By The Push Pull Legs (PPL) split groups your weekly training into three workout types by movement pattern: Push (chest, shoulders, triceps), Pull (back, rear delts, biceps), and Legs (quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves, plus core).
Two versions exist:
- 3-day PPL — one rotation per week (Mon Push / Wed Pull / Fri Legs). Each muscle is trained 1×/week. Lower hypertrophy ceiling.
- 6-day PPL — two rotations per week (Push / Pull / Legs / Push / Pull / Legs / Rest). Each muscle 2×/week. The version most online evidence-based coaches recommend for intermediates focused on hypertrophy.
If you can train 4+ days per week and you have at least 6–12 months of consistent lifting behind you, the 6-day version is the better default. If you only have 3 days, a 3-day full-body program usually outperforms 3-day PPL.
What "push, pull, legs" actually means
The split is built around the mechanical job a muscle does:
- Push — anything that involves pressing a load away from the torso. The prime movers are the chest, anterior and lateral deltoids, and triceps. So bench press, overhead press, lateral raises, and triceps extensions all belong on the same day.
- Pull — anything that involves pulling a load toward the torso. The prime movers are the lats, mid-back (rhomboids, mid-traps), rear deltoids, and biceps. Rows, pulldowns, face pulls, curls — all the same day.
- Legs — every lower-body movement pattern: squat, hinge, single-leg, calf work. Direct core work (planks, hanging knee raises) is usually attached here because the abs already get heavy isometric work from the squat and the deadlift.
The mechanical logic is that assistance muscles assist their compound lift. Your triceps work on every press, so training presses and triceps in the same session is efficient: by the time you reach isolation work, the muscle is already fully warm. The same goes for biceps and pulling. Splitting your week to fight that pairing (e.g. a separate "arm day" two days after pull day) is exactly the bro-split inefficiency PPL was designed to replace.
Origin and evolution
PPL traces back to the bodybuilding splits of the 1960s and 1970s — Vince Gironda, Bill Pearl, and later Arnold-era contest prep all used variations of the same movement-pattern grouping. The modern, evidence-based version of PPL was popularized in the last decade by online coaches working from the resistance-training literature (Eric Helms, Jeff Nippard, Greg Nuckols, Mike Israetel and the Renaissance Periodization team, and others).
The modern version differs from the old bodybuilding template in two ways:
- Frequency is doubled. Old splits hit each muscle once per week ("Monday is chest day"). The current default is twice per week, based on the resistance-training frequency literature.
- Volume is anchored to weekly numbers, not session numbers. Coaches now think in sets per muscle per week rather than "how many exercises did I do for chest today."
The two main variants
3-day PPL — one rotation per week
| Day | Workout |
|---|---|
| Mon | Push |
| Tue | Rest |
| Wed | Pull |
| Thu | Rest |
| Fri | Legs |
| Sat / Sun | Rest or low-intensity cardio |
Each muscle group is trained 1×/week. Pros: maximum recovery between sessions, easy to fit around life. Cons: weekly frequency is below the level where most lifters add muscle fastest.
6-day PPL — two rotations per week
| Day | Workout |
|---|---|
| Mon | Push A |
| Tue | Pull A |
| Wed | Legs A |
| Thu | Push B |
| Fri | Pull B |
| Sat | Legs B |
| Sun | Rest |
Each muscle group is trained 2×/week. The A and B versions are not identical — they vary the angle, equipment, or rep range so you accumulate weekly volume without doing the exact same workout twice.
5-day rolling PPL — a hybrid
A floating 6-day cycle: Push, Pull, Legs, rest, Push, Pull, Legs, rest, etc. Each muscle gets trained roughly every 3.5 days, which averages out to ~2× per 7 days. Useful if you can't commit to fixed days of the week, but harder to track week-to-week.
Why frequency matters (the evidence)
The strongest case for the 6-day version is the Schoenfeld, Ogborn, and Krieger (2016) meta-analysis in Sports Medicine — the most-cited paper on resistance-training frequency. Pooling 10 studies that controlled weekly volume, the authors concluded that training each muscle group at least twice per week produces superior hypertrophy compared to once per week.
A 2019 follow-up by Schoenfeld, Grgic, and Krieger in the Journal of Sports Sciences updated the analysis and reached the same direction: when weekly volume is matched, higher frequency tends to produce equal or greater hypertrophy than lower frequency. The mechanism is intuitive — splitting volume across more sessions allows higher per-set effort and reduces single-session fatigue.
