Push Pull Legs (PPL)
A training split that organizes workouts by movement pattern: pushing, pulling, and leg exercises.
Updated
Push Pull Legs is a popular training split where you train pushing muscles (chest, shoulders, triceps) one day, pulling muscles (back, biceps, rear delts) another day, and legs on a third day. This split can be run 3-6 times per week and allows for good recovery while hitting each muscle group multiple times weekly.
How push pull legs works
Push pull legs, or PPL, splits training into three workouts by what the muscles do to the weight: push day trains chest, shoulders and triceps, pull day trains back, biceps and rear shoulders, and leg day trains everything below the waist. You rotate through them in order. Grouping muscles that work together means the triceps are tired once, on push day, rather than a little on every day, and each group rests fully while the other two are trained.
A 3-day PPL week
Monday push, Wednesday pull, Friday legs. Each muscle is trained once a week, so each session needs enough sets to cover the whole week. A push day might be bench press 4 sets of 6 to 8, overhead press 3 of 8 to 10, incline dumbbell press 3 of 10 to 12, lateral raises 3 of 12 to 15 and triceps pushdowns 3 of 10 to 15. It suits people with three gym days who like focused sessions, but it trains each muscle as often as a bro split. With only three days, full-body sessions let you hit everything twice or three times.
A 6-day PPL week
Push, pull, legs, push, pull, legs, then a rest day, so every muscle is trained twice a week. Split the weekly work between the two sessions, around six to ten hard sets per muscle each time, and make them different: a heavier first push day built around bench press for sets of five, then a lighter second one around incline dumbbell press for sets of ten to twelve. The same goes for legs, with squats one day and leg press with Romanian deadlifts the next. If six days is too many, a rolling push, pull, legs, rest pattern gives roughly five sessions a week.
Common mistakes
Starting on six days a week before you can recover from three. Putting heavy deadlifts on pull day and Romanian deadlifts on leg day the next morning, which hammers the lower back and hamstrings twice in a row; keep heavy hinging on one of the two. Letting push day sprawl into an hour and a half of chest exercises while lateral and rear shoulder work gets dropped. And skipping leg day when the week gets busy, which quietly turns a balanced split into an upper-body programme.
Examples
- Push day: bench press, overhead press, tricep pushdowns
- Pull day: rows, pull-ups, bicep curls
- Leg day: squats, deadlifts, leg curls
Related Terms
Compound exercises
Put this into practice with exercises from the library.
Inchworm
Stretching · Bodyweight
Incline Cable Chest Press
Strength · Cable
Incline Dumbbell Bench With Palms Facing In
Strength · Dumbbell
Incline Dumbbell Flyes
Strength · Dumbbell
Incline Dumbbell Flyes - With A Twist
Strength · Dumbbell
Incline Dumbbell Press
Strength · Dumbbell
Incline Push-Up
Strength · Bodyweight
Incline Push-Up Close-Grip
Strength · Bodyweight
Common questions
What is PPL?
A training split that organizes workouts by movement pattern: pushing, pulling, and leg exercises. Push Pull Legs is a popular training split where you train pushing muscles (chest, shoulders, triceps) one day, pulling muscles (back, biceps, rear delts) another day, and legs on a third day.
What exercises train the PPL?
Good options include Inchworm, Incline Cable Chest Press, Incline Dumbbell Bench With Palms Facing In, Incline Dumbbell Flyes, Incline Dumbbell Flyes - With A Twist. Each links to a step-by-step guide with demonstration images.
What are examples of PPL?
Push day: bench press, overhead press, tricep pushdowns; Pull day: rows, pull-ups, bicep curls; Leg day: squats, deadlifts, leg curls.
Put it into practice
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