Are you looking for a balanced workout plan that’s easy to follow? The push pull legs routine is a popular choice among fitness enthusiasts. It divides workouts into three days, targeting different muscle groups to ensure comprehensive training and optimal recovery.

The PPL workout utilizes compound and isolation exercises, making them ideal for building strength and improving endurance. Suitable for beginners and experienced lifters alike, this split can be customized to fit any fitness level or goal. 

Additionally, this approach provides a flexible yet structured plan to accommodate a busy lifestyle. It allows you to choose training days, rest days, and optional active recovery sessions to suit your schedule. Let’s dive into the structure, exercises, and benefits of this transformative workout plan.

3-Day Push Pull Legs Routine

Each day of the 3-day workout split targets specific areas of the body while ensuring other muscle groups sufficiently recover. This approach promotes balanced development, minimizes fatigue, and keeps you progressing steadily.

A typical weekly schedule involves alternating training and rest days, making it suitable for most fitness levels. For example:

• Monday: Push.
• Tuesday: Rest.
• Wednesday: Pull.
• Thursday: Rest.
• Friday: Legs.
• Saturday: Rest.
• Sunday: Optional active recovery.

By targeting complementary muscle groups on each day, the PPL split ensures that exercises build upon one another. Over time, this allows for consistent progression, improved endurance, and reduced risk of injury. Below, we outline the exercises and goals for each day.

Day 1: Push

The push workout targets your chest, shoulders, and triceps, emphasizing pressing and extension movements. 

Start with the barbell military press, which primarily works the shoulders and triceps. It builds overhead pressing strength and stability. The dumbbell bench press follows. It activates the chest, shoulders, and triceps with a greater range of motion compared to the barbell version. 

Next, dumbbell lateral raises isolate the deltoids (the shoulder muscles). This movement improves shoulder aesthetics and strength. The dumbbell tricep extension targets the triceps, enhancing upper arm strength and supporting other pressing movements. 

The penultimate exercise is the machine chest fly. This isolates and stretches the chest muscles, promoting flexibility and enhancing shape. Finally, tricep pushdowns strengthen the triceps further, ensuring better arm functionality and definition.

Combined, these exercises deliver a comprehensive upper-body workout. How many sets and reps should I do? Recommendations have been provided below. However, focusing on what feels right for your body and goals is important.

Day 2: Pull

The pull workout develops the back, biceps, and trapezius muscles. It focuses on pulling and curling movements to build strength, size, and posture. It also includes compound exercises for mass and isolation movements to refine and balance the upper body.

Begin with the barbell deadlift, a compound exercise that targets the entire posterior chain, including the back, glutes, and hamstrings. Next, is the lat pulldown which emphasizes the latissimus dorsi to enhance back width and improve back strength.

Following on is the T-Bar Row which strengthens the mid-back and rear delts, supporting better posture and scapular (shoulder blade) control. Dumbbell shrugs are next and these target the traps (large muscles in your upper back and neck). 

The dumbbell bicep curl builds size and definition by targeting the biceps. On the other hand, the Bayesian curl allows a fuller range of motion. By emphasizing the stretch at the longest muscle length it helps to maximize hypertrophy.

Day 3: Legs

This session targets the quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, calves, and abs, ensuring lower-body strength and core stability.

Begin with the barbell squat, a fundamental movement for building quad, hamstring, and glute strength. Next up is the barbell stiff-legged deadlift. Deadlift benefits include enhancing posterior chain functionality by working the hamstrings and glutes. The posterior chain is the muscles on the back of your body, including the lower back, glutes, hamstrings, and calves.

Leg extensions isolate the quadriceps, improving endurance and muscle definition. To complement this exercise,  lying leg curls strengthen the hamstrings and promote balanced lower-body development. 

Seated calf raises target the calves, enhancing ankle stability and improving overall functional movement. Finally, the hip abduction/adduction machine focuses on the hip stabilizers. Strong hip abductor muscles are critical for good balance and mobility.  

These exercises create a strong, functional lower body while emphasizing core engagement. Thus, they support better posture, balance, and reduced back pain. Lower back pain affects an estimated 619 million people globally. 