What this evidence does not say:
- It does not say 3×/week always beats 2×/week (the data above ~2× is thin and inconsistent).
- It does not say frequency itself drives growth — volume does, and frequency is the tool that lets you organize that volume.
The practical takeaway: pick the version of PPL that lets you hit your weekly volume target with clean sets. For most intermediates, that's the 6-day version.
Weekly volume — the number that actually matters
The hypertrophy literature converges on a working range of roughly 10–20 hard sets per muscle group per week, with the lower end suitable for novices or for muscles recovering slowly, and the higher end suitable for advanced lifters who tolerate high training stress (Schoenfeld, Contreras, Krieger et al., 2019; Israetel et al., 2020).
On 6-day PPL, that's 5–10 sets per muscle per session, twice per week. On 3-day PPL, it's 10–20 sets per muscle in a single session — which is where 3-day PPL starts to fall apart. By set 12 of chest work, the quality of the last sets is much lower than the quality of the first, and the diminishing returns are real.
This is the structural reason 6-day PPL is the more efficient hypertrophy split: it lets you run intermediate-to-advanced weekly volumes without ever doing a session so long that the last sets aren't worth doing.
Sample 6-day PPL program
This is one defensible template. Substitute equipment-specific versions of each lift as needed.
Push A — heavier compound emphasis
| # | Exercise | Sets × Reps |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Barbell bench press | 4 × 5–8 |
| 2 | Standing overhead press | 3 × 6–8 |
| 3 | Incline dumbbell press | 3 × 8–10 |
| 4 | Dumbbell lateral raise | 3 × 12–15 |
| 5 | Triceps pushdown (cable) | 3 × 10–12 |
| 6 | EZ-bar skull crusher | 2 × 10–12 |
Pull A — heavier compound emphasis
| # | Exercise | Sets × Reps |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Barbell row | 4 × 5–8 |
| 2 | Pull-up (weighted if possible) | 3 × 6–8 |
| 3 | Seated row (machine) | 3 × 8–10 |
| 4 | Face pull (cable) | 3 × 12–15 |
| 5 | Barbell curl | 3 × 8–10 |
| 6 | Hammer curl (dumbbell) | 2 × 10–12 |
Legs A — squat focus
| # | Exercise | Sets × Reps |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Barbell back squat | 4 × 5–8 |
| 2 | Romanian deadlift | 3 × 6–8 |
| 3 | Leg press | 3 × 10–12 |
| 4 | Lying leg curl | 3 × 10–12 |
| 5 | Standing calf raise | 4 × 10–15 |
| 6 | Hanging knee raise | 3 × 10–15 |
Push B — higher rep, dumbbell-led
| # | Exercise | Sets × Reps |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Incline barbell bench press | 3 × 6–8 |
| 2 | Flat dumbbell bench press | 3 × 8–10 |
| 3 | Seated dumbbell shoulder press | 3 × 8–10 |
| 4 | Cable lateral raise | 3 × 12–15 |
| 5 | EZ-bar skull crusher | 3 × 8–10 |
| 6 | Cable triceps overhead extension | 2 × 12–15 |
Pull B — deadlift day + thickness
| # | Exercise | Sets × Reps |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Conventional deadlift | 3 × 3–5 |
| 2 | Lat pulldown (cable) | 3 × 8–10 |
| 3 | Chest-supported row (dumbbell or machine) | 3 × 8–10 |
| 4 | Reverse pec-deck (rear delt) | 3 × 12–15 |
| 5 | Incline dumbbell curl | 3 × 10–12 |
| 6 | Cable curl | 2 × 12–15 |
Legs B — posterior / single-leg focus
| # | Exercise | Sets × Reps |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Front squat | 3 × 6–8 |
| 2 | Bulgarian split squat | 3 × 8–10 |
| 3 | Hip thrust | 3 × 8–10 |
| 4 | Seated leg curl | 3 × 10–12 |
| 5 | Seated calf raise | 4 × 10–15 |
| 6 | Plank | 3 × 30–60 sec |
Notes on the template:
- Deadlift sits on Pull B, not Legs. It is mechanically a hinge / posterior-chain movement, but it loads the lats, traps, mid-back, and grip so heavily that pairing it with squat-day legs usually ruins both. Most evidence-based coaches put it on Pull.
- Each muscle group gets roughly 12–18 weekly sets across the two sessions — squarely in the productive range for intermediates.
