It All Depends on Strength

How many days should you train per week? Should you train the whole body every workout or split things up?

The answer to these questions comes down to how strong you are. If you haven't yet reached "3-4-5 status" – a 300 pound bench, 400 squat, and 500 deadlift – you'll be better served with whole body workouts. That means using exercises for both upper and lower body every workout.

Train 3-4 times per week, using between 2-3 exercises for upper body, and 2-3 exercises for lower body each session. Here's an example of what that might look like:

If, on the other hand, you have reached 3-4-5 status, it's time to step up to an upper/lower split, meaning 4 sessions per week, where you train upper body twice and lower body twice each week. Example:

Finally, if you're really strong, meaning you weigh well over 250 pounds, squat over 700, bench over 400, etc., you might be better off using the "bro-split." There are actually a few different versions of this, but typically they all have you training each muscle group roughly once per week. Here's an example:

This works great if you're so big and strong that a back workout literally takes you 5-7 days to recover from because you're doing stuff like bent-over rows with 405 for sets of 8. But the weaker you are, the faster you recover (yes, even if you're working your nuts off), and therefore, the more frequently each muscle needs to be re-stimulated with a new training bout.