Written by Hamza J
Based on the training split used by four-time Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler, with some minor adaptations.
One muscle group a day, five days a week, and a lot of exercises per session. This is old-school bodybuilding volume: eleven movements on arms day, fourteen on legs day, and nothing clever about the loading. It works the way it has always worked, by giving each muscle group one long session and a full week to recover from it.
This split is for the intermediate bodybuilder who wants size and has five days a week to give it.
It suits you if:
It does not suit a beginner. Eleven exercises for arms is more direct arm volume than a beginner can use or recover from, and a beginner will get more from a full body or upper/lower program at a fraction of the time cost.
| Day | Session |
|---|---|
| Monday | Chest and Calves |
| Tuesday | Triceps and Biceps |
| Wednesday | Back |
| Thursday | Rest |
| Friday | Delts and Traps |
| Saturday | Legs and Calves |
| Sunday | Rest |
The rest day in the middle is not optional. It sits after back day and before delts day, which is exactly where the fatigue from pulling would otherwise land on pressing.
| Exercise | Sets × Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Incline Chest Press | 12 / 10 / 8 pyramid | 60 s |
| Dumbbell Bench Press | 12 / 10 / 8 pyramid | 60 s |
| Incline Chest Fly | 12 / 10 / 8 pyramid | 60 s |
| Chest Dip | 3 × 10-14 | 90 s |
| Decline Bench Press | 3 × 10-14 | 90 s |
| Standing Calf Raise | 3 × 12-16 | 60 s |
| Seated Calf Raise | 3 × 12-16 | 60 s |
| Exercise | Sets × Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Triceps Pushdown (rope) | 15 / 12 / 10 pyramid | 60 s |
| Triceps Pushdown (bar) | 15 / 12 / 10 pyramid | 60 s |
| Close Grip Bench Press | 12 / 10 / 8 pyramid | 120 s |
| Triceps Dip | 12 / 10 / 8 pyramid | 60 s |
| Skullcrusher | 12 / 10 / 8 pyramid | 60 s |
| Triceps Pushdown (reverse grip) | 12 / 10 / 8 pyramid | 60 s |
| Bicep Curl | 15 / 12 / 10 pyramid | 60 s |
| Incline Curl | 15 / 12 / 10 pyramid | 60 s |
| Preacher Curl | 15 / 12 / 10 pyramid | 60 s |
| Hammer Curl | 12 / 10 / 8 pyramid | 60 s |
| Lying Bicep Curl | 12 / 10 / 8 pyramid | 60 s |
Six triceps movements and five biceps movements. That is the session and it is meant to be that way: arms get a whole day, so they get a whole day's worth of exercises.
| Exercise | Sets × Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Lat Pulldown (underhand) | 3 × 8-12 | 90 s |
| Lat Pulldown | 3 × 10-14 | 90 s |
| Deadlift | 3 × 6-10 | 120 s |
| T Bar Row | 3 × 8-12 | 90 s |
| One Arm Row | 3 × 10-14 | 60 s |
| Bent Over Row | 3 × 10-14 | 90 s |
| Seated Row | 3 × 10-14 | 60 s |
| Exercise | Sets × Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Lateral Raise | 3 × 10-14 | 60 s |
| Dumbbell Overhead Press | 3 × 8-12 | 90 s |
| Machine Shoulder Press | 3 × 10-14 | 60 s |
| Reverse Fly | 3 × 10-14 | 60 s |
| Shrug | 3 × 10-14 | 60 s |
| Upright Row | 3 × 10-14 | 60 s |
The lateral raise goes first on purpose. Side delts are the point of this session and putting them after two pressing movements means training them tired.
| Exercise | Sets × Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Leg Extension (warm-up) | 2 × 12-16 | 60 s |
| Squat | 3 × 8-12 | 120 s |
| Leg Press | 3 × 10-14 | 90 s |
| Dumbbell Lunge | 3 × 10-14 | 60 s |
| Hack Squat | 3 × 10-14 | 90 s |
| Leg Extension | 3 × 12-16 | 60 s |
| Seated Leg Curl | 3 × 10-14 | 60 s |
| Lying Leg Curl | 3 × 10-14 | 60 s |
| Romanian Deadlift | 3 × 8-12 | 90 s |
| Single Leg Deadlift | 3 × 10-14 | 60 s |
| Hip Abductor | 3 × 10-14 | 60 s |
| Hip Adductor | 3 × 10-14 | 60 s |
| Standing Calf Raise | 3 × 12-16 | 60 s |
| Seated Calf Raise | 3 × 12-16 | 60 s |
The opening leg extension is a warm-up for your knees, not a working exercise. Keep it light and keep it away from failure.