- A and B vary the angle (flat vs incline; back squat vs front squat), the equipment (barbell vs dumbbell), and sometimes the rep range. This is intentional variety — it is not the same workout twice.
Sample 3-day PPL (if you only have 3 days)
| Day | Exercises (4–6 each) |
|---|---|
| Mon — Push | Bench press 4×5–8 · OHP 3×6–8 · Incline DB press 3×8–10 · Lateral raise 3×12–15 · Triceps pushdown 3×10–12 |
| Wed — Pull | Barbell row 4×5–8 · Pull-up 3×6–8 · Seated row 3×8–10 · Face pull 3×12–15 · Barbell curl 3×8–10 |
| Fri — Legs | Back squat 4×5–8 · Romanian deadlift 3×6–8 · Leg press 3×10–12 · Leg curl 3×10–12 · Calf raise 4×10–15 |
This is the bare minimum. If your only goal is hypertrophy and you have exactly 3 days available, a 3-day full-body program (each muscle 3×/week) is almost always more productive than 3-day PPL (each muscle 1×/week), because of the frequency evidence above. See Beginner Full Body 3×/Week for the full-body alternative.
Progression rule
Use double progression on every exercise:
- Pick a rep range for the lift (e.g. 6–8).
- When you hit the top of the range (8 reps) for all prescribed sets with clean form, add the smallest practical weight increment next session — usually 2.5 kg for compounds, 1 kg for OHP and small isolation.
- The new weight drops you back toward the bottom of the range. Work your way back up to the top, then add weight again.
For accessory work, two or three RIR (reps in reserve) is the right effort for most working sets. For main compounds, working at 0–1 RIR on the last set of the lift is fine, but only if your form holds — see RPE in Lifting for the full RPE/RIR framework.
The whole 6-day PPL, already loaded
FitNotes X surfaces your previous session's working weights at the top of every exercise screen, has an RPE field on every set, auto-detects PRs, and includes pre-built PPL templates (3-day and 6-day) you can clone in two taps. Logging a set takes about four seconds.
When PPL is the right choice
- Intermediate lifter — at least 6–12 months of consistent training. Beginners progress faster on full-body programs because the frequency is even higher (each muscle 3×/week instead of 2×/week) and the volume per session is small enough to recover from at a beginner's training capacity.
- 4+ days per week available — the math gets ugly below 4 days. A 5-day rolling version works, but anything under 4 days usually loses to upper/lower or full-body.
- Hypertrophy is the goal. If pure 1RM strength on three lifts is the goal, programs like 5/3/1 or a powerlifting block periodization model will usually produce more strength per unit of training stress.
- Comfortable with longer sessions (60–90 min). PPL sessions are not short.
When PPL is NOT the right choice
- True beginners. Full-body 3×/week is faster ROI. Run a beginner program for 3–6 months first.
- Time-constrained intermediates. If you genuinely have only 3 days, run a high-frequency upper/lower or full-body program instead.
- Strength specialists in a competition prep block. A 4-day upper/lower or a dedicated strength program (5/3/1, Sheiko, conjugate) usually wins.
- Sport athletes in-season. PPL doesn't account for sport-specific practice loading. Use a 2–3 day full-body maintenance template.
PPL vs other splits
| Split | Days/week | Frequency per muscle | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full body | 3 | 3× | Beginners; busy intermediates |
| Upper / Lower | 4 | 2× upper, 2× lower | Strength + hypertrophy intermediates |
| PPL (6-day) | 6 | 2× per muscle group | Intermediates / advanced; pure hypertrophy |
| PPL (3-day) | 3 | 1× | Time-constrained, hypertrophy-leaning |
| Bro split (chest day, back day, etc.) | 4–5 | 1× per muscle group | Mostly not — well below the frequency literature supports |
The 6-day PPL and 4-day upper/lower are the two splits most often recommended for intermediates serious about hypertrophy. Both hit the 2× frequency mark; the difference is workout length and volume distribution.
Common mistakes that wreck PPL
- Going all-in on Push A and skipping Push B. Some lifters treat the A version as "the real workout" and let B drift. A and B are equal partners — each contributes half the weekly volume.
- Identical A and B workouts. If Push A and Push B are the same exercises in the same order with the same loads, you've just doubled fatigue without adding variety. Vary at least the angle or the rep range.
- Putting deadlift on Legs. Deadlift on squat day usually means one of them gets cut short. Put it on Pull B, where it complements the back work.
