Push, Pull, Legs Guide: Build Your Own Training Split

Push, pull, legs is a great training split that breaks your training down into upper body muscle groups that push and pull, and then a lower body day. It can be used by lifters of any experience level, but I often recommend it be used by intermediate and advanced lifters. Most beginners should follow a 3-day full body program.

Push, pull, legs is a great way to organize your training because muscle groups that work together are being trained on the same days, which results in minimal overlap between muscle groups throughout the week. By overlap, I mean there’s no muscle group that gets worked back to back days without sufficient rest.

An example of overlap within a training program would be when people train chest one day, and shoulders the very next day. That’s something I never advise doing because every chest exercise also involves your shoulders.

Ideally, you’d have at least a day between training chest and shoulders to allow time for recovery. With push, pull, legs, this isn’t an issue.

On your push day, you’ll train upper body muscles that push. This includes your chest, front and medial deltoids, and triceps.

On your pull day, you’ll train upper body muscles that pull. This includes your back, biceps, and rear deltoids.

Your last workout will be a leg workout where you train your entire lower body. This includes your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calves. When writing training programs for myself and clients, I often put core work on leg days.

Organizing your training this way allows you to stimulate each muscle group more frequently and accumulate more training volume throughout the week.

One possible downside to PPL is that it can be difficult to sustain due to the higher training frequency. Some lifters might struggle to adequately recover and maintain a high enough level of training effort and intensity for weeks. This is one of the reasons I often suggest it for intermediate and advanced lifters, and rarely for beginners.

Table of Contents

• 3-Day Split
• 4-Day Split
• 5-Day Split
• 6-Day Split
• Determining Training Frequency
• Pushing Exercises
• Pulling Exercises
• Leg Exercises
• Exercise Selection
• Determining Training Volume
• Putting It Together

3-Day Split

Straightforward and simple here. Push, pull, legs with a day off between each workout, and 2 days off after legs before starting back at push.

Or, you can skip the 2 days off, and instead do push, pull, legs while training every other day so a day between each workout. Some weeks you’ll be training 3 days a week, other weeks you’ll be training 4 days a week.

• Monday: Push
• Tuesday: Off
• Wednesday: Pull
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Legs
• Saturday: Off
• Sunday: Off

This is great for those don’t want to spend much time in the gym since you’re only training 3-4 days a week.

One of the downsides is that you won’t be training each muscle group as frequently as an upper/lower split or full body workouts. Most lifters are better off hitting each muscle group as frequently as they can, which is usually about every 3-4 days.

4-Day Split

Here’s how you could organize a 4-day push, pull, legs program.

• Monday: Push
• Tuesday: Pull
• Wednesday: Legs
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Push and/or Pull
• Saturday:  Off
• Sunday: Off

On the 4th workout of the week you can do either push or pull, or turn it into a full upper body workout and do both.

If you want to choose only push or only pull, choose one that has a muscle group that you feel like is lagging and needs more work.

For example, if you feel like your chest, or maybe chest and triceps, are a bit behind and need to be improved more compared to other muscle groups, you can add another push workout.

Another option is to take 2 rest days, Thursday and Friday off, and then train legs again on Saturday.

So it’ll look like this:

• Monday: Push
• Tuesday: Pull
• Wednesday: Legs
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Off
• Saturday:  Legs
• Sunday: Off

I would suggest choosing one of these two options:

1. Choose whichever muscle groups are lagging more, either pushing, pulling, or lower body muscles, and have that be the muscle group you train twice in a week.
2. Every 6-8 weeks you rotate which muscle groups get trained twice in a week.

First you could do push, pull, legs, and push.

Then switch to push, pull, legs, and pull.

And then lastly, push, pull, legs, and legs again.

If/when you decide to do legs twice a week, I’d organize it the way I have it above. You take 2 days off after completing your push, pull, and first leg workout, and then do legs again so you have more than just one rest day before leg workouts. If you do have two leg workouts, you could also split them up so one workouts is more focused on quads, and the other is more focused on hamstrings and glutes. You would do calves with each workout as well, and could throw in some core work.

5-Day Split

Putting together a 5-day split that only consists of a push, pull, and leg workout is a bit tricky since there’s 3 workouts, but 5 days to work with. So this is how I would structure it.

• Monday: Push
• Tuesday: Pull
• Wednesday: Legs
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Upper Body
• Saturday: Lower Body
• Sunday: Off

You could also switch it around and so you do your upper and lower body workouts first in the beginning of the week, take a day off, then do you push, pull, and leg workouts.

This is great because now every muscle group is getting hit twice a week, and there’s still no overlap between muscle groups.

6-Day Split

When training 6 days a week using a push, pull, legs split, there’s 2 common ways to go about it.

