Programme · Intermediate · 5 days a week
Bro Split
Bro Split is a common intermediate muscle-building programme. One muscle per day — classic bodybuilding structure. VALDA has it in its programme library: start it and VALDA sets up the sessions and starting weights, then logs every session against it.
Free to start, 1 programme at a time. Already have the app? Open in VALDA takes you straight to it. In the app it's listed as “5-Day Body-Part Split”.
Is Bro Split for you?
Intermediate lifters who prefer the focus of one-muscle-per-day training. Works well for people whose gym access makes 5-day weeks realistic and who respond to high-volume localised work.
At a glance
- Level
- Intermediate
- Goal
- Muscle size
- Time
- 5 days a week, ~60–75 min a session
- Length
- 4 weeks
The classic bodybuilding split — one muscle group per day, each getting a dedicated 60-75 minute session of focused work. Chest / Back / Shoulders / Legs / Arms rotated across five weekdays.
5 sessions
| Session | Exercises |
|---|---|
| Chest |
|
| Back |
|
| Shoulders |
|
| Legs |
|
| Arms |
|
Five sessions per week, one muscle group per day. Each session: 13-18 working sets spread across 4-6 exercises, mostly 8-12 reps, with 12-15 on calves and lateral raises and a 5/5/3 deadlift opening the Back day.
How the weights move
Every slot here prescribes a fixed rep count, and moving up is your call: when a weight starts feeling easy across all your work sets, take it up next time. This split carries no progression engine — nothing advances on its own and VALDA never changes a weight for you. It does still watch: hold the same weight on a lift for two sessions and it offers a step up, exactly the nudge it offers on any lift you log, in a programme or out of one. The offer is a prompt to think, not an instruction, and ignoring it costs nothing.
Bro Split, with the maths done
- Sessions set up from the programme, ready to log
- Starting weights worked out from the programme's own rules and your estimated maxes, with a default where VALDA has no history yet. You can change any of them
- Log sets from your phone, Apple Watch or Wear OS watch
Bro Split questions
Who is Bro Split for?
Intermediate lifters who prefer the focus of one-muscle-per-day training. Works well for people whose gym access makes 5-day weeks realistic and who respond to high-volume localised work.
How many days a week is Bro Split?
As VALDA runs it: 5 days a week, ~60–75 min a session.
How does progression work on Bro Split?
Every slot here prescribes a fixed rep count, and moving up is your call: when a weight starts feeling easy across all your work sets, take it up next time. This split carries no progression engine — nothing advances on its own and VALDA never changes a weight for you. It does still watch: hold the same weight on a lift for two sessions and it offers a step up, exactly the nudge it offers on any lift you log, in a programme or out of one. The offer is a prompt to think, not an instruction, and ignoring it costs nothing.
Can I run Bro Split in VALDA?
Yes. It's in VALDA's programme library: start it and VALDA sets up the sessions and starting weights, then logs every session against it. You can start it on the free plan, 1 programme at a time. Automatic progression: Free: 6 sessions · Pro: unlimited.
Where Bro Split comes from
The 5-day body-part split emerged from 1970s-80s bodybuilding practice and has been continuously refined in magazine and Internet training content since. No single author — it's a community standard.
This page describes a common training programme for information. It isn't a personal prescription.