Push Pull Legs Split: Simple Plan for Strength and Balance

At this stage of your life, you may have been spending several years dividing your resistance training workouts into daily rituals devoted to individual body parts. This is because you learned the practice from that bodybuilding friend of yours who introduced you to fitness, and you’ve stuck with it ever since, even though you feel like all of the excitement left your workouts long ago.

If you find yourself identifying with this scenario, then the push-pull-leg training split might be one of the most freeing discoveries that you’ll ever make in your iron-pumping life. Not only does it have the potential to reshape the workout norms that you once regarded as completely inflexible, but it also makes rational sense from multiple standpoints. 

Why You Should Try the Push-Pull-Leg Split

First, if you’re tired of taking the granular approach that is part and parcel to training your muscle groups like a bodybuilder and working each muscle fiber to failure from every conceivable angle, the push-pull split will potentially result in a reduction in your total rep and set count.

Second, the push-pull split permits you to actually feel like your workout is accomplishing something from a functional perspective. Since the work of your muscles can usually be separated into one of two categories — pushing or pulling — at a given time, a push-pull split can help you feel like your workout is driving you toward a larger goal of getting stronger at a specific set of tasks, as opposed to trying to make a relatively small section of your anatomy larger.

All of this makes excellent sense from the waist up; from the waist down, it can be smart to keep things even simpler, and stick to the dreaded gym tradition known as “leg day.” This keeps you from having to break your leg exercises into push and pull movements, which is functionally a near impossibility for several reasons.

For starters, while there are clearly some leg exercises that are classified as pushing exercises — like leg presses and squats for instance — exercises like deadlifts move the muscles in nearly identical patterns, but are still characterized as “pulls.”

Then there are portions of your legs that perform a complex set of movements, like your glutes. Despite being located in the rear of your body, your glutes operate within your hips, which are a ball-in-socket joint like your shoulders. This means that your glutes can essentially engage in both pulling and pushing movements depending on what the situation calls for.

A Basic Push-Pull-Leg Split

Here is a breakdown of a simple push-pull-leg training split of six exercises that you can use to build your body in a focused way, and with minimal gym machinery.

Push Day

1. Barbell Bench Press

2. Bodyweight Dips

3. Incline Dumbbell Bench Presses

4. Overhead Presses

5. Anterior Dumbbell Raises

6. Tricep Kickbacks/Extensions

Pull Day

1. Pull-Ups

2. Standing Barbell Rows

3. Dumbbell Bent-Over Rows

4. Medial Dumbbell Raises

5. Posterior Dumbbell Raises

6. Standing Barbell Curls

Leg Day

1. Standing Barbell Squats

2. Barbell Deadlifts

3. Leg Presses

4. Walking Lunges

5. Seated Leg Extensions

6. Seated Hamstring Curls

A Functional Approach to Training

Separating your exercises in these three function-focused groups will assure the balance and operability of your body. It will also permit you to concentrate on boosting your ability in a specific way as opposed to expanding an isolated group of muscles. 

This isn’t to say that there is anything wrong with taking a bodybuilder’s approach to training, but if a training strategy is more likely to elevate your motivation, ensure your workout participation, and improve the overall health of your body, then that’s a strategy that’s worth exploring.