Torso Limbs Split: A 4-Day Program With More Room for Arms

A torso/limbs split is a 4-day workout split where torso days train chest, back and shoulders (plus abs on Monday), and limbs days train legs, biceps and triceps. Arms move off the upper-body day and onto leg day, so curls and triceps work start without rows and presses already in the arms that session. It suits intermediate lifters who want an upper lower style plan with more direct arm work.

Follow it as written: Torso/Limbs Split: 4-Day Plan is ready to save in JEFIT with every exercise below.

What is a torso limbs split?

A torso limbs split divides the body by what sits on the trunk versus what hangs off it. Torso days cover chest, back and shoulders, with abs added on Monday. Limbs days cover quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves, biceps and triceps.

It is a rearranged upper lower split: same four sessions a week, every major muscle trained twice, with one change. Biceps and triceps leave the upper-body day and join the legs.

The torso/limbs workout plan

Monday and Tuesday are heavy days built around 5–8 reps on the main barbell lifts. Thursday and Friday move to 10–20 reps on dumbbells, cables and machines, after one heavy deadlift on Friday. Warm up with two or three lighter sets of the first exercise each day.

The rep ranges below are targets; the JEFIT plan pre-fills the first number of each range. The rest column matters as much as the reps. When trained men cut their rests from 3 minutes to 1 for 8 weeks, they finished with less muscle and less strength (Schoenfeld et al., Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2016), so time the 2–3-minute rests on the big lifts rather than guessing.

Monday: Torso A (strength)

Why this order: Heavy pressing and rowing come first, while you're fresh; the lateral raise covers side delts, which the presses barely reach. Cue: Brace and pull the bar to your lower ribs on the row; if your torso rises with each rep, the weight is too heavy.

Tuesday: Limbs A (strength)

Why this order: The squat leads because it needs the most energy. Curls and pushdowns come after the leg work, but your biceps and triceps haven't done any rows or presses yet today. Cue: On the barbell curl, keep your elbows pinned to your sides; swinging moves the work to your back.

Thursday: Torso B (muscle)

Why this order: Dumbbells and cables in the 10–15 range add volume with less joint stress than Monday's barbells. Cue: On the face pull, pull the rope toward your forehead and finish with your hands beside your ears.

Friday: Limbs B (muscle)

Why this order: One heavy pull, then higher-rep machine work for legs, so Friday's deadlift doesn't need a heavy squat the same day. Cue: On the dip, lean slightly forward and stop when your upper arms are parallel to the floor.

Sessions run about 45–60 minutes including warm-ups. Monday is the longest, at about an hour, with 20 sets and the longest rests. Thursday is the shortest: 18 sets with no rest over 2 minutes.

Why train arms on leg day?

Arms go on leg day so that biceps and triceps start their direct work without having done rows and presses earlier in the same session. On a standard upper day, curls and pushdowns come last, after every row has already worked the biceps and every press the triceps.

The evidence has a limit. In untrained men, adding curls and triceps extensions to bench press and lat pulldowns added no extra biceps growth over 10 weeks (Gentil et al., Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 2013). Beginners grow their arms from compound lifts; the case for direct arm work is strongest once those stop being enough.

The trade-off is leg day. Squats, deadlifts and leg presses leave you tired, and arm work comes after them. Keep the arm exercises where they are, but if arms are your top priority, move the curl and the dip or pushdown to the start of the session. Exercises done early in a workout get more total reps, and a review of exercise-order research recommends ordering by priority rather than by muscle size (Simão et al., Sports Medicine, 2012).

How many sets per muscle does this plan give?

Chest, back, shoulders and quads each get 10–13 direct sets a week over two sessions; hamstrings get 9; biceps and triceps get 6 direct sets each, plus the work from 13 sets of rows or presses.

More weekly sets meant more growth in a dose-response meta-analysis, about 0.37% extra gain for each added set, with groups doing 10 or more sets a week tending to grow the most (Schoenfeld et al., Journal of Sports Sciences, 2017). Chest, back, shoulders and quads reach 10 on direct sets alone.

Arms reach it once indirect work is counted. A 2025 meta-regression found that counting each indirect set (a row for biceps, a press for triceps) as half a set predicted growth best (Pelland et al., Sports Medicine, 2025). On that count, biceps and triceps each get about 12.5 sets a week (6 direct plus half of 13). Three areas stay under 10. To bring them up: add 1 set to the leg curl (hamstrings 9 → 10), add 2 sets to each calf raise (calves 6 → 10), and finish Thursday with 3 sets of hanging leg raises so abs are trained twice a week (3 → 6 sets).

Is torso/limbs better than upper lower?

Torso/limbs is better than upper lower only if arms are a priority; for everything else the two are close, since both train every major muscle twice in four days.

Both counts come from each guide's own plan. On frequency the two are tied: pooled studies favor hitting a muscle twice a week over once (Schoenfeld et al., Sports Medicine, 2016), and with weekly sets held equal, spreading them differently changed little (Schoenfeld et al., Journal of Sports Sciences, 2019). So the real question is where you want the sets to go. The workout split guide lines up the other options by days per week.

How do you progress on a torso limbs split?

Add reps until every set reaches the top of its range, then add weight and start again at the bottom: 2.5 kg / 5 lb on upper-body barbell lifts, 5 kg / 10 lb on squats and deadlifts, and the next dumbbell or pin on everything else.

A week where only the reps go up is still progress: trained lifters who progressed by reps grew about as much over 8 weeks as those who progressed by load (Plotkin et al., PeerJ, 2022). Here is how 8 weeks of the Monday bench press can look for a lifter starting at 80 kg:

Stop most sets one or two reps short of failure. Going all the way to failure on every set made almost no difference to growth in a 2023 meta-analysis (Refalo et al., Sports Medicine, 2023). Those jumps are deliberately small: on an 80 kg bench, 2.5 kg is about 3%, at the low end of the 2–10% range the American College of Sports Medicine recommends once you beat the target by 1–2 reps (ACSM position stand, 2009).

Every 4–8 weeks, or sooner if joints ache and lifts stall, spend a week on half the sets at the same weights. In a Delphi survey, strength and physique coaches agreed on a definition of a deload as "a period of reduced training stress", and cutting sets is one of the accepted ways to do it (Bell et al., Sports Medicine – Open, 2023).

Who should use a torso limbs split?

A torso limbs split is for lifters with at least 6 months of steady training who can commit to 4 sessions a week and want more arm work than an upper lower plan gives.

• Good fit: your arms lag behind your chest and back, or your upper days run long and the arm work at the end gets rushed.
• Pick something else: you're in your first months of lifting (start with one of JEFIT's beginner plans), or you have 5 or 6 days and want more volume (see the PPLUL split or the push pull legs split).

Keep a rest day between the two limbs days if you can. Tuesday's squat and Friday's deadlift both load the lower back, and the Wednesday rest plus Thursday's torso day keep them three days apart.

Bottom line

• If your arms lag behind your chest and back, run this plan as written.
• If arms are your top priority, start each limbs day with the curl and the dip or pushdown.
• If you want direct glute work, the upper lower split fits better.

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