This program runs two different progressions and mixing them up is the main way people run it badly.
Marked as 12 / 10 / 8 or 15 / 12 / 10 above. The reps fall set to set and the weight climbs.
There is no formula here and there is not meant to be one:
When do you increase? When you decide a set stopped being hard. That is the whole rule. Keep a note of what you used on each set and beat one of them when you can.
Example, dumbbell bench press:
Set 1: 12 reps @ 27.5 kg / 60 lbs
Set 2: 10 reps @ 30 kg / 65 lbs
Set 3: 8 reps @ 32.5 kg / 70 lbs
Next time, if set 3 moved easily, take 35 kg / 75 lbs on it and leave the others alone.
Ordinary double progression:
The increments:
| Exercise | Increment |
|---|---|
| Squat, Deadlift, Romanian Deadlift, Leg Press, Hack Squat | 5 kg / 10 lbs |
| Everything else | 2.5 kg / 5 lbs |
A miss holds: repeat the same prescription rather than dropping back.
Everything below assumes your form is already solid. Finding your working weight, adding weight, chasing reps, all of it only works if you can perform the lift correctly. While your form is not locked in, that is your only job. Make good form the goal of every set, not the weight on the bar. Drilling the movement with an empty bar beats loading plates onto a lift you cannot control yet.
To learn, don't hesitate to search Google and YouTube (there is a lot of good free material) and record yourself from the side to compare against a proper demonstration. In general, good form means a full controlled range of motion, a braced neutral spine, no bouncing or momentum, a consistent setup every rep, and ending the set when technique breaks down rather than grinding sloppy reps.
Pick a weight you could take for three or four more reps than the bottom of the range on every set. Within a month you will be at the top of the range and adding weight, and starting light costs you one week while starting heavy costs you the progression.
Enter the weight you would use for the first set, the highest-rep one. The app writes all three sets at that weight on your very first session, because there is nothing yet to copy. Load the second and third sets up yourself as the reps drop, and from then on the app remembers what you used on each.
Example:
Incline chest press, first session:
The app writes 40 kg / 90 lbs for 12, 10 and 8
You do 12 @ 40, then load to 45 for 10, then 50 for 8
Next week the app writes 40 / 45 / 50 back to you
| Session | Warm-up |
|---|---|
| Chest, delts | 1 to 2 light sets on the first exercise |
| Arms | 1 light set on the first pushdown, nothing else |
| Back | 2 sets on the pulldown, then a full ramp before the deadlift |
| Legs | The 2 × 12-15 leg extension, then a full ramp before the squat |
The first pyramid set is itself a partial warm-up: it is the lightest and highest-rep set of the three, so you do not need a long ramp before it.
The deadlift and the squat are the two exercises here that need a proper ramp. Everything else is at a rep count that warms itself up.
The rest times in the tables are short, mostly 60 seconds, and that is deliberate: this is a bodybuilding split and the short rest is part of the stimulus.
| Situation | Rest |
|---|---|
| Squat, Deadlift, Close Grip Bench | 120 seconds |
| Compound pressing, rowing, hack squat, leg press | 90 seconds |
| Everything else | 60 seconds |
If 60 seconds is not enough for a 12-rep set, the weight is too heavy for the range.
On a pyramid exercise, there is nothing to stall on: you own the weights, so hold them until a set feels easy and then move it. If nothing has felt easy for a month, that is a recovery problem rather than a loading one.
On a rep range exercise, stalling means failing to add a rep for three sessions running.
If several exercises stall at once, that is the whole program telling you to take a light week. Do it before it becomes an injury rather than after.
The split runs as long as it keeps working, which for most people is several months at a time. There is no fixed block and no built-in deload.
Take a light week every eight to twelve weeks, or whenever three or four exercises stall together: same sessions, two thirds of the weight, no set taken near failure. Then pick up where you left off.
Forty five exercises across five days is exactly the kind of thing a notebook loses. Virtus Athlete writes back the weight you used on every pyramid set, runs the double progression on every rep-range exercise, and keeps a chart per movement so you can see which of your six triceps exercises is actually still moving.
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