The Push Pull Legs guide.

What is the Push Pull Legs split?

Push Pull Legs is a training split that organises every exercise into one of three sessions based on movement pattern: push (chest, shoulders and triceps), pull (back, rear delts and biceps) and legs (quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves). Each session trains muscles that work together, so they share warm-up and fatigue instead of fighting for recovery.

The logic is mechanical. On a push day, your chest, front delts and triceps all extend the elbow and move weight away from your body, so a bench press already pre-fatigues the triceps before you isolate them. On a pull day, your back and biceps both flex the elbow and pull weight toward you. Grouping them this way means each muscle is hit hard once or twice within a session and then gets two or more days of complete rest before it is trained again — the central idea behind effective training frequency.

PPL became the default intermediate template because it scales cleanly. Run the three workouts once each and you have a 3-day plan; run them twice and you have a 6-day plan that trains every muscle group roughly every 72 hours. That higher frequency matters: a meta-analysis found that training a muscle twice a week produced greater hypertrophy than training it once a week, and PPL is built to deliver that frequency without grinding the same muscles two days in a row.[1]

It also solves a problem that plagues less-structured routines: overlap. When you bench press, your triceps work hard; when you row, your biceps work hard; when you squat, your lower back works hard. A split that puts chest and back on consecutive days forces those small muscles to recover overnight before being hammered again. PPL avoids that by keeping every pushing muscle on one day, every pulling muscle on the next, and the legs on a third — so the synergists always get rest alongside the prime mover they support. That is why the template feels sustainable even at six sessions a week, and why it has stayed popular across bodybuilding, powerbuilding and general strength training for decades.

Who should run PPL?

PPL is best for intermediate lifters with 6–12 months of consistent training who can commit to 4–6 gym sessions a week and want high weekly volume for size and strength. Beginners and time-crunched lifters can run the 3-day version, but a true novice usually grows fastest on a full-body plan first.

Use this quick guide to pick your fit:

• Beginners (0–6 months): Start with the 3-day full-body plan or the 3-day PPL. You do not yet need six sessions to grow, and lower frequency is easier to recover from while you learn technique.
• Intermediates (6 months–2 years): The 6-day PPL is the sweet spot. You can recover from the volume, you benefit from training each muscle twice a week, and the structure makes progression easy to track.
• Advanced lifters (2+ years): PPL still works, often with added volume, specialised days or an extra rest day inserted (a 6-on, 1-off rolling cycle). The Arnold split is a related high-frequency option.
• Busy lifters: If four sessions is your ceiling, an upper/lower split may fit better than a half-finished PPL.

One nutritional note that applies to everyone running PPL: to actually build the muscle the volume is signalling for, aim for roughly 1.6 g of protein per kg of bodyweight per day. A 2018 meta-analysis found gains from extra protein plateaued beyond about 1.6 g/kg, and the ISSN position stand recommends a daily range of 1.4–2.0 g/kg for people training for muscle.[2][4]

The 6-day PPL schedule

The 6-day Push Pull Legs schedule runs Push, Pull, Legs twice through the week with one rest day, training each muscle group about every 72 hours. It is the highest-frequency, highest-volume version and the one most intermediate lifters use.

You can shift the rest day to suit your week, or run a rolling "6 days on, 1 day off" cycle that drifts through the calendar. The only rule that matters is keeping at least one push, one pull and one leg session between repeats of the same workout so each muscle recovers.

The 3-day PPL version

The 3-day Push Pull Legs schedule trains push, pull and legs once each with a rest day between sessions, hitting each muscle group once a week. It is the better starting point for beginners or anyone who can only train three or four times a week.

Because each muscle is trained only once a week, push the volume up on the 3-day plan — aim for 12–20 hard sets per muscle group across the session so weekly training volume stays high enough to drive growth.[5] If you can add a fourth day, alternate the cycle (Push / Pull / Legs / Push…) so frequency rises over a rolling two-week block.

Adding a 5th or 6th day

To move from a 3-day to a 5- or 6-day PPL, stop fixing workouts to weekdays and roll the cycle forward — Push / Pull / Legs / Push / Pull / Legs — inserting rest days when recovery demands. Every added day raises frequency for every muscle group, which favours growth as long as sleep, food and progression keep up.