Why You Should Use A PPL Workout Split

Balanced Full-Body Development

The push pull legs split ensures all major muscle groups receive adequate and equal attention. By dividing workouts into related muscle groups and movements, the routine minimizes overtraining and maximizes results.

A balanced approach to training reduces the risk of muscular imbalances, which can lead to injury. Furthermore, the likelihood of long-term consistency with training is increased because of the variety. The same muscles are not worked on back-to-back days and different focuses can help prevent burnout and waning motivation.

Efficient Training

The structure of the PPL workout allows muscle groups to recover while others are being trained. This reduces fatigue and allows the body to perform at full strength during each session. 

Recovery periods between sessions promote better muscle repair, reducing soreness and overtraining risks. Efficient recovery ensures sustained progress, as muscles rebuild stronger after each workout. This maximizes gains without the need for overly long rest periods or training every day. 

Customizable For All Levels

Whether you’re a novice or an advanced lifter, the PPL split is easily adaptable. Beginners can focus on mastering form with lighter weights, while experienced lifters can increase intensity through progressive overload. Regardless of intensity, the structure stays the same.

The flexibility of sets and reps allows you to tailor the routine to specific targets. The same split and exercises can be used, whether the goal is strength, hypertrophy, or endurance. This versatility makes PPL a long-term solution for fitness progression regardless of experience. 

Advanced lifters can utilize drop sets (training to failure, then reducing the weight and repeating) to further challenge their muscles. Meanwhile, beginners can modify exercises or reduce intensity, ensuring they progress safely and effectively. Its scalability makes it valuable for transitioning between different phases of training.

How To Apply Progressive Overload In A PPL Routine

When planning a workout routine, common questions include “How many sets per muscle?” or “How much weight should I use?”. Unfortunately, there isn’t one universal number that is right for everyone. 

The key to growth is about continuously making your muscles work hard. The sets, reps, and weight needed will depend on an individual’s fitness level and experience. 

Let’s say you complete an exercise lifting 10kg for three sets with eight reps per set and this is challenging. If you do this for long enough, this will become easy and your muscle growth will plateau. 

Therefore, as an exercise becomes easier you need to change the parameters to maintain its difficulty. This technique is called progressive overload, and it is crucial for consistent muscle growth and strength gains.

There are many ways to apply progressive overload to a PPL routine. One of the most common is to start by adding extra weight to your lifts in small increments. Focus on maintaining proper form as you increase resistance.

You can also increase the number of reps or sets for each exercise. Consistently increasing your total volume promotes better muscular adaptation and growth. 

Another method is reducing rest periods between sets. Moreover, incorporating advanced variations, such as paused reps or tempo changes, is another effective way to add difficulty.

Tracking your progress is key. Use a training log to monitor weights, reps, and sets, ensuring consistent progression. By applying these techniques, you’ll prevent plateaus and maintain steady improvements.

Incorporating progressive overload requires patience and discipline. Avoid increasing intensity too quickly to reduce the risk of injury. Instead, focus on gradual, measurable improvements that align with your long-term fitness goals.

A Note About Rest And Recovery 

Rest days are as vital as training days. They allow your muscles to repair and grow, ensuring you’re ready for the next workout. The time needed to recover fully varies based on factors such as physical fitness and training intensity. However, on average, muscles need 48–72 hours to repair between workouts.

Moreover, active recovery strategies can help optimize downtime. For example, jogging can reduce inflammatory markers and yoga can decrease muscle soreness and improve flexibility. Listening to your body is essential. Overtraining can hinder progress and increase the risk of injury. Balancing effort and recovery ensures long-term success.

Conclusion

The push pull legs routine is a versatile workout split that promotes balanced strength, muscular development, and recovery. Its structure ensures all muscle groups are trained efficiently while providing ample time for rest.

Moreover, the adaptability of this routine ensures it remains relevant as you progress. Whether training for aesthetics, performance, or general fitness, the PPL split offers a sustainable path to success. Stay consistent, challenge yourself, and enjoy the transformation.