Army Ranger Reveals Why Total Body Workouts Beat Bro Splits (Even for Muscle Growth, and the Science Backs It Up)

Strength coach Judd Lienhard is challenging one of fitness culture’s most sacred traditions: the body part split.

With over 15 years of experience training athletes—and a background as both an Army Ranger and college linebacker—he’s making a bold claim that flies in the face of conventional gym wisdom.

Total body workouts aren’t just for beginners or people short on time.

They might actually be superior for building strength, size, and athleticism—regardless of your goals.

The Frequency Factor Most Lifters Ignore

Recent research has revealed something critical about muscle growth and strength: frequency matters more than most people think.

Training variables break down into three categories—intensity (how close you are to maximum effort), volume (total work performed), and frequency (how often you train a muscle). According to Lienhard, studies consistently show that given equal volume and intensity, higher frequency produces better results.

Especially for things like strength, studies consistently show that given that all the other things stay the same, intensity and volume, more frequency is definitely better than more volume.

The reason? Quality over quantity.

When you spread 20 weekly sets of squats across three sessions instead of cramming them into one brutal leg day, you’re fresher for each set. That translates to better form, heavier loads, and superior training stimulus.

Why Body Part Splits Became Popular (Hint: Steroids)

Body part splits—the classic “chest day, back day, leg day” approach—only emerged in the late 1960s. Before that, even bodybuilders trained their entire body multiple times per week.

What changed? Anabolic steroid use exploded in bodybuilding.

This whole body split training is a fairly new invention. And it really came about in the late 60s when the bodybuilders started to do body split training. And it also, you know, non-coincidentally correlated with steroid use.

Athletes using anabolics can handle far more volume in single sessions and remain in an anabolic state much longer—sometimes up to a week after training a muscle group. Natural lifters, by contrast, only stay anabolic for 24 to 72 hours post-workout.

After that window closes, there’s a neutral period followed by slight detraining.

Training each muscle group more frequently allows natural athletes to capitalize on these shorter anabolic windows. Even Lienhard, who takes therapeutic testosterone, notes he still benefits more from higher frequency training than bodybuilder-style splits.

The Diminishing Returns of More Volume

Here’s something that might shock volume-obsessed lifters: four sets aren’t four times better than one set.

Research shows you capture roughly 80% of benefits from your first two working sets. Additional sets provide progressively smaller returns while accumulating significantly more fatigue.

Four sets of something isn’t four times better than one set. It might be 20% better.

Lienhard’s sweet spot? Two to three quality working sets per exercise.

This also explains why “three sets of 10″—often dismissed as beginner programming—actually holds up scientifically. Ten reps at moderate tempo creates approximately 30 seconds of time under tension, which studies identify as optimal for hypertrophy. Three sets hit that efficiency threshold before fatigue compromises quality.

Total Body Training Fits Real Life Better

Life doesn’t respect your training split.

Miss your scheduled leg day because of work or family obligations, and you might go an entire week—or longer—without training lower body. With total body workouts, schedule disruptions matter far less since you’ll hit every major muscle group in your next session regardless.

Total body splits fit into our lives so much better.

Beyond scheduling flexibility, total body training opens programming possibilities that body part splits restrict:

• Olympic lifts like cleans and snatches that don’t fit neatly into “leg day” or “back day”
• Explosive movements such as box jumps and medicine ball throws
• Landmine exercises that train multiple muscle groups simultaneously
• Complex movements that blur traditional body part categories

Lienhard points out that these exercises get neglected not because they’re ineffective, but because lifters can’t categorize them. Where does a deadlift belong—leg day, back day, or trap day? With total body training, categorization becomes irrelevant.

You Won’t Be Cripplingly Sore All Week

Traditional leg days often leave lifters hobbling for days, unable to play with their kids or perform basic activities without discomfort.

Total body training distributes volume across the week. You might perform five to six sets per body part each session instead of 15 to 20 sets in one punishing workout. The result? Adequate stimulus without debilitating soreness.

We have to get over that feeling of not feeling like we completely trashed a muscle because you don’t need to trash a muscle to get it to grow bigger and stronger.

Legendary bodybuilder Lee Haney’s philosophy applies here: “Stimulate, don’t annihilate.”

This approach proves especially valuable for athletes who need to perform in their sport, not just look good. College strength programs and professional teams predominantly use total body splits because athletes must practice and compete between training sessions.

How Humans Actually Move

Isolating body parts might feel satisfying, but it doesn’t reflect real-world movement.

Every sport in the world is a total body sport. That being said, it just makes sense that if we as human beings have to do total body activities that maybe we should consider more often than not training as such.

Daily activities—carrying groceries, playing with children, yard work—require coordinated full-body effort. Athletic movements certainly do. Training movement patterns instead of isolated muscles creates better carryover to everything outside the gym.

This doesn’t mean abandoning isolation work entirely, but rather prioritizing compound movements that train kinetic chains—the sequential activation of multiple muscle groups during functional movements.

Time Efficiency Through Smart Supersets

Total body training doesn’t mean marathon gym sessions.

Lienhard’s preferred method involves strategic supersets that pair upper and lower body exercises. While one muscle group works, the other recovers. You might perform a heavy bench press set, rest one minute, do weighted pull-ups, rest another minute, then squat.

Each muscle group gets three to four minutes between sets—adequate for strength development—but you’re continuously training instead of scrolling your phone.

So the final reason total body fitness is probably so valuable is just time efficiency. You’re able to do a lot of training in a short amount of time and you don’t have to spend hours in the gym if you want to train heavy.

This approach also provides cardiovascular benefits without dedicated cardio sessions. Heart rate elevates moderately throughout the workout while maintaining strength-building intensity.

A Practical Total Body Split

Lienhard currently trains on an eight-day microcycle with three total body sessions, each featuring different emphasis:

• Session 1: Push Focus — Full body work plus extra chest, shoulder, and tricep volume
• Session 2: Pull Focus — Full body work plus additional back and posterior shoulder training
• Session 3: Leg Focus — Full body work with emphasis on lower body movements

Each session begins with a power exercise—cleans, snatches, box jumps, or medicine ball throws. Just one to two working sets after warm-ups.

Next comes a main lower body movement (squat variation, deadlift, lunge) supersetted with upper body work. Another superset follows, then 15 to 20 minutes of bodybuilding-style accessory work focused on that day’s emphasis.

This structure provides strength development, athletic power, and the satisfying muscle pump many lifters crave—all without excessive fatigue that compromises the next workout or daily activities.

Making the Switch

The biggest obstacle isn’t physical—it’s psychological.

Lifters accustomed to body part splits expect complete muscular exhaustion and significant soreness as proof of effectiveness. Total body training rarely provides that immediate feedback, even though research confirms it works.

Lienhard acknowledges this challenge from personal experience. Despite knowing total body training offers advantages, he sometimes reverts to upper/lower splits simply because he enjoys that training style from his bodybuilding background.

The key insight? Multiple approaches work. Push/pull/legs splits, upper/lower divisions, and body part splits all produce results when programmed intelligently and executed consistently.

However, for natural lifters balancing fitness with careers, families, and activities outside the gym, total body training offers compelling advantages in frequency, flexibility, recovery, functionality, and time efficiency.

I would just encourage you if you’re one of these people that has only ever done since you were a kid or whatever body part split training, give total body workouts a chance. You can get just as big. You can actually get stronger doing that.

Perhaps it’s time to train like athletes do—and like bodybuilders once did before pharmaceutical assistance changed programming paradigms.