The cleanest progression path looks like this:

• 3 → 4 days: Run a rolling cycle (P / P / L / P …). Over a two-week block each muscle is trained closer to 1.3× per week instead of once.
• 4 → 5 days: Add the second pull or the second legs session first, since back and hamstrings tolerate frequency well and are the muscles most lifters under-train.
• 5 → 6 days: Complete the second full PPL cycle so every muscle is hit twice a week. Keep one true rest day; for most people six straight sessions with no break erodes recovery faster than it adds volume.[8]

Resist jumping straight from three days to six. Add one session at a time, hold it for 2–3 weeks, and only progress when your lifts are still climbing and your sleep is intact. Higher frequency does not add muscle on its own — it simply lets you fit more weekly volume in without any single session becoming unmanageably long.[8]

Warm-up protocol

Warm up before every PPL session with about 5 minutes of easy cardio, dynamic mobility for the muscles you are about to train, and 2–3 progressively heavier ramp-up sets on your first compound. A proper warm-up improves range of motion and prepares the joints without sapping strength.

Keep static stretching light before lifting — long-duration static stretches can briefly reduce force output, so save deep stretching for after the session. A warm-up that pairs short mobility work with dynamic movement is the recommended approach for raising range of motion and reducing injury risk.[9]

Full workout — Push day

Push day trains the chest, shoulders and triceps. Open with a heavy horizontal press, add a vertical press, then layer in incline, lateral-raise and triceps work. Heavy compounds use 3 minutes of rest; isolation work uses 60–90 seconds.

That structure puts your strongest, most fatiguing lift first, while your nervous system is fresh: the barbell bench press in the 5–8 rep range drives chest and triceps strength, and the overhead press builds the shoulders and locks in overhead pressing power. The incline dumbbell press then targets the upper chest through a longer range than the barbell allows, and the lateral raise — trained in a high 12–20 rep range — brings up the side delts that give the shoulders their width. Two triceps movements finish the session because the triceps make up roughly two-thirds of upper-arm mass and respond well to both a pushdown (lateral and medial head when arms stay at the side) and an overhead extension (long-head stretch). If you run two push days in a 6-day week, lead the second one with the overhead press instead of the bench so both pressing patterns get a turn at being fresh.

Full workout — Pull day

Pull day trains the back, rear delts and biceps. Start with a deadlift or heavy row for the posterior chain, add vertical and horizontal pulling, then finish with rear-delt and biceps isolation. Rest 2–3 minutes on the heavy pulls.

Pull day is where most lifters under-train, so it is built to cover every pulling angle. The deadlift opens the session as the heaviest posterior-chain movement, hitting the back, glutes and hamstrings in one lift; keep it to 3 hard sets of 4–6 because the systemic fatigue is high. The pull-up and barbell row then split vertical and horizontal pulling — the pull-up builds lat width and the row builds mid-back thickness — and the lat pulldown adds controlled volume once you are pre-fatigued. The face pull is non-negotiable: trained for 15–20 reps it strengthens the rear delts and external rotators that keep the shoulders healthy under all that pressing volume from push day. The barbell curl closes the session, since the biceps have already done supporting work on every pull and only need a few direct sets to finish.

On the second pull session of a 6-day week, swap the deadlift for a lighter rack pull or rep out the row instead — repeating maximal deadlifts twice a week is hard to recover from for most lifters. If your lower back is still fatigued from the previous legs day, replace the deadlift entirely with a chest-supported row so you keep the back volume without taxing the spinal erectors twice in 48 hours.

Full workout — Legs day

Legs day trains the quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves. Anchor it with a squat and a hip-hinge, add a press and a curl for balanced quad and hamstring volume, then finish with lunges and calves. Squats and RDLs need the full 2–3 minute rest.

The session is deliberately balanced between knee-dominant and hip-dominant work so you do not end up with strong quads and weak hamstrings. The back squat is the primary strength driver for the whole lower body; the Romanian deadlift trains the hamstrings and glutes through a loaded stretch, which is one of the most effective ways to grow them. The leg press adds quad volume without taxing the lower back further, the lying leg curl trains the hamstrings at the knee (a different function from the RDL's hip action), and walking lunges add a single-leg stimulus that exposes and fixes side-to-side imbalances. Calves close the day because they are easy to skip when fatigued — anchoring them at the end with 4 sets of 12–20 forces the volume in.