One is to do 3 days on, 1 day off—push, pull, legs, off, push, pull, legs, off.

Another is to do 6 days in a row—push, pull, legs, push, pull, legs, off.

• Monday: Push
• Tuesday: Pull
• Wednesday: Legs
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Push
• Saturday: Pull
• Sunday: Legs
• Monday: Off

Or

• Monday: Push
• Tuesday: Pull
• Wednesday: Legs
• Thursday: Push
• Friday: Pull
• Saturday: Legs
• Sunday: Off

When you feel like you need it, you can take 2 rest days in a row before starting at the beginning of the split again.

For most people, I recommend the 3 days on, 1 day off approach. I personally would not be able to handle working out 6 days in a row. By the 5th and 6th workout, the quality of my workouts would probably suffer, and I believe most peoples would too if they’re training hard enough.

With 6 days on, a lot of fatigue can accumulate quickly and you might find previous training sessions start to negatively impact successive ones.

But everyone is different, and some people will be able to handle 6 days in a row just fine.

If you do decide to train 6 days in a row, you could vary the intensity and volume to manage fatigue and work in a variety of rep ranges throughout the week. It wouldn’t be smart or safe to train really heavy on everything 6 days in a row. Here’s an example:

• Monday: Push (Heavier, 6-8 rep range)
• Tuesday: Pull (Moderate Weight, 10-15 rep range)
• Wednesday: Legs (Heavier, 6-8 rep range)
• Thursday: Push (Moderate Weight, 10-15 rep range)
• Friday: Pull (Heavier, 6-8 rep range)
• Saturday: Legs (Moderate Weight, 10-15 rep range)
• Sunday: Off

You don’t have to stick with those exact rep range for every exercise, but you get the idea. You alternate days of training heavier in a lower rep range, and not as heavy, but still challenging, in a higher rep range.

Here’s what the 3 day on, 1 day off approach would look like over a 2-week period. As you can see, some weeks you will be training only 5 days out of the week instead of 6.

Week 1

• Monday: Push
• Tuesday: Pull
• Wednesday: Legs
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Push
• Saturday: Pull
• Sunday: Legs

Week 2

• Monday: Off
• Tuesday: Push
• Wednesday: Pull
• Thursday: Legs
• Friday: Off
• Saturday: Push
• Sunday: Pull

As I mentioned earlier, when you feel like you could use 2 days off in a row, go ahead and take those 2 days off.

How to Take Rest Days Guilt Free

Determining Training Frequency

The number of workouts you do each week will mainly come down to few things:

1. Training experience, ability to recover, and goals
2. How many days a week you want to workout
3. What your schedule allows, priorities, and what you’ll be able to stick to

If you’re brand new to lifting, I usually suggest 3 workouts per week, and 3 full body workouts. If you’re really set on doing push, pull, legs, that can work too. Over time as you gain more training experience and can handle more training volume, you’ll increase it to 4, then 5, and maybe 6 workouts each week.

If you’re more serious about building your body and packing on quite a bit of muscle, you’ll probably want to work up to 5-6 workouts per week so you can get in a sufficient amount of training volume for each muscle group. I think 5 is the sweet spot and a good number of workouts per week for the majority of lifters.

Your current life situation will also determine your training frequency. A 19-year old college student that’s home for summer will probably have plenty of time to train 5-6 days a week.

A brand new father with a 3-month old child, 2 other kids, working 40 hours a week, and is stressed and not sleeping much might be better off with a lower training frequency to allow for more recovery. Training is a stress to the body, and so is a lack of sleep and psychological stress from work, family, other life events.

Some people despise rest days and love working out as much as they can. For them, a 6-day training split will probably be best, assuming they can stick with it, recover, and make progress.

Others don’t mind rest days at all, they actually enjoy them, and they might not be able to handle a higher training frequency of 6 days per week. For them 4-5 workouts a week will probably be best.

There is no universally ideal training frequency. It’ll vary person to person, and it’ll change over time. What’s ideal for one person might be far from ideal for another.

If you are doing the following in the list below, you’re headed in the right direction with your training.

• Recovering and making progress
• Consistent and able to stick to it each week
• Enjoying it and having fun

You’re making progress if you are:

• Adding weight
• Doing more reps with the same load
• Increasing sets to increase volume
• Increasing the range of motion with the same load and reps
• Resting less between sets with the same load and reps
• Doing more work/volume (weight x sets x reps) in the same amount of time or less
• Increasing time under tension with the same load and reps
• Increasing total training volume
• Improving rep quality by having better control, better execution, and better mind-muscle connection.

Consistency is key for achieving anything, especially your fitness goals. It’s important to choose a training split that you can stick to.

