Full Body Workout Plan: A 3-Day Routine to Build Muscle
A full body workout plan trains your whole body in each session instead of giving each muscle its own day. Three sessions a week, on non-consecutive days, is the standard layout: it hits chest, back, quads and hamstrings three times a week with about 10 hard sets each, enough to build muscle for beginners and intermediates alike.
| Day A (Mon) | Day B (Wed) | Day C (Fri) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leads with | Squat + bench press | Pull-up + military press | Deadlift |
| Sets | 19 | 19 | 19 |
| Time | About 55–60 min | About 55 min | About 55 min |
Is a 3-day full body workout enough to build muscle?
Yes. What drives growth is how many hard sets a muscle gets each week, and this plan gives chest, back, quads and hamstrings 10 each over three sessions. Across 15 studies, each extra weekly set was linked to about 0.37% more muscle growth (Schoenfeld et al., Journal of Sports Sciences, 2017).
Spreading those sets over several days also helps. Training a muscle at least twice a week produced more growth than once a week when total volume was the same (Schoenfeld et al., Sports Medicine, 2016). A 3-day full-body plan trains most muscles three times, so no single session has to carry a muscle's whole week.
The 3-day full body workout plan
Run Day A, B and C on three days with a rest day between each, such as Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Every day trains a squat or hinge, a press and a pull, but each leads with a different heavy lift, so no lift is done heavy twice in one week. The last column shows the main muscle each exercise trains.
Start each day with 2–3 lighter warm-up sets of each of the first two lifts. Leave about 2 reps in the tank on most sets: training all the way to failure added very little extra growth across 15 studies (Refalo et al., Sports Medicine, 2023), and in a full-body plan that fatigue lands on the next session's legs and back.
Day A (Monday): squat and bench
| Exercise | Sets × reps | Rest | Main muscle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barbell squat | 4 × 6–8 | 3 min | Quads, glutes |
| Barbell bench press | 4 × 6–8 | 3 min | Chest |
| Barbell bent-over row | 3 × 8–10 | 2 min | Back |
| Barbell Romanian deadlift | 3 × 8–10 | 2 min | Hamstrings, glutes |
| Dumbbell lateral raise | 3 × 12–15 | 60 s | Shoulders |
| Rope tricep pushdown | 2 × 10–12 | 60 s | Triceps |
The two heaviest lifts of the week go first, while you're fresh. Keep the Romanian deadlift a few reps short of hard: Friday's deadlift trains the same muscles.
Day B (Wednesday): pull-up and overhead press
| Exercise | Sets × reps | Rest | Main muscle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pull-up | 4 × 6–8 | 2.5 min | Back |
| Barbell military press | 3 × 6–8 | 2.5 min | Shoulders |
| Leg press | 3 × 10–12 | 2 min | Quads |
| Dumbbell incline bench press | 3 × 8–12 | 2 min | Chest |
| Lying leg curl | 4 × 10–12 | 90 s | Hamstrings |
| Barbell curl | 2 × 10–12 | 60 s | Biceps |
Legs get a lighter day here: the leg press and leg curl load the quads and hamstrings without the lower-back strain of a barbell squat, so Friday's deadlift starts fresh. If 6 strict pull-ups aren't there yet, do 4 sets of the wide-grip lat pulldown in their place until they are.
Day C (Friday): deadlift
| Exercise | Sets × reps | Rest | Main muscle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barbell deadlift | 3 × 5 | 3 min | Hamstrings, glutes |
| Dumbbell bench press | 3 × 8–12 | 2 min | Chest |
| Cable seated row | 3 × 10–12 | 90 s | Back |
| Dumbbell Bulgarian split squat | 3 × 8–10 each leg | 90 s | Quads, glutes |
| Dumbbell lateral raise | 2 × 12–15 | 60 s | Shoulders |
| Cable rope overhead tricep extension | 2 × 10–12 | 60 s | Triceps |
| Standing calf raise (machine) | 3 × 10–12 | 60 s | Calves |
The deadlift gets only 3 sets of 5 because it is the most tiring lift in the plan. The split squat comes after the presses and rows so your lower back has recovered from the deadlift before you load your legs again.
The long rests on the first two lifts of each day are deliberate. Trained men who rested 3 minutes between sets gained more strength and more front-thigh muscle than men who rested 1 minute (Schoenfeld et al., Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2016).
How many sets per muscle does this plan give you?
Chest, back, quads and hamstrings each get 10 sets a week over 3 sessions, glutes 13 over 2, and shoulders 8 over 3. An exercise counts for every muscle in its "Main muscle" column; pull-ups and rows also work the biceps, and presses also work the triceps, but those aren't counted below.
| Muscle | Sets per week | Sessions per week | Where the sets come from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chest | 10 | 3 | Bench 4, incline dumbbell 3, dumbbell bench 3 |
| Back | 10 | 3 | Row 3, pull-up 4, cable row 3 |
| Quads | 10 | 3 | Squat 4, leg press 3, split squat 3 |
| Hamstrings | 10 | 3 | Romanian deadlift 3, leg curl 4, deadlift 3 |
| Glutes | 13 | 2 | Squat 4, Romanian deadlift 3, deadlift 3, split squat 3 |
| Shoulders | 8 | 3 | Lateral raise 3 + 2, military press 3 |
| Triceps | 4 | 2 | Pushdown 2, overhead extension 2 |
| Calves | 3 | 1 | Calf raise 3 |
| Biceps | 2 | 1 | Curl 2 |
Arms and calves are the weak spot of most full-body plans: there is only so much room after the big lifts. If they matter to you, add 2 sets of curls or calf raises to the end of Day A or B. That adds about 5 minutes.
