Four days is the sweet spot for a lot of people. It is enough to train each muscle group twice a week without the week collapsing the first time something comes up.
The basic shape
The most robust four-day layout is upper and lower, twice each:
- Monday upper body
- Tuesday lower body
- Thursday upper body
- Friday lower body
Two days between repeats of the same pattern, a rest day mid-week, and the weekend free. If Friday disappears, you have still trained each area at least once.
How much per session
For most people a session lands somewhere around four to six exercises. Start with the heaviest compound movement while you are fresh, then work outwards to smaller muscles.
A workable upper day: one horizontal press, one pull, one secondary press, one secondary pull, then arms or shoulders if you have energy left.
A workable lower day: one squat pattern, one hinge pattern, one single-leg or machine movement, then calves or core.
Progression without overcomplicating it
You do not need a new method every block. Pick one exercise per pattern to progress deliberately and leave the rest roughly stable.
The simplest approach that keeps working: when you hit the top of your rep range on all sets with a couple of reps still in reserve, add load next session. If you miss the bottom of the range twice in a row, the load is too high for where you are right now.
Where the week usually breaks
Not in the training. In putting the hardest session on the day you are most likely to miss, or in adding a fifth day when weeks four and five are already getting heavy.
Build the week you can repeat when you are tired, not the week you can do when motivated.
Building it in Frog Fitness
The program builder lets you lay out days, exercises, sets, reps, planned weights and RPE targets, and the app shows the same plan when you are standing at the rack. Your previous performance on each exercise is there while you pick the load, which is where a plan usually goes wrong: not in the writing, but in the moment you have to choose a number.