Have fun. It’s not a requirement since not everything that’s required to reach your goals will always be fun, like doing really challenging exercises, but it definitely helps to look forward to your workouts and enjoy them. If you’re looking forward to them and enjoying them, being consistent will easy. You’ll also probably be more motivated during the workout and will be able to push yourself harder. If you can put more effort in, you’ll likely see better results.

Pushing Exercises

Muscle groups that make up your push day will be your chest, front and medial deltoids, and your triceps. You rear deltoids are not included since they are involved with pulling movements, so they will be included on your pull day with back and biceps.

Chest

• Flat, Incline, and Decline Barbell Bench Press
• Flat, Incline, and Decline Dumbbell Bench Press
• Flat, Incline, and Decline Dumbbell Fly
• Parallel Bar Chest Dips
• Cable and Machine Fly
• Push-Ups
• Variations of chest press machines

Anterior & Medial Deltoids

• Seated and Standing Barbell Overhead Press
• Seated and Standing Dumbbell Shoulder Press
• Different variations of overhead presses, including machines
• Barbell, Dumbbell, Cable, and Resistance Band Front Raise
• Dumbbell, Cable, and Resistance Band Lateral Raise

Triceps

• Close Grip Bench Press
• Close Grip Pin Press
• JM Press
• Parallel Bar and Bench Dips
• Flat, Incline and Decline Barbell Skull Crusher (Lying Triceps Extension)
• Flat, Incline and Decline Dumbbell Skull Crusher (Lying Triceps Extension)
• Seated and Standing Barbell Overhead Extension
• Seated and Standing Dumbbell Overhead Extension
• Cable Triceps Pushdown
• Cable, EZ Bar/Barbell, and Dumbbell Overhead Extension
• Cable, Dumbbell Triceps, and Resistance Band Kickback
• Close Grip Push-Up (Diamond Push-Up)

Pulling Exercises

Muscle groups that make up your pull day will be your back, biceps, and rear deltoids.

Back

• Barbell Row
• Pendlay Row
• Dumbbell Row
• Lat Pulldown
• T-Bar Row
• Cable Row
• Meadows Row
• Inverted Row
• Cable Lat Pullover
• Dumbbell and Barbell Lat Pullover
• Barbell, Dumbbell, and Cable Shrug
• Deadlift
• Rack Pull
• Pull-Up
• Chin-Up
• Hyperextensions (can also be done on leg day)

Biceps

• Barbell Curl
• Reverse Grip Barbell Curl
• Dumbbell Curl
• Dumbbell Hammer Curl
• Barbell and Dumbbell Preacher Curl
• Incline Curl
• Zottman Curl
• Cable Curl
• Spider Curl

Rear Deltoids

• Face Pull
• Dumbbell Rear Delt Fly
• Cable Rear Delt Fly
• Rear Delt Fly Machine
• Wide Grip Row
• Barbell Rear Delt Raise
• Band Pull-Apart
• Upright Row (also works traps and medial delts)

Leg Exercises

If you decide to add lower body pushing exercises to your push day, you can add quads and calves to that workout. If you decide to add lower body pulling exercises to your pull day, you can add hamstrings and glutes to that workout.

• Barbell Front and Back Squats
• Goblet Squats
• Walking Lunges
• Reverse Lunges
• Split Squat
• Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat
• Step-Ups
• Hip Thrusts
• Good Mornings
• Barbell Sumo Deadlift (could be done on pull as well)
• Glute Kickbacks
• Leg Extensions
• Leg Curls
• Stiff Leg Deadlifts
• Romanian Deadlifts
• Leg Press
• Box Squat
• Lunge in Place
• Eccentric Glute Ham Raise
• Calf Raises

Exercise Selection

Movement pattern is something to consider when choosing exercises to place into your training program. Below are some of the basic movement patterns with examples for each.

• Horizontal Push
  • Barbell & dumbbell bench press, dips, flyes
• Vertical Push
  • Overhead press, front raise, lateral raise
• Horizontal Pull
  • Barbell row, T-bar row, dumbbell, seated cable row
• Vertical Pull
  • Lat pulldown, chin-up, pull-up
• Squat (Quad/Knee Dominant)
  • Barbell back & front squats, leg press, split squats, lunges
• Hinge (Hamstring/Hip Dominant)
  • All variations of deadlifts, hip thrust, good mornings, hyperextension, cable pull through
• Elbow Flexion
  • Variations of bicep curls
• Elbow Extension
  • Triceps pushdown, lying triceps extensions, overhead triceps extension

I didn’t list every exercise for each category, and there are many others that fall into these movement patterns and other exercises that are more difficult to categorize. I only listed a few for each as examples.

