There is no such thing as the “perfect program.”
Believe me, I’ve been trying to write “it” for 20+ years.
The one thing I’ve learned over time is that there is no “perfect” program – only what is best for you at the time.
What program best suits your goals? and what program will allow you to train the most effectively and as consistently as possible.
A Push-Pull-Legs program may check a lot of those boxes for you.
But like all programs, it has some “holes.” For many, these won’t be an issue at all or will be mitigated by the programs benefits.
I generally prescribe Push-Pull-Legs routines for clients who are biasing their training more towards hypertrophy than just strength only.
But with all programs, what exercises and rep ranges you choose to focus on will largely determine whether it’s a “strength biased” or “hypertrophy biased” routine.
And of course there is a large amount of overlap between the two anyways.
Pro #1: Tremendous Flexibility
The biggest “pro”, in my opinion, for a PPL routine is the flexibility it affords. Because all the overlapping muscles are more or less consolidated to a single session, then it’s easy to program sessions around a chaotic busy schedule.
You can easily do 3, 4, 5, or even 6 days per week.
I currently do mostly 4 days per week:
Monday – Legs
Tuesday – Push
Wednesday – Off
Thursday – Pull
Friday – Legs (start cycle over again)
Saturday – Off
Sunday – Off
Monday – Push
Tuesday – Pull
Wednesday – Off
Thursday – Legs (start cycle over again)
But sometimes I have an itch to go to the gym on a Saturday or Sunday, and I can add that 5th day of the week very easily without impacting the program. I just go to the next workout in sequence:
Monday – Legs
Tuesday – Push
Thursday – Pull
Friday – Legs
Saturday – Push
Monday – Pull
Tuesday – Start sequence over again with Legs
Some weeks, I head out of town early on Fridays to go work on my ranch and on those weeks I may only get 3 days per week. No problem and it doesn’t impact the routine:
Monday – Legs
Tuesday – Push
Thursday – Pull
Monday – pick cycle back up with Legs
It’s a tremendously flexible program in terms of scheduling and if you have a job that makes it hard to stick to the same days each week, PPL may work really well for you.
Pro #2: Easy Recovery
Doing all the Leg training on one day, all the Chest, Shoulder, Tricep training on one day, and all the Back/Bicep training on one day means that recovery is a snap. Even if I kick my frequency up to 5-6 days per week I always feel pretty fresh and recovered for each session as each muscle group will easily have 3-4 days of complete rest before training it again.
At 43, I just don’t recover with 1-2 days between like muscle groups anymore.
Now the Cons…..
Con #1: May not be ideal if Arms are your priority
My philosophy behind training severely lagging muscle groups is that they should be prioritized in a way that allows you to train them in a fresh state with 100% effort and load. This is hard to do with PPL.
Training triceps after chest and shoulders and biceps after back means you’ll be training them fatigued.
Can they still grow? Absolutely.
But if you’ve had really stubborn luck with growing the bis and tris, you might want to do a routine where you can train each of them fresh – preferably on their own day.
Con #2: Deadlifts can be hard to slot
Deadlifts don’t fit neatly into the PPL program. They are both a leg and a back exercise and you have to take into account the fatigue on both body parts to program them in effectively.
On a 3 day per week program it’s easy:
Monday: Legs
Wednesday: Push
Friday: Pull (include Deadlifts on this day)
I don’t Deadlift that much any more but I still do a lot of Rack Pulling and Romanian Deadlifts.
Here’s how I handle it on my 4-day routine (Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri).
- When a Leg Day falls on either a Monday or Thursday I usually do Romanian Deadlift on these days (no back day the following day).
- When a Back Day falls on a Tuesday or Friday I usually Rack Pull on those days (no Leg Day the following day).
So I try and avoid a heavy hip extension movement the day before back or the day before legs. As I don’t like going into either of those sessions with my low back very fatigued from heavy pulling just 24 hours prior.
If this program sounds like a good fit for you, you can get much much more detail here: Flexible Hypertrophy: Legs, Push, Pull Program – Andy Baker
