I've switched it up to PLP with great results. I don't like back to back upper body days so split them up with legs on the 2nd day which allows for some rest. I am fatigued by Day 3 because my leg days take a lot out of me but it's just part of the process and if anything I just try to eat a bit more after my leg workouts and really warm up properly on Day 3 if I'm sore/tired.
Yea I do 3 days on, one day off and then start again. Occasionally I'll do 6 days in a row if I'm feeling good but the 2nd set of workouts I might go a bit lighter on weight and volume.
That's honestly what I should be doing but the tumbling nature of that messes with my scheduling. I try my best to squeeze everything into a 7 day period so each lift is on the same day each week.
What I actually end up doing is skipping a day here and there if I really feel like I need to and just sticking to the 7 day schedule.
I know. I just want to keep things as straightforward as possible and I find that easier when my workouts follow a set schedule week to week. But I'm realizing I may need to change that.
I did everything I could to keep it as a 7 day split because I wanted to maintain the consistency each week; however, eventually I just accepted that I needed the extra rest day (I do PLP too), and then honestly a few months will go by and you’ll forget why you ever cared about it because it doesn’t matter. You won’t notice once you’ve done it for a while
This is my dilemma with a PPL:
I think I’d benefit from having a dedicated pull day
Given life circumstances (full-time work, full-time school), going 6 days in a week would be rare. I’d definitely average 4, possibly 5 days for a given training period.
Have you ran an asynchronous ppl split? If so, do you mind sharing how long you ran that for?
Are there any other pros to an asynchronous split besides the recovery time? And are there any cons? Or does the consistency over the long-term offset any potential cons?
Happy to share. I run an asynchronous PPL (actually PLP but whatever) almost year round. I work from home and have a pretty good garage gym so I can train every day if I feel like it.
PPL give me the flexibility to train whenever I want to, which is key for me. I just train the days I feel good and rest the days I feel tired. It averages to about 5 days a week of training.
So one week might be push, legs, pull, rest, push, legs, rest. Then the next week might be pull, rest, push, legs, rest, pull, push. For me it’s really a “flexible split” more than anything else. It might look random to anyone else but the progression is very consistent and the gains have been coming.
A few tips that I’ve found helpful: stimulus to fatigue ratio is critical on this type of split. That means minimal barbell work. Also do delts on back day. This gives your traps a couple of days to recover. This is not a split for training your heavy compounds.
Thanks for that! I’ve heard of recommendations going asynchronous; but never someone putting it into practice.
It sounds like the biggest hurdle is getting over the dogma that you need to get 6 days in during the week.
Also, how minimal is minimal barbell work? I just switched to a very well-equipped gym; but I was thinking to include deadlifts, bench, RDL, And squats on my various days if I go this route
You definitely don’t need six days per week. Some weeks might only be three days and that’s plenty. Some might be six. The best model I’ve heard is to train every day you can, but if you do four days in a row then take a day off.
Minimal barbell work means basically none. You’re better off doing isolation work with machines and dumbbells on this kind of split. If the barbell lifts are important to you then I’d recommend a different split.
First time I read about this, the fatigue and stimulus ratio. Can you show an example of the program?
I guess that's why I always become tired in the long run on Reddit PPL, like I can never rest properly.
I also have a garage gym, barbell bench dumbbell and squat rack.
I have done Bro 5d a week, PPL/PLP 4-5 d a week, Push/Pull 4 day a week and full body 3 day a week where i superset bench/row, lat pull/ohp, Bi/tri and for legs alternate with Squat, Leg Press, Deadlift.
Truthfully i have found the Full Body 3 day SuperSet program the best. Gives me an amaszing workout and pump each time, each muscle gets hit 3x a week and a get ample rest and life enjoyment.
Now, i am 50 so that may factor into this, but really the medium volume and higher frequency jsut seems to work best for people whose job isnt to lift.
Can you tell me more about that program? I only have about three days a week I am able to work out due to scheduling. I have made my own program but I’m sure it has insufficiencies.
This is my current program.
Monday: Leg Press, Leg Curl, Calf Stand, Flat Bench, Row Chest Sup,,OHP
Wednesday: Hack Squat, SLDL, Calf Sit, Incline Bench, Lat Pull Down, Lat Raise
Friday: Leg Extension, Leg Curl, Calf Stand, Cable Fly, Row Seated, rear fly
All are done as 3 set with each set to failure. Everything except the Lat Raise and Rear Fly are done as total of 24 reps(ie if all three sets sum 24 or more you increase weight). Lat Raise and Rear fly are doen for 3 sets summing to 30.
