First of all, the bro-split is a workout split that mainly beginners do, and they use it as a coping mechanism so they don’t have to train the muscles twice a week. But is it really a bad training split, or do people not see the value of doing a bro-split?
Today, we will debunk this popular split and make some minor adjustments if needed.
What is a bro-split?
A bro-split is a training plan that involves going to the gym four or five times a week. This is usually done by training only one muscle group per week, which is not as effective as training the appropriate muscle twice a week.
A typical bro-split consists of Monday: chest; Tuesday: back; Wednesday: legs; Thursday: shoulders; and Friday: arms.
The mindset behind this kind of split is that hypothetically, you do so much work that the muscle you’ve worked on today needs a week to rest up and be ready for the next vicious workout that you have planned for the given muscle.
How and why did bro-split programs get so mainsteam?
Since the start of the gym culture movement, every lifter has been bombarded with doing as little as humanly possible and reaping the most benefits they can.
Mainly, bro-splitting was made popular by influencers that promoted their biased training plans and showed before and after content of their clients that they had obviously edited. With this kind of scheme, many people fell victim to those kinds of training plans without knowing that they would not progress in the long term.
The bro-split plan is a perfect training plan for disaster. You will grow a lot in the short term, but as time progresses, your gains won’t be as substantial as before, even though they will diminish, meaning you won’t get any gains from working out and only maintaining what you have built.
Why is a bro-split program good for lifters?
I have in mind a couple of things that a bro-split program is good for, but I don’t get your hope up so much.
If you are a beginner, you will be getting gains from this kind of lifting program, and I can guarantee that, but it’s the same as riding a bike with one wheel. You are literally riding a bike, but it’s not the most efficient way of going from point A to point B.
Going on a proper bro-split and not adding junk volume means that your workouts will be very short because you will be doing a couple of exercises only for one muscle group. So if you don’t have too much time on your hands, I guess a split workout plan is good for you.
Should you consider bro-splitting?
By seeing the example I provided, you can guess by now that the bro split is not as efficient as they market it. Yes, I guess it’s good for beginners, but it’s only good for them.
Beginners get the most benefit from this training plan because even if they do train a given muscle once a week, it will grow because their body is still not used to growing muscles.
If you are more advanced and have been lifting seriously for one or one and a half years, you will probably need more stimulus and won’t be satisfied with training a muscle group once per week. And being an advanced lifter, naturally, your muscles are out of the newbie gains stage and will need much more stimulus to grow.
So I guess if you are a beginner, you can try doing the bro-split, but keep in mind that it is not the most efficient and effective way of growing muscle.