Does a full-body routine build more muscle than a split?
Neither wins by default. When weekly volume is matched, full-body and split routines build essentially the same muscle and strength. Choose the schedule that lets you train hard and consistently.
Full-body and split routines arrange the same basic work differently. A full-body plan trains most major muscle groups each session. A split concentrates fewer muscles into each day—upper/lower, push-pull-legs, or the classic one-body-part-per-day approach. The calendar looks different; the muscle mostly sees sets, effort, and recovery.
The 2024 meta-analysis is unusually clean on the main question: across fourteen studies, neither setup produced meaningfully better strength or hypertrophy when weekly training volume was matched. A randomized trial in women reached the same result with two full-body days versus four upper/lower days. Both groups got stronger and added muscle; the split simply distributed the work across more visits.
The real trade-off is logistics
Full-body sessions make sense when you can train two or three days per week. Each muscle gets frequent practice, and missing one day does not erase an entire body part. The cost is session length and some competition between exercises: hard squats can make the pressing and pulling that follows feel less heroic.
Splits shorten the list of muscles trained each day and make higher weekly volumes easier to spread out. They work well for people who enjoy four to six gym visits. The cost is that missing “leg day” may mean the legs wait another week, and concentrating every set for one muscle into one session can create more fatigue than useful stimulus.
The takeaway
Pick the structure that fits your actual week. Two or three available days favors full-body; four or more makes upper/lower or another split convenient. Then match the important variables: enough hard weekly sets, progressive overload, and recovery. The name of the routine is packaging, not physiology.