Push Pull Legs Routine: How to Schedule 3, 4, and 5 Day Workout Plans

Option #2: Four Days On, Three Days Off

Since Push Pull Legs is a three day rotation, if you decide to train four days in a row, you’ll need to train the same muscle groups on day 1 and day 4. This means you won’t have as much recovery time between hitting the same muscle groups. To get around this, you can alternate between different focus muscle groups.

What Are Focus Muscle Groups?

Focus muscle groups refer to the targeting of specific muscles within a workout with more volume, intensity and load than the other muscles in that same workout. The Push Pull Legs training split groups your muscles together based on how they work when performing compound exercises.

Push Day: Chest, Shoulders and Triceps
Pull Day: Back, Trapezius, Rear Delts and Biceps
Leg Day: Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Glutes and Calves

Even though you’re able to train more than one muscle group each day, you don’t always want to target each muscle with the same volume, intensity or load.

For example, one Push Day might be geared towards hitting Chest really hard and going easy on the Shoulders. This is a “Chest-focused Push Day”. The next Push Day workout you can do the opposite, going harder on Shoulders and Triceps and lighter on Chest. This is a “Shoulders-and-Triceps-focused Push Day”.

Focus muscle groups allow you to systematically track exercises from one workout to the next, achieve greater balance and optimize recovery on a PPL workout plan.

To illustrate this, here’s a three week schedule with day 1 and day 4 of each week highlighted:

Here you can see that we alternate between the focus muscle groups on the first and third workout of each week.

Chest is the focus of the first Push workout on Monday. Shoulders and Triceps are the focus muscles for the second workout on Thursday. The exercises will vary depending on the focus muscle group. You can manage the volume and intensity between each muscle and balance the load evenly from week to week.

The same applies in Week 2 for both Pull Days. On Monday, focus on heavy Back exercises at the start of your workout. On Thursday, Biceps are the focus, meaning you’ll prioritize Biceps towards the start of the workout and more volume will be dedicated to Biceps than Back.

You can target your Biceps more by performing different variations of curls, like hammer curls or concentration curls. Also by performing underhand Pull ups (Chin Ups) or using an underhanded grip on Lat Pulldowns to target your Biceps more.

In Week 3, Quads/Calves are the focus of the first Leg workout and Hamstrings/Glutes are the focus muscles for the second Leg workout.

It’s important to note that regardless of what the focus muscle group is, you should still target the other muscles in that group. So even if the focus group is Hamstrings/Glutes, you’re still hitting Quads/Calves during the workout, just to a lesser extent.

Option #3: Rest Day in the Middle

An alternative to Option #2 is to train Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday, which places a rest day in the middle of the training days. 2 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on, 2 days off, repeat. Here the focus muscle group training days are on the first and fifth days of each week.

The only difference between this and option #2 is that option #3 has a rest day in the middle. This creates more space between your workouts for added recovery and volume distribution throughout the week. The rotation of workouts, exercises and the focus muscles remain the same as in option #2.

In my opinion, this is the most ideal four day PPL routine. The biggest reason is because the rest day in the middle helps balance the workload better. Training four days straight can be difficult to manage and often you might find that you start losing intensity on the third and fourth day. With option #3, you’re only ever training two consecutive days which means more intensity and time to recover between workouts.

5 Day Push Pull Legs Routine

Lifting weights 5 days a week is probably the most ideal for building muscle. I say probably, since that’s only been my experience. When I think back to the years when I saw the most significant muscle gains, it was when I trained 5 days a week. There are conflicting opinions around optimum training frequency. Some people believe that it’s better to lift only 3 days a week, while others may prefer six days a week. However, when it comes to an effective Push Pull Legs routine, I think five days a week is the sweet spot. In the following sections, you’ll understand why this is the case.

How to Schedule Your 5 Day Push Pull Legs Routine

As we saw earlier, scheduling workouts is not about how many times you train in a calendar week, but rather how many times in a rolling seven day period. For this reason, consider using a dry erase calendar to schedule your PPL routine.

Most planners and journals only show you a daily, or weekly view. Looking at one week at a time doesn’t provide you enough context on your schedule since you can’t visualize the weeks before, or after. Using a dry erase calendar helps you visualize the entire month, allowing you to make adjustments, and plan your workouts in advance.

Before scheduling your workouts, the first step is deciding how many days you want to train each week. In this case, we’re lifting five days a week, with two days off.

Next, we want to choose which days to take off. In a moment I’ll show you how to fill in your schedule, but first I want to clarify the purpose of rest days and how they fit into your training plan.

How to Schedule Training & Rest Days

To create your 5 day PPL routine, start by choosing one day a week as a designated rest day. This will be the same day every week. I call this the “anchor day”. Like an anchor to a ship, this rest day anchors your schedule and determines the rest of your week.

You’re not necessarily “locked in” to your decision or anything. However, there’s something to be said about committing to a schedule and sticking to it. Be intentional about your rest days and avoid the habit of spontaneously taking days off.

When scheduling your 5 day workout schedule, there are only two rules:

If you follow this formula, your workouts will naturally fall into place. Here are two examples of what this looks like.

Option #1: Front Load Workouts 3 | 1 | 2 | 1

3 days on – 1 day off – 2 days on – 1 day off, repeat. It’s called “Front Load” because you’re loading up the first part of the week with most of the workouts.

The following example shows a three week workout plan. After the three weeks are up, you would simply start back at the first week and repeat the cycle. Also note that we’re still using focus muscle groups here even though the columns are not highlighted. The focus muscle group is indicated in the blue rows.

Option #2: Back Load Workouts 2 | 1 | 3 | 1

2 days on – 1 day off – 3 days on – 1 day off, repeat. This option is referred to as “Back Load” because most of your workouts occur on the back half of the week. Here’s a three week example:

Both options are basically the same. The only difference between front load and back load is whether you start your training week with three consecutive workouts or two consecutive workouts.

Regardless of which option you choose, your anchor day remains the same, which again is the designated rest day each week that determines the rest of your weekly schedule. In this example, the anchor day for both options is Sunday. From that point, follow the 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 sequence to schedule front loaded workouts, or 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 for a back loaded workout schedule.

When Should You Train Abs on Push Pull Legs?

The only exercise I do for abs are hanging leg raises. I do these at the end of my Push workout, since I don’t want to pre-exhaust my core before doing my heavier lifts. On Pull day, I have no more grip strength left to hang from the bar and my legs are usually too tired after leg day to do leg raises.

One option is to train your core on days that you don’t lift weights. You can alternate the rest days between cardio and abs, or you can do cardio and abs on the same day. Your core is pretty small when compared to the other muscles on your body. So you don’t have to worry about giving your abs a lot of rest time. In my opinion, you don’t need to hit your abs with a lot of volume or heavy resistance.

If your primary goal is to have a streamlined v-taper and six pack abs, training your abs harder will not get you there. It’s good to have a strong core, but your diet is the most important factor for getting visible abs.

Conclusion