The first time I went to the gym, I didn’t follow a workout split—I just trained my whole body in every session. It worked for me at that stage because, even though the progress was small, it was still progress. I got stronger, and that was enough for me at the time.

After a few months, I decided to try a workout split, as I wanted to see more progress and focus on each muscle group more, as I felt some groups got neglected. So without having any idea what program to do, I started researching and found there are different workout splits, which I had never heard of. There were a lot of options, but I chose the most common and widely used one:

PPL (Push, Pull, Legs)

• Push Day – Targets the chest, shoulders, and triceps with pressing movements.
• Pull Day – Focuses on back and biceps through pulling exercises.
• Leg Day – Works the quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calves.

For the past 7 months, I’ve been training PPL three times a week, and as a result, my strength has doubled or even tripled in some areas. However, now I want to focus more on muscle gain. The progress I’ve made so far is thanks to consistency and newbie gains—the fast strength and muscle growth that come when you’re just starting out. Since my muscles weren’t used to lifting, they responded quickly, making my progress faster compared to someone who’s been training for years.

But PPL 3x per week has some limitations when it comes to building muscle:

• Each muscle group is only trained once per week, which isn’t ideal for growth unless I push close to failure every time.
•  If I don’t train with enough intensity, the results won’t be as good.
•  Going close to failure on every exercise is exhausting because I train so many different muscle groups in a single session.

One option would be to increase to PPL 6x per week, which would allow me to hit each muscle group twice per week. But I don’t think that would be the best choice for me—I’d likely struggle with recovery and fatigue.

Since I wanted a 4-day split that allows me to gradually increase both muscle and strength while also balancing recovery with a rest day between sessions, I started looking into my options.

Here are some of the most promising splits I found:

• Outlift Split (PPL + Whole Body)
• Upper/Lower Split
• PHUL (Power Hypertrophy Upper Lower)
• Arnold Split (Modified for 4 Days a Week)
• Bro Split (Modified for 4 Days a Week)

Each of these has its own pros and cons, but as someone who wants to train all muscle groups fairly and make steady progress, I kept narrowing it down.

 After reading from multiple sources, I’ve decided that PHUL is the best next step. Since my goal is to build both strength and muscle, PHUL is a great fit—it combines:

• Heavy strength training (power) for strength progression.
• Muscle-building (hypertrophy) for size and definition.
• Training each muscle group twice per week (a big upgrade from my current PPL setup).
• A structured 4-day plan with enough recovery time.

In the end, there’s no single “perfect” split, but I’ll see how it goes, and if needed, I can adjust along the way.