Full body workout routine: the complete 3 day plan

What is a full body workout routine?

A full body workout routine trains the legs, chest, back, shoulders and arms in every session instead of giving each body part its own day. Each workout has one main exercise per movement: a squat or leg press, a hip hinge, a press and a pull, then a few smaller exercises for the shoulders, arms, calves or abs.

Because every session covers everything, you only need two or three sessions a week to train each muscle two or three times. That makes it the simplest way to reach the frequency most evidence-based coaches recommend, and it is why almost every well-known beginner program is full body.

The 3 day full body workout routine

Many full body routines repeat the same workout three times a week. This one uses three different days so the joints get variety and each big lift is trained hard once a week, not three times. Day A is built around the squat and bench press. Day B moves to the Romanian deadlift and overhead press. Day C is the volume day: leg press, an incline dumbbell press and a cable row for 8 to 12 reps, plus the arm and shoulder work the first two days leave short.

The order inside each day matters. The heaviest lift comes first while you are fresh, then the second compound, then the pull, then the smaller exercises. If a session runs long, cut the last exercise, never the first three. Pull-ups on Day B can replace the lat pulldown once you can do six clean reps, and the chest-supported row on Day A spares your lower back the day after squats.

Weekly sets per muscle

The big muscles land between 5 and 9 direct sets a week, more once you count the overlap. That is deliberately moderate. Beginners grow on very little, and lean sessions leave energy for learning the lifts and adding weight. When progress slows after a few months, the progression section shows where to add sets first.

Full body workout schedule: 2, 3 and 4 days

Three days a week is the classic layout, and the one to choose if you can. The same three workouts also fit a two or four day week. Pick the row that matches the days you can train without fail.

2 day full body workout

With two days, keep cycling A, B, C in order across the weeks: A and B in week one, C and A in week two, and so on. Each muscle still gets two sessions a week. Add one set to the first two exercises of each day so the weekly total does not drop too far. Two days is enough to make real progress, especially in your first year.

4 day full body workout

With four days, train two days on, one off, two on, and keep rotating. Each muscle gets four sessions a week and the weekly sets rise by about a third. Two full body days in a row are hard on the legs, so keep the heaviest squat (Day A) away from the day after Day B's Romanian deadlifts when you can. If four full body sessions feel like too much, a four day upper lower split gives the same frequency with less leg work per session.

Full body workout with dumbbells (at home)

If you train at home with a pair of adjustable dumbbells and a bench, run the two workouts below in turn, three days a week: A, B, A one week and B, A, B the next. Rep ranges are higher than in the gym plan because dumbbells top out sooner. When you can do the top of the range easily with your heaviest pair, slow the lowering phase to three seconds or move to a harder single-leg version.

Full body workout routine for beginners

If you have never lifted before, run the same 3 day plan with a gentler start. The goal of the first month is to learn the movements and build the habit, not to find your limits. Most beginners can then add weight to the main lifts almost every week for several months.

Swap anything you cannot yet do safely: the goblet squat for the barbell squat, the leg press for the Bulgarian split squat, the dumbbell bench press for the barbell version. Keep the sets and reps. Use the warm-up calculator before the first lift of each day, and log every set so you know what to beat next time.

Women can run the plan exactly as written; the exercises and rep ranges are the same. If glutes are the priority, add one set to the hip thrust on Day C and the Bulgarian split squat on Day B, and add two sets of hip thrusts at the end of Day A.

How to progress on a full body routine

Use double progression. Pick a weight you can lift for the bottom of the rep range with one to three reps left in the tank, which is RPE 7 to 9 on the effort scale. Keep that weight until you hit the top of the range on every set, then add the smallest jump and build the reps back up.

Rest is part of the program. In trained men running three total-body workouts a week, resting 3 minutes between sets instead of 1 minute led to bigger gains in squat and bench press strength and more growth in the front of the thigh over 8 weeks (Schoenfeld et al., 2016). That is why the first lift of each day gets 2 to 3 minutes. To save time, cut an isolation exercise, not the rests. The plate calculator loads the bar, and the one rep max calculator estimates your max from any recent set.

After two or three months, when two or more lifts stall for two weeks in a row, add sets before changing the program. Go to 4 sets on the first exercise of each day, then add a third set to the arm and shoulder exercises. Every six to eight weeks, take a lighter week with half the sets, then continue from your last good numbers. When sessions pass 75 minutes, it is time to move to an upper lower split.

Is a full body routine better than a split?

Not better, but every bit as good. A 2024 meta-analysis of 14 studies and 392 people compared split routines with full body routines and found no significant difference in bench press strength, leg strength, arm growth, thigh growth or lean body mass when total volume was the same. The authors concluded that people can choose based on preference (Ramos-Campo et al., 2024).

Some single studies lean toward full body. In 20 well-trained men, training every muscle three days a week grew the elbow flexors more than a split that trained each muscle once a week, with no difference in bench press or squat strength (Schoenfeld et al., 2015). A meta-analysis of 25 studies puts that in context: with weekly sets matched, frequency made no meaningful difference to growth; without matching, higher frequencies came out modestly ahead (Schoenfeld et al., 2019). The practical edge of full body is that frequency makes it easy to get enough sets in short sessions.

Sets are what really move the needle. A meta-analysis of 15 studies found a graded dose-response: each extra weekly set per muscle was linked to a little more growth, about 0.37% on average (Schoenfeld et al., 2017). So the useful question is not full body or split, but which routine lets you do enough sets, recover from them and keep showing up.

Pros and cons

• Pro: high frequency on few days. Three sessions train every muscle three times.
• Pro: forgiving. Miss a day and nothing goes untrained; the next session covers it.
• Pro: lots of practice on the big lifts, which is how beginners learn them.
• Con: limited room per muscle. One or two exercises each, so lagging muscles need extra sets.
• Con: tiring sessions. Squatting and pressing hard in the same hour takes focus; keep the order and the rests.

How to build your own full body workout

If you want to write your own instead, fill the same slots every session and pick a different exercise for each slot on different days:

1. Squat or knee-dominant leg exercise: squat, leg press, goblet squat, split squat. 3 sets.
2. Hip hinge: Romanian deadlift, hip thrust, leg curl. 2 to 3 sets.
3. Horizontal or incline press: bench press, incline dumbbell press, push-up. 3 sets.
4. Pull: row on one day, pulldown or pull-up on the next. 3 sets.
5. Overhead press or shoulders: overhead press or lateral raises. 2 to 3 sets.
6. Arms, calves or abs: one or two of these, 2 sets each, rotated across the week.

Keep it to six or seven exercises and about 15 to 18 hard sets per session. Beyond that, the sets at the end of the workout are done tired and count for less.

Common full body workout mistakes