- Skipping rear delts and traps. Rear delts get almost no work from horizontal pressing. If you don't program face pulls, reverse pec deck, or band pull-aparts deliberately, you'll create the classic "rounded forward shoulder" look over time.
- Eight sets of biceps, two sets of legs. Look at your tracking log — if leg volume is half of arm volume, the program is no longer PPL, it's a vanity split.
- Never deloading. Six training days per week generates real systemic fatigue. Plan a deload week every 4–8 weeks (drop loads ~50–60 %, keep movement patterns). See Deload week: when, why, how for the full protocol.
How to track PPL
Three columns per set, per exercise, per session: load × reps × RPE (or RIR). That data tells you:
- Whether the load on Push A this week is higher than Push A last week (the only progression check that matters).
- Whether your last-set RPE is creeping up at the same load — an early sign you need a deload.
- Whether you're hitting weekly volume targets per muscle.
The key is to compare apples to apples: Push A this week vs. Push A last week, not Push A this week vs. Push B last week. The A and B sessions are different workouts. See How to track your workouts for the full minimum-viable log.
FAQ
Is 6-day PPL too much for a natural lifter?
No, if it's programmed sanely. The published hypertrophy literature is on natural lifters — the volume ranges (10–20 sets/muscle/week) and 2× frequency recommendations are derived from natural-lifter studies. The risk on 6-day PPL is not "too much frequency" but "too much weekly volume" or "no deloads." Manage those and the schedule is fine.
PPL vs Upper/Lower — which is better?
Roughly equivalent when both hit 2× weekly frequency at matched volume. PPL gives more isolation room and is preferred by hypertrophy specialists. Upper/Lower is preferred when strength is the priority because deadlift and bench can sit on their own anchor day. Pick the one whose schedule you'll actually follow.
Can I add cardio to a 6-day PPL?
Yes — 1–3 short low-intensity sessions per week (20–30 min walking, easy bike, rowing) on rest days or after lifting. Avoid hard cardio on leg days, before or after, because it competes for the same recovery capacity as your squat / hinge work (the "interference effect" in concurrent training literature is real, even if modest in size).
What is the 5-day rolling PPL?
A floating cycle: Push, Pull, Legs, rest, Push, Pull, Legs, rest, repeating. Each muscle is hit every 3.5 days, averaging ~2× per 7 days. Easier on recovery than a fixed 6-day; harder to plan around fixed weekdays. A reasonable hybrid.
How long until I see results?
Strength gains on the main lifts are measurable within 2–4 weeks. Visible muscle changes typically take 8–12 weeks with adequate protein (~1.6–2.2 g/kg bodyweight per day; ISSN 2017 position stand) and consistent training. Track the log, not the mirror.
How do I deload PPL?
Every 4–8 weeks, take a deload week — every working set at roughly 50–60 % of recent working loads, prescribed reps, no progression attempted. Optionally drop one of the six days that week. Then return to the load you last successfully completed and continue. See Deload week for the full protocol.
Bottom line
PPL is the most popular hypertrophy split among intermediates for a reason: the movement-pattern grouping is mechanically efficient (assistance muscles assist their compound), the 6-day version hits the 2×/week frequency that the meta-analytic evidence favors, and the per-session workload is manageable enough that the last sets of each session are still productive.
Run it if you have at least six months of consistent training, four to six days a week available, and hypertrophy as your primary goal. Run something simpler if any of those is missing.
Sources
- 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; 46(11): 1689–1697.
- 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; 37(11): 1286–1295.
- Schoenfeld BJ, Contreras B, Krieger J, et al. Resistance Training Volume Enhances Muscle Hypertrophy but Not Strength in Trained Men. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2019; 51(1): 94–103.
- Helms ER, Cronin J, Storey A, Zourdos MC. Application of the Repetitions in Reserve-Based Rating of Perceived Exertion Scale for Resistance Training. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 2016; 38(4): 42–49.
- Israetel M, Hoffmann J, Smith C. Scientific Principles of Hypertrophy Training. Renaissance Periodization, 2020.
- Jäger R, Kerksick CM, Campbell BI, et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition Position Stand: Protein and Exercise. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2017; 14:20.
- National Strength and Conditioning Association. Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning, 4th ed. Human Kinetics, 2016.
Last reviewed: May 2026. Educational content — not medical advice. Consult a qualified coach or clinician before starting a new training program, especially if you have pre-existing conditions or are returning from injury.
