The Push Pull Legs Routine: How to Set It Up and Keep Progressing

Push pull legs splits your week into pushing, pulling and leg training. Here's a complete plan for three or six days a week, plus how to add weight and what to do when life gets in the way.

A push pull legs routine splits your training by movement pattern instead of by body part. One day you push, one day you pull, one day you train legs. It's simple, it scales from three to six days a week, and it has stuck around for decades because it works for a lot of lifters. Below you'll find how it works, who it's for and a complete plan you can start this week.

What push, pull and legs actually mean

Each workout groups muscles that already work together. They get trained hard on the same day, then rest together while you train the rest of your body.

• Push: chest, front delts and triceps. Think bench press, overhead press and dips.
• Pull: back, rear delts and biceps. Rows, pull-ups, lat pulldowns and curls.
• Legs: quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves. Squats, Romanian deadlifts and the leg press do the heavy lifting.

The big advantage is minimal overlap. Your triceps take a beating on bench press, but they're off the hook on pull day and leg day. That lets you train often without walking into every session with the same tired muscles.

Who should run a push pull legs routine?

PPL is a great fit if you've been lifting for a while, you're comfortable with the main lifts and you want more time and volume per muscle group than a full-body plan gives you. It also suits people who like structure: you always know what today's workout is.

If you're brand new, a full-body program is usually the better starting point. You practice the big lifts several times a week, and that's what drives fast progress early on. Not sure which camp you're in? Our breakdown of split vs. full-body training walks through the trade-offs.

PPL also works alongside running, circuit classes or HYROX prep. The catch is leg day. Don't put it the day before your hardest intervals or your long run, or both sessions will suffer.

3-day vs. 6-day push pull legs

Three days a week

The simplest version is push on Monday, pull on Wednesday and legs on Friday. You get a rest day between sessions and plenty of room for cardio, sports or just having a life.

The downside is that each muscle group only gets trained once a week. You can still build muscle that way, but many coaches prefer hitting each muscle at least twice a week. A solid middle ground is four days on a rolling schedule: run push, pull, legs, push and so on, on whatever days you train, so each workout comes around roughly every five days instead of every seven.

Six days a week

The classic layout is push, pull, legs, push, pull, legs, rest. Every muscle group gets trained twice a week, and because the volume is spread out, each session can stay focused and fairly short.

Six days only works if your sleep, food and stress are in check. To keep it sustainable, most lifters run an A and a B version of each day: A is heavier with lower reps, B uses lighter weights, higher reps and more isolation work. Earn your way to six days by running three or four days consistently for a few months first.

A complete push pull legs workout plan

This plan works for both the 3-day and the 6-day version. On six days, use it for your A workouts and swap in similar movements for B, for example dumbbell bench instead of barbell bench, or hack squats instead of back squats. Rest two to three minutes between sets on the big compound lifts and one to two minutes on everything else.

Push day

Pull day

Leg day

How to add weight (and keep adding it)

Every exercise above has a rep range, like 6–8 or 10–12. That makes it easy to use double progression, a simple and proven way to get stronger without guessing.

1. Pick a weight you can lift for the bottom of the range on every set with one or two reps left in the tank.
2. Keep the weight the same and try to add a rep here and there each session.
3. Once you hit the top of the range on all sets, add the smallest jump available: usually 5 lb (2.5 kg) on upper-body barbell lifts and 5–10 lb (2.5–5 kg) on squats and deadlifts.
4. Drop back to the bottom of the range with the new weight and build up again.

Isolation lifts like lateral raises and curls move slower. Going from 20 to 25 lb dumbbells is a big jump in percentage terms, so stay in the rep range longer before you move up. Whatever you do, write it down. Without a log you're relying on memory, and that's how people end up using the same weights for a year. TANK lets you log every set and shows what you did last time, so you know exactly when it's time to go heavier.

If you stall on the same weight for three or four sessions in a row despite decent sleep and nutrition, take about ten percent off and work back up. It feels like a step backward, but it usually gets you past the plateau faster than grinding against it.

Common mistakes on a PPL split

• Overloading push day. Chest, shoulders and triceps overlap heavily. Three pressing variations plus dips plus overhead press is a recipe for fried triceps halfway through.
• Not enough pulling. Most people press more than they pull. Include both vertical pulls like pull-ups and pulldowns and horizontal pulls like rows, and don't forget your rear delts.
• Half-hearted leg days. Leg day is the toughest, which is exactly why it gets skipped or cut short. Schedule it for a day when you have the time and energy.
• No progression plan. Repeating the same weights week after week feels safe but doesn't get you far. Use the rep ranges and track your numbers.
• Jumping to six days too soon. More sessions aren't automatically better. If you can't recover, every session gets worse.
• Taking every set to failure. Grinding out every set, especially on squats and deadlifts, piles on fatigue faster than it adds results. Save all-out efforts for the last set of isolation work.

If you're unsure about your form on the big lifts, film yourself. With the AI form analysis in TANK you can record a squat, for example, and get a score from 0 to 100 plus feedback rep by rep.

Missed a workout? Here's how to adjust

Life gets in the way sometimes. The goal is to keep one missed session from derailing the whole week.

• Keep the order. Missed pull day on Wednesday? Do pull on your next training day and carry on from there. Don't skip a muscle group just because the calendar moved.
• Don't double up. Cramming two workouts into one day usually means two mediocre sessions. Shifting everything back a day is the better call.
• Running six days? Drop a B workout. In a short week, cut one of the lighter sessions and keep the heavy ones. One lighter week won't cost you much.
• Away for a week or more? Come back with slightly lighter weights for the first few sessions, then progress as usual. Strength tends to return quickly.

Getting started

There's nothing magic about push pull legs, but it's a clear and flexible way to organize your training. Start with three days, get comfortable with the lifts, log everything and add weight when you hit the top of your rep ranges. Once that feels routine, move up to four or six days. What drives results isn't the exact split you pick, it's sticking with it week after week.