That gives roughly 16–19 hard sets across the lower body in one session. Resist the urge to cut rest to "save time" — resistance-trained men in an 8-week trial built more strength and quad thickness resting 3 minutes than resting 1 minute between sets.[3] If a full leg session leaves you too wrecked to train the next day, that is a sign to drop a set or two from the accessories rather than to abandon the rest periods on your squat.

Exercise substitutions

Swap any lift you cannot perform safely or do not have equipment for, keeping the same movement pattern and rep range. Substituting like-for-like preserves the structure of the split — a press for a press, a hinge for a hinge — so weekly volume per muscle stays intact.

Browse the full exercise library for demonstrations, cues and alternatives for every movement in the program. When you swap a barbell lift for a dumbbell or machine version, expect to use a different load — log the new movement separately and progress it on its own track.

How to progress (progressive overload)

Progress on PPL with progressive overload: keep the same exercises, log every set, and add weight or reps whenever you hit the top of the prescribed range with clean form. Muscle and strength only continue when the demand on the muscle keeps climbing week to week.

The simplest reliable method is double progression. Work within a rep range — say 8–12. Once you can complete every prescribed set at the top of that range with good form, add the smallest available load (usually 2.5 kg on a barbell, or the next dumbbell) and start again at the bottom of the range. Over months this is what turns a 60 kg bench into a 90 kg bench. The ACSM position stand recommends exactly this kind of gradual, planned increase in load and volume as you adapt.[7]

• Compounds: add weight first. Aim to beat last session's load or reps on bench, squat, deadlift, overhead press and rows. Use the 1RM calculator to track your estimated one-rep max as the numbers climb.
• Isolation work: add reps first, then weight. Curls and lateral raises respond well to creeping the rep count up before loading.
• Effort target: keep most working sets at RPE 7–9 — that is 1–3 reps in reserve — since training to failure is not required for growth and adds recovery cost.[6]
• When you stall: if a lift fails to progress for two sessions, deload it by about 10% and build back over 2–3 weeks. Most stalls are fatigue, not a true ceiling.

Load is not the only lever. Progressive overload also includes adding a set, improving range of motion, slowing the tempo, or shortening rest while holding reps — useful tools once the weight on the bar can no longer climb every week. As you move from beginner to intermediate, you will lean less on simply adding weight and more on slowly adding total weekly volume, because the easy linear gains slow down. The constant across all of it is honest logging: if you do not record what you did last session, you cannot reliably beat it. Use the workout tracker to log every set, or read our full guide to progressive overload.

When and how to deload

Take a deload roughly every 6–10 weeks, or whenever performance dips and joints ache for several sessions in a row. A deload is a planned light week that sheds accumulated fatigue so you can keep progressing rather than grinding to a halt.

The simplest version: keep the same exercises but cut your working sets by about half and drop the load to roughly 60% of normal, training well short of failure. You are maintaining the movement pattern and a little stimulus while letting connective tissue and the nervous system recover. After one such week, return to your previous weights — most lifters come back stronger, not weaker, because the fatigue masking their strength has cleared. Deloading is part of the ACSM's recommended approach to managing long-term resistance-training load.[7]

Nutrition to support PPL

Eat enough protein and total energy to back the volume PPL demands: aim for about 1.6 g of protein per kg of bodyweight daily, and a slight calorie surplus if your goal is muscle. Training is the signal; food and sleep are what let the body act on it.

Protein is the lever with the strongest evidence. A 2018 meta-analysis of resistance-training studies found gains in lean mass and strength plateaued at around 1.6 g/kg/day, with a practical range up to roughly 2.2 g/kg.[2][10] Distribute it across 3–5 meals to keep muscle protein synthesis elevated through the day. For total calories, estimate your maintenance with the TDEE calculator and add a small surplus (around 250–400 kcal) to build, or hold a modest deficit to lean out while keeping protein high. Sleep of 7–9 hours does more for recovery on a 6-day split than any supplement.

Beginner and women's notes

PPL is sex-neutral and beginner-adaptable: the muscles, movement patterns and progression rules are identical for everyone. Beginners should start with the 3-day version or a full-body plan; women who want to emphasise glutes and hamstrings can add hip-hinge and thrust volume on legs day without changing the structure.

