RESTED-AF helps bridge the gap between your training and your results. Because the perfect split means nothing if you're not sleeping well enough to recover from it.
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References:
(1) Grgic J, et al. (2018). Effects of resistance training frequency on measures of muscle hypertrophy: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 48(5), 1207β1220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-018-0872-x
(2) Schoenfeld BJ, et al. (2016). Effects of resistance training frequency on muscular adaptations in well-trained men. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 30(11), 3119β3128. DOI: 10.1007/s40279-016-0543-8
(3) Gentil P, et al. (2015). Effects of equal-volume resistance training with different workout frequency on muscle size and strength in trained men. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 29(7), 1821β1829. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.5020