Is full body better than a split?
Neither builds more muscle when weekly sets are equal. A 2024 meta-analysis of 14 studies (392 people) found split and full-body routines produced similar gains in strength and in muscle size, and concluded you can pick the one you prefer (Ramos-Campo et al., Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2024). A separate meta-analysis reached the same conclusion for training frequency: once volume is matched, training a muscle more often doesn't add meaningful growth (Schoenfeld et al., Journal of Sports Sciences, 2019).
So the choice comes down to your week. Full body wins when you can train 3 days or your schedule changes often: a missed session costs a third of the week for every muscle, not a whole week for one. Splits win when you have 4–6 days and want more sets per muscle without 60-minute-plus sessions. One earlier study did favor full body: in 20 trained men, a full-body routine 3 days a week grew the forearm flexors more than a split that trained each muscle once a week, with no difference in strength (Schoenfeld et al., Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2015).
| If you can train | Run |
|---|---|
| 3 days | This full-body plan |
| 4 days | Upper lower split |
| 5 days | PPLUL split, or the 5-day full-body version below |
| 6 days | Push pull legs |
The workout split guide compares weekly sets and sessions for 3- to 6-day splits.
Training at home with only dumbbells? The dumbbell-only workout plan is built for that; this plan assumes a gym with a barbell, cables and machines.
Can you do a 5-day full body workout plan?
Yes: train Monday to Friday and cut every exercise to 2 sets, so the weekly total stays near 10 sets per muscle. Running all three days as written five times a week would push chest, back, quads and hamstrings to 17 sets a week with no rest day between sessions, more than most lifters recover from.
Run the days in the order A, B, C, B, A. That keeps Day A and Day C, the two heavy leg days, from landing back to back, and works out to about 12–14 sets and 40 minutes a session. The deadlift comes up once, on Wednesday, at 2 × 5.
| Muscle | 3-day plan | 5-day plan (2 sets each, A B C B A) |
|---|---|---|
| Chest | 10 | 10 |
| Back | 10 | 10 |
| Quads | 10 | 10 |
| Hamstrings | 10 | 10 |
| Shoulders | 8 | 10 |
On 4 days, run the days as written and keep rotating them in order (A, B, C, A, then B, C, A, B the next week). That comes to 13–14 weekly sets for chest, back, quads and hamstrings, still under 15. If Day C would land the day before Day A, run Day B instead and pick the rotation up from there.
How do you progress on a full body plan?
Each main lift appears once a week, so check it once a week: when every set reaches the top of its rep range, add the smallest weight step next time. Until then, add reps. Gaining reps at the same weight grew muscle as well as adding weight did in an 8-week trial of trained lifters (Plotkin et al., PeerJ, 2022).
| Lift type | Add weight when | Step |
|---|---|---|
| Squat, deadlift | Squat: all 4 sets reach 8. Deadlift: all 3 sets of 5 with clean form | 5 kg / 10 lb |
| Bench, row, military press, pull-up | All sets reach the top of the range | 2.5 kg / 5 lb (pull-up: add a small plate on a belt) |
| Dumbbell, machine and cable lifts | All sets reach the top of the range | Next dumbbell or pin |
A concrete squat example: week 1, 100 kg for 8, 7, 7, 6. Week 2, 100 kg for 8, 8, 7, 7. Week 3, 100 kg for 8, 8, 8, 8, so week 4 starts at 105 kg and the reps drop back toward 6. When a lift stalls for 3 weeks running, switch to the slower rule from the American College of Sports Medicine: add 2–10% to the load once you can do 1–2 reps more than the target (ACSM position stand, 2009).
Every 6–8 weeks, or sooner if the weights keep feeling heavier, take a lighter week: same exercises and weights, half the sets. Strength and physique coaches in a Delphi consensus study defined a deload as a planned period of reduced training stress to shed fatigue and recover (Bell et al., Sports Medicine – Open, 2023).
Lifting is only half of growth: eat about 1.6 g of protein per kg of bodyweight a day, the point where a meta-analysis of 49 studies found the extra muscle from more protein leveled off (Morton et al., British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2018).
Is a full body workout good for beginners?
Yes, it's the most common starting point, because you practice each main lift several times a week and rest days are built in. For your first 4–6 weeks, do 2 sets of everything at a weight you could lift for 3–4 more reps, then move to the sets shown above. If you'd rather start with something simpler, browse JEFIT's beginner plans.
How long should a full body workout take?
About 55–60 minutes for this plan: 19 working sets a day, with long rests on the first two lifts. To shorten it, alternate the small exercises in pairs, such as lateral raises with pushdowns on Day A, and rest 60 seconds after each pair instead of after every set.