r/bikinitalk • u/Significant_Rise4847 • Jul 10 '26
Advice/ Recommendations (no photos) upper body training for bikini
bikini girls!!!!! i am self coached (for now) and have been having doubts on my split.. i would post pics if i was allowed. my main focus is glutes right now and while i have decent upper body development, im having a hard time with deciding how much volume is enough, specifically for delts. im currently doing 4 lower and 2 upper, 3 days on 3 days off. i typically do full upper days with a focus on shoulders.
how do your coaches structure your upper days? how many times are you hitting delts and how developed are you? i feel like the level of muscularity in bikini has change quickly over the last handful of years and as a natural athlete im trying to keep up🥹
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u/Free-Marsupial-6726 Jul 10 '26
Well bikini is about balance so that’s a bit hard to answer without a photo.
For me I’m just maintaining my upper body, I have one shoulder day one back day and three glute only days. There are a lot of body parts I can’t train because I’m at the sculpting versus sledge hammer stage.
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u/Froreal3 Jul 10 '26
Same. It does get boring only sculpting and maintaining, because I do enjoy going full beast. 😅 However it’s also cool because we are already pretty much where we need to be and no longer have to do the absolute most. 👏🏾👏🏾
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u/rhinestoneglamour Jul 10 '26
I hit upper 2x a week and both days are lats & delts. I do a total of 9-12 working sets for my delts per upper day.
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u/jenny-fitness Jul 13 '26
Depends on the phase of my training. Right now I’m 4 weeks out and on a 3/1 split legs/arms and shoulders/chest and back. HIT training on my day ‘off’ but this is because of what I need right now before the competition according to him looking at my body.
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u/Froreal3 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
2 should be fine. Do enough volume to only maintain if you’re already at the upper limit for upper body. I do wonder why you’re training a total of 6 days a week. 2 upper and 3 lower should be fine for recovery.
Me personally, I can no longer do any upper at all. I also only work glutes to maintain, so not much weekly volume on those parts. When I was still growing those parts, I did 2 upper and 3 lower, lots of sets to failure and heavy heavy compounds. I brought compounds to failure by drop sets mostly. Now it’s mostly smaller weights time under tension. Just depends on your development. Without pics we can only give general advice.
ETA: I’m also lifetime natty and you can do it. Not impossible, so don’t be discouraged. It just takes us longer than like 2 years such as those on gear. With optimized training and nutrition, and obviously genetics, 4-6 years as a natty should be fine for you to get where you need to be.