• Beginners: run the full-body plan or 3-day PPL first. Master the squat, hinge, press and pull with submaximal loads for 8–12 weeks before adding the volume of a 6-day split.
• Women: the same loads-relative-to-bodyweight progression applies. To bias the lower body toward glutes and hamstrings, add a hip thrust or extra Romanian deadlift sets on legs day — the template absorbs this without losing balance.
• Returning lifters: after a long layoff, treat yourself as a beginner for 2–3 weeks. Strength returns quickly via muscle memory, but tendons and connective tissue lag, so ramp load gradually.

Expected results & timeline

On a well-run PPL with adequate protein and progression, beginners can expect to add roughly 0.5–1 kg of muscle per month in the first year and see clear strength gains within the first few weeks. Intermediate lifters progress at about half that rate, so consistency over months is what produces visible change.

These are realistic natural rates, not marketing numbers. Results depend on training each session hard, eating enough protein (around 1.6 g/kg/day) and a slight calorie surplus if your goal is size.[2] Sleep and consistency move the needle more than any exercise swap.

Common PPL mistakes

The most common PPL mistakes are skipping leg day, training to failure on every set, never increasing the load, and running the 6-day version before you can recover from it. Each one quietly stalls progress even when the program itself is sound.

• Skipping leg day. Legs are a third of the split for a reason — train them with the same effort as push and pull, or you build an imbalanced physique and stall on big lifts.
• Going to failure on every set. Stop 1–3 reps short (RIR 1–3) on most working sets. Training to failure is not required for growth and adds fatigue that slows the next session, especially on the 6-day version.[6]
• Never progressing the load. PPL only works if the weight or reps climb over time. Log every set and add weight when you hit the top of the rep range.[7]
• Ignoring rest periods. Compounds need 2–3 minutes of rest to keep strength high. Resting only 60 seconds on squats and presses leaves strength and growth on the table.[3]
• Running the 6-day split as a beginner. If you have under 6–12 months of consistent training, start with the 3-day PPL or a full-body plan — six sessions a week is hard to recover from early on.
• No deload. Plan a lighter week every 6–10 weeks. Pushing heavy indefinitely accumulates fatigue and raises injury risk without adding muscle.[7]

PPL vs other splits

Compared with a bro split, upper/lower or full body, Push Pull Legs offers the best balance of high weekly volume and training frequency for most intermediate lifters. A bro split trains each muscle once a week; PPL trains it once or twice; upper/lower fits a four-day week; full body suits beginners.

The practical takeaway: for a natural intermediate, the 6-day PPL and a 4-day upper/lower both train each muscle twice a week, which research favours over once-weekly frequency at matched volume.[1] Choose PPL if you enjoy six focused sessions; choose upper/lower if four longer sessions fit your week better. A bro split is the lowest-frequency option and is generally best left to advanced lifters, while the Arnold split is a high-frequency alternative that pairs antagonist muscles.

References

1. Schoenfeld BJ, Ogborn D, Krieger JW. Effects of resistance training frequency on measures of muscle hypertrophy: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 2016
2. Morton RW, et al. A systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression of the effect of protein supplementation on resistance training-induced gains in muscle mass and strength in healthy adults. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2018;52(6):376–384
3. Schoenfeld BJ, et al. Longer interset rest periods enhance muscle strength and hypertrophy in resistance-trained men. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2016
4. Jäger R, et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: protein and exercise. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2017
5. Schoenfeld BJ, Ogborn D, Krieger JW. Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass. Journal of Sports Sciences, 2017
6. Grgic J, Schoenfeld BJ, Orazem J, Sabol F. Effects of resistance training performed to repetition failure or non-failure on muscular strength and hypertrophy: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Sport and Health Science, 2022
7. American College of Sports Medicine. Position stand: progression models in resistance training for healthy adults. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2009;41(3):687–708
8. Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J, Krieger J. How many times per week should a muscle be trained to maximize muscle hypertrophy? A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies examining the effects of resistance training frequency. Journal of Sports Sciences, 2019
9. Behm DG, Blazevich AJ, Kay AD, McHugh M. Acute effects of muscle stretching on physical performance, range of motion, and injury incidence in healthy active individuals: a systematic review. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 2016
10. Stokes T, Hector AJ, Morton RW, McGlory C, Phillips SM. Recent perspectives regarding the role of dietary protein for the promotion of muscle hypertrophy with resistance exercise training. Nutrients, 2018 (PMC5852756)