Your 5-Day Gym Workout Schedule For Muscle Gain

To maximize muscle growth, your training schedule is crucial. 

A well-designed plan ensures that you stimulate each muscle group sufficiently to grow without overexertion, allowing for crucial recovery time. A 5-day gym workout schedule can be an effective way to structure your week for serious muscle gain.

This guide breaks down:

• How to structure a 5-day routine
• The science behind muscle growth
• A complete workout plan you can start today. 
• We will cover various training splits, recommended training volumes, and address common questions to help you develop your ideal program.

What Is The Best Gym Schedule For Muscle Gain?

The best gym schedule for muscle gain is one that allows you to optimize 3 variables for muscle hypertrophy.

• Total work volume is the amount of work (tension) placed on the muscle.
• Training frequency refers to the number of times you train weekly.
• Recovery is the time or days spent not training, in which your muscles heal and recover.

For most trained lifters, this means hitting each major muscle group 2-3 times per week, depending on your situation (1). You can structure a 5-day workout schedule in several ways to achieve full-body muscle engagement over the course of 5 days.

The most common way to organize a training week is through a “workout split,” which divides your training sessions by muscle group or movement pattern (2).

The Push/Pull/Legs (PPL) Split

A Push/Pull/Legs split is one of the most popular and effective ways to organize your training. You dedicate separate days to upper body pushing muscles, upper body pulling muscles, and your lower body.

• Push Day: Chest, shoulders, and triceps.
• Pull Day: Back and biceps.
• Legs Day: Quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calves.

With a 5-day schedule, you could run this cycle and then repeat the first 2 days: 

• Push
• Pull
• Legs
• Rest
• Push
• Pull
• Rest. 

This structure follows a plan, such as the 5-day workout split each muscle twice a week routine.

The Upper/Lower Split

An upper/lower split divides your workouts into upper-body days and lower-body days. 

This workout is an excellent option for ensuring high frequency for all muscle groups.

• Upper Body Day: Chest, back, shoulders, biceps, and triceps.
• Lower Body Day: Quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves.

A 5-day schedule could look like: 

• Upper
• Lower
• Rest
• Upper
• Lower

This split hits every muscle group twice a week with ample recovery time in between.

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The Body Part Split

A traditional body part split, often called a “bro split,” focuses on one or two muscle groups per session.

• Day 1: Chest
• Day 2: Back
• Day 3: Legs
• Day 4: Shoulders
• Day 5: Arms (Biceps & Triceps)

While this split allows for a high volume of work for each muscle group in a single session, the major drawback is that each muscle is only trained once per week. 

For most people, training muscles more frequently leads to better gains.

For a deeper dive into organizing your training, read more about designing a 5-day workout split.

Read more: 6 Compound Exercises for Women to Build Strength and Transform Their Bodies

Is A 5-Day Workout Good For Muscle Gain?

Yes, a 5-day workout schedule is excellent for muscle gain, provided it’s programmed correctly. The key to hypertrophy is achieving sufficient training volume, which is the total amount of work you do (sets x reps x weight) (3).

Research shows that for hypertrophy, you should aim for at least 10 sets per muscle group per week (4). A 5-day split makes it easy to accumulate this volume without spending hours in the gym each day. 

You can spread the muscle work across the week, allowing for high-quality sets even when you’re deep into a workout.

Training 5 days a week allows you to:

• Increase Training Frequency: Hitting muscles twice a week, as seen in PPL and Upper/Lower splits, is often superior for muscle growth compared to once-a-week training.
• Manage Volume Effectively: Spreading your total weekly sets over more days can lead to higher-quality, more intense sets in each session.
• Focus on Recovery: By splitting muscle groups, you give them at least 48 hours to recover before training them again, which is essential for growth and injury prevention (5).

Most plans are suitable for all genders, but for more specific programming, see our 5-day workout routine women-specialized.

What’s The Best 5-Day Gym Workout Schedule For Muscle Gain?

Many want to know, “What is a powerful 5-day gym workout schedule for muscle gain?”

However, the “best” and “most powerful” schedule is relative and depends on your experience, recovery capacity, and preferences.

However, a program that hits each muscle group twice a week with a mix of compound and isolation exercises is a fantastic starting point. This exercise focuses on ensuring you’re building a strong foundation while also targeting specific muscles for growth (6).

A “5-day workout schedule for woman” would be similar to a man’s workout; however, women’s workouts can include more glute focus exercises.

If you have access to a full gym, this 5-day workout split is for you. 

We designed it for intermediate lifters aiming to build lean muscle mass by using a variety of equipment.

To effectively target every major muscle group, this plan incorporates:

• Barbells
• Dumbbells
• Machines
• Cables 

This targeting factor ensures you can optimize muscle stimulation and avoid hitting a plateau.

The program provides a 5-day training week. You can choose the days that best fit your schedule, but be sure to incorporate 2 rest or active recovery days.

Day 1: Chest, Shoulders, & Triceps

This workout focuses on building strength and size in your upper body pushing muscles. 

We’ll use a combination of free weights and machines to hit these groups from multiple angles.