Want to build as much muscle as possible? <\/p>\n
Of course you do! <\/p>\n
And who better to ask than Ronnie Coleman<\/a>? The eight-time Mr Olympia champion recently appeared in an Instagram video<\/a> with fitness educator Jeremy Ethier, who put exactly that question to him: if he were trying to build as much muscle as possible, what would his go-to workout split be?<\/p>\n Coleman’s answer was the same routine that helped him build one of bodybuilding’s most famous physiques: six days of training, followed by one day off.<\/p>\n ‘Always six days on, one day off,’ Coleman says.<\/p>\n ‘Always rest day on Sunday.’ Here’s how his old-school split was structured.<\/p>\n Ronnie Coleman’s Workout Split<\/p>\n Monday: Back + Biceps That means Coleman’s back and biceps<\/a>, and chest and triceps<\/a>, each get trained twice per week, while legs<\/a> and shoulders<\/a> get their own dedicated day.<\/p>\n Then the whole thing starts again on Monday.<\/p>\n ‘That’s how you win eight Olympias,’ Coleman adds.<\/p>\n Why Did Coleman Train 6 Days a Week?<\/p>\n The appeal of Coleman’s split is obvious: you’re giving each major muscle group plenty of attention while allowing a little more time between sessions for the same body part.<\/p>\n But there’s an important distinction between the split and the amount of work Coleman actually did within each session.<\/p>\n Coleman was a professional bodybuilder training specifically to maximise muscle growth. His legendary workouts involved huge amounts of volume and, famously, very heavy weights.<\/p>\n You don’t need to copy the workload of an eight-time Mr Olympia to benefit from training each muscle group more than once a week.<\/p>\n For a recreational lifter, the useful takeaway is the basic structure: training frequency can be spread across the week rather than trying to cram all your work for a muscle into one enormous session.<\/p>\n Could You Use Coleman’s Split?<\/p>\n You could, but you’d probably want to make it your own.<\/p>\n The six-day schedule is a serious commitment. You’re training six consecutive days, with just Sunday off, which won’t fit neatly around everyone’s work, family and recovery demands.<\/p>\n You’d also need to consider how much total volume you’re doing. Two chest sessions per week can be perfectly manageable; two enormous Ronnie Coleman-style chest sessions are another matter entirely.<\/p>\n If you want to experiment with the structure, keep the split but adjust the workload to suit your experience and recovery:<\/p>\n Monday: Back + biceps Then focus on making those sessions productive rather than trying to recreate Coleman’s legendary volume.<\/p>\n The most useful part of Ronnie’s advice isn’t necessarily that you need to train six days a week. It’s that he had a clear structure, stuck to it and trained consistently for years.<\/p>\n ‘Yeah Buddy!’ <\/p>\n
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Tuesday: Chest + Triceps
Wednesday: Legs
Thursday: Shoulders
Friday: Back + Biceps
Saturday: Chest + Triceps
Sunday: Rest<\/p>\n
Tuesday: Chest + triceps
Wednesday: Legs
Thursday: Shoulders
Friday: Back + biceps
Saturday: Chest + triceps
Sunday: Rest<\/p>\n