Upper Lower Body Split

I've already talked about how much I like the 3 day split for training.

Beginners who are looking to gain muscle as quickly as possible would probably benefit most from full body routines, like the workouts prescribed in Muscle Gaining Secrets.  The reason is pretty simple: beginners are training with less intensity and can recover more quickly.  It makes sense for them to train enough to stimulate muscle growth, then train again as quickly as they have recovered.

But more advanced trainees would do best to try a slightly different approach: the upper/lower body split.  As the name implies, you are training upper body movements on one session (presses, etc) and lower body the next (squat, deadlift, etc).

How do you work this out with a three day split?  Well, the answer is pretty simple: the whole cycle is four workouts takes more than one week to complete.  It would look like this:

Monday: Upper Body
Wednesday: Lower Body
Friday: Upper Body

the next week:

Monday: Lower Body (first "cycle" completed)
Wednesday: Upper Body
Friday: Lower Body

You end up training each "part" about once every five days.  I believe this is just the right amount of recovery time for advanced trainees, who are going to be training with more intensity than their beginner counterparts.  I'm currently doing a routine like this from Minimalist Training.