major muscle groups - back, chest, shoulders

minor - biceps, triceps, traps


i was wondering how should these be paired for the best results; for example,

Day 1: back + biceps
Day 2: chest + triceps
Day 3: shoulders + traps ?

Legs (Squats and Goodmorings/pullthroughs/hyperextension/glute ham and calf work)
Chest/Shoulders/Tris
Back (deads, rows, pulldowns, curls)

This would work good for your situation

One traditional split goes like this:

Back + biceps
Chest + triceps
Legs + shoulders

however some people still have enough juice in them on chest day to do shoulders, so they prefer:

Back + biceps
Chest + shoulders + triceps
Legs

and abs will (usually) be thrown in on at least 1 or 2 of those days.

HOWEVER, considering that most back exercises hit your biceps in some way (i.e. pull-ups, pull-downs, rows, deadlifts), and that most chest exercises hit your triceps (i.e. bench press variations, dips, etc), some people prefer to swap the muscle pairings around so that they can get the most out of their arm work without them being fatigued from assistance in other exercises. That is,

Back + triceps
Chest + biceps
Legs + shoulders

Personally I think it's a good idea, and it is quite a commonly used one.

My split is back+biceps, chest+triceps, and legs+shoulders. For *best* results, maybe the above is perhaps slightly better.

The opinions of everyone else would be good to hear

Cheers,
-shaun

I find that if I'm lifting heavy enough on my major groups, my smaller muscles will grow too.

Big back lifts will make the biceps grow, big chest will make the triceps grow.