If you ask me what the single best training split is for intermediate to advanced lifters, I’ll give you the same answer every time: push pull legs. It’s not trendy. It’s not complicated. It works — and the volume of research and real-world results behind it backs that up completely. The push pull legs split organizes your training around movement patterns and muscle groups in a way that maximizes recovery, minimizes overlap, and lets you hit each muscle with enough frequency and volume to drive consistent progress. Whether your goal is building muscle, gaining strength, or both, this is the framework I come back to again and again.
What Is Push Pull Legs?
Push pull legs is a training split that divides your workouts into three categories based on how your muscles function during movement. It’s elegant in its simplicity, and that’s a big part of why it works so well.
- Push Day targets your chest, shoulders, and triceps — all the muscles involved in pushing movements like the bench press and overhead press.
- Pull Day targets your back, biceps, and rear delts — muscles engaged during pulling movements like rows, pull-ups, and deadlifts.
- Leg Day targets your quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves — the full lower body in a single dedicated session.
You can run this PPL split two different ways. The 6-day version has you training Monday through Saturday in a Push/Pull/Legs/Push/Pull/Legs pattern, which is ideal if you’re an experienced lifter who can handle high volume and recover well. The 3-day version spreads the three sessions across the week — think Monday, Wednesday, Friday — which works better for lifters who are still building their work capacity or have a busier schedule. Both approaches are effective. Your recovery, lifestyle, and training age determine which one is right for you.
The Complete Push Pull Legs Routine
Below is the exact push pull legs routine I recommend to intermediate lifters. The exercise selection, rep ranges, and set volumes are all chosen with both muscle growth and long-term joint health in mind. Follow progressive overload — add weight or reps week over week — and this program will deliver results for months.
The One Thing I Track Across All Three Days Without Fail
Push pull legs demands consistency across three separate training days, each hitting different muscle groups and movement patterns. Without tracking what you actually did on each day — your rep ranges, weights, volume — you’ll inevitably repeat workouts or miss progressive overload entirely, which tanks your gains.
What works
- You can log each day’s session with enough space to note the movement pattern focus (push vs. pull emphasis) and catch when you’re neglecting weak points across the split.
- It forces you to write down actual numbers instead of trusting memory, which is how you spot the weeks you genuinely added weight versus the weeks you just felt stronger.
- The structure keeps you honest about volume per muscle group — I caught myself undershooting rear delt work on pull day until I could see it in writing.
What doesn’t
- It’s paper, which means you have to actually carry it or be disciplined about writing in it post-workout instead of checking your phone.
- There’s no built-in calculator or RPE scale guidance, so you have to know what you’re measuring and why before you start logging.
I almost ditched it after week two because I forgot to bring it to the gym twice and felt like I was wasting time writing instead of resting between sets, but once I started reviewing the past month’s data, the patterns became too valuable to ignore. Fitness Workout Journal for Women & Men
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Written by Jordan Ellis
Jordan Ellis is a personal trainer with over eight years of experience helping everyday people get stronger and move better. He focuses on home fitness: effective training spaces, equipment that earns its price, and programs that work in a spare room or basement, not just a commercial gym.