Knowing and considering these movement patterns is important when putting together your training program because you want to have a balanced program, avoid overuse injuries, and prevent any imbalances. You probably want a proportional physique.

Many guys tend to do way more horizontal pushing, like benching, than they do vertical and horizontal pulling. They really want to get their chest and shoulders bigger, some of most visually appealing muscles at first glance when shirtless, and they tend to neglect the rest, besides arms, those will probably be over worked too.

In most cases, you’ll want to have a horizontal push for every horizontal pull, and a vertical push for every vertical pull. Your lower body movement patterns should arranged in a similar way.

In cases where you’re looking to bring up lagging muscle groups and a pay a bit less attention to more developed muscle groups, you might have more of one movement pattern than the other.

Also, don’t focus too much on getting a good balance of movement patterns all in one workout. Instead, focus on getting in a good balance of each movement pattern throughout the entire week of training.

You will also want to consider which exercises work best for you. As a beginner, you won’t know this yet. You’re still learning basic movement patterns and need more practice. More advanced lifters should have a good idea what work best for them and what doesn’t.

You want to choose exercises that do the following.

• Places a lot of tension on the targeted muscle. Great pumps and burning sensation.
• Allows you to train heavy enough, but safely with proper form and technique, and great execution.
• Doesn’t feel awkward. If you’re beginner, a lot of it might feel awkward even if you’re doing them correctly.
• Doesn’t beat up your joints and cause pain (bad pain, not like “this is challenging” pain).
• Doesn’t cause so much fatigue that you can’t make it through the rest of your workout with enough intensity and effort.

For beginners, it’s often suggested to stick with the basic compounds movements like a squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, row, dips, and pull-ups or pulldowns. These are basic movement patterns that nearly everyone should learn how to properly do. Learning and mastering these movements will carry over into many other exercises.

Determining Training Volume

Training volume refers to the total amount of weight lifted, or the total amount of work done in a workout. You can also look at volume for an individual exercise, or over the course of a week of training for a specific muscle group.

When people talk about volume, they’re mainly referring to the number of sets and reps done, but the amount of weight being lifted matters too.

There is a simple formula for calculating training volume.

Volume  = Sets x Reps x Weighted Lifted 

It’s often recommended that you get 10-20 total hard working sets per muscle group per week. You don’t have to fall in this 10-20 range. Sometimes you’ll get away with less, sometimes you’ll need more for stubborn or larger muscle groups. It varies person to person, but most people in most cases will do well following this rule of 10-20 total hard working sets per muscle group each work. Hard working sets means stimulating sets that challenge you, so warm up sets are not included.

Generally, smaller muscle groups will require less volume, and larger ones will need more volume.

Also, beginner and intermediate lifters won’t require as much volume as more advanced lifters.

Beginners can get away with very low volume, and still get great results. Over time, their training volume will increase.

When you start doing 5-6 day splits hitting each muscle group 2 times a week, look at your training volume over the course of the week.

Remember, it’s 10-20 sets per muscle per week, not per workout.

So if you have two push workouts in a week, you might do 6-8 sets of chest one workout, and another 6-8 sets the next workout for a total of 12-16 sets each week for chest.

When you start a new training program or mesocycle, whether that be after a deload or you just started working with a coach who gave you a new training program, it’s best to start on the lower end of training volume and add volume over time.

Putting It All Together

Below is an example of a 6-day push, pull, legs routine.

• Monday: Push 1
• Tuesday: Pull 1
• Wednesday: Legs 1
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Push 2
• Saturday: Pull 2 
• Sunday: Legs 2
• Take a day off, then start with Push 1.

You can see I start one push day with chest, and on the other push day I start with shoulders. When you do it this way, you get to do both bench press and overhead press when you’re fresh at the beginning of the workout, instead of starting both workouts with chest, and never getting to do an overhead press movement when you’re fresh.

Then on the pull and leg workouts, there’s a good variety of different movements, but overall, it’s balanced and consists of more compound movements that give you the most bang for your buck.

You don’t have to structure your training routine this way, but when training 6 days per week, I like to have two different push, pull, and leg workouts instead of repeating the same workouts. It makes it more fun and includes more variety.

You can also vary rep ranges and intensities. Push 1 could be more weight in a 6-8 rep range, and then push 2 could be more moderate weight, but 10-15 reps.

Final Words

Push, pull, legs is a simple but effective way to structure your training.

It’s highly customizable and can be adjust to fit nearly any experience level.

Have fun putting together your own routine, and don’t be afraid to try new things. Keep doing what works, and toss out what doesn’t.

If you need some guidance and accountability when putting together and sticking to your training program so you can see better progress faster, fill out the form below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!

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