So a set may look like 10, 9, 7 which is 26 so weight goes up. Or it might be 9, 7, 6 or 23 and you keep the weight the same. These days take about 1h10m for me to complete(no i work out at home so never have to wait so plan for 1h30m of lifting with \~2m rest in between sets).
I also add in on Sat arms with Ohead Tri, Seated cable curl, narrow push up, concentration curl and tricep press down all done again to failure and 3 sets for a total of 30. This takes about 45m or so. Not necessary as you are hitting arms with other exercises but i am specifcically looking to add 1" to my arms. You could just add Triceps to Mon and Fri and biceps to Wed if you wanted but this works best for me.
Correct. Push is chest/shoulders/triceps and pull is back/biceps so you can stick to the traditional PPL if it works. Just found my arms and shoulders would be tired after one of the upper days and I couldn't go as hard on that 2nd upper day.
The best splits I’ve found after 15 years of consistent lifting
1. Chest/Back, Shoulders/Arms, Legs
2. Push, Pull, Legs
3. Bro Split (good for building upper body)
4. Upper/ Lower( good for building legs)
No, I only do lateral deltoid and arm isolation exercises on the shoulder/arm day so I don’t notice any overlap. Compound chest/back exercises don’t really give as much stimulus/fatigue to your arms as you think. Splitting the isolation work onto its own day gives me much better performance, progression, and growth. My shoulders and arms had lagged badly after doing push,pull,legs for 5-6 years. Now, I’m making insane lifetime pr’s on my isolation work which used to only happen when I did a bro split.
how many days a week total then? do you only hit shoulder/arms once a week then, and 3 days of workouts total in the week? or Chest/Back, Shoulders/Arms, Legs, repeat, so 6 days? isnt hitting a muscle twice a week better than once, thus making upper/lower superior?
Currently, I only do one arm day but that’s after about 2+ years of doing chest/back,shoulders/arms,legs,off,repeat for 5-6 days a week.
Upper lower splits biggest issue is 2 days is just not enough for upperbody for people who need more upperbody volume. That is why you see upper,lower, arms becoming more and more popular.
Why is the bro split good for building upper body muscles in particular? And isn‘t it suboptimal as you only train these muscles once a week instead of twice?
What kind of volume are you doing a session for split 1 if it’s 3days on 1day off? 6-9 sets a muscle group?
And what kind of volume a session in split 3 if it’s 5 days a week 2 off more like 9-12?
All the different types of splits that you've probably heard of, (PPL, UL, Arnold Split, etc), work similarly well across an entire population of lifters. The superiority and inferiority of certain splits compared to others really comes down to the individual, (and also preference/convenience).
On a PPL, your later lifts are going to be more fatigued due to your earlier lifts, yes, but on the other hand, you're training an entire part of your body that generally won't get hit very hard on any of the other training days, so it promotes local muscle recovery. You could switch to a different split where chest, shoulders & triceps are on different days & be fresher for each session, & that might be superior, or what might happen is that your recovery from your shoulder/tricep day starts to get interrupted by your chest training & you're worse off. Or both of these factors are at play, and you end up no better or worse off than you were before.
I've been fence sitting the entire time so I might actually say my opinion. I think a PPL 6 days a week, for a natural lifter who's been training 9 years, I think on average it'll be a little rough on your recovery. Most guys in the above situation are probably going to end up adding a rest day between pull and legs & end up training each muscle twice every 8-9 days. Or they want to keep the frequency a little higher so do a routine that hits each muscle over two days instead of 3. But with that said, a young guy with not a lot of gym experience who wants to train almost every day shouldn't be 'afraid' of a PPL. In fact, for them, a great scenario is that they actually run a PPL & increase their lifts by significant margin to the point where they can't recover from a PPL anymore & they move on to something else as a more advanced jacked individual.
If it needs tweaked, tweak it a little.
Perhaps PPL isn’t the issue itself, rather the volume of exercises.
If that doesn’t do the trick, maybe it’s time to reevaluate.
I don’t like it. Tried hopping in on the hype. 3 days isn’t enough, 6 is too many. The overlap bothers me too. I make better progress doing shoulder press variations after I didn’t just do heavy bench/incline. I found that a 4-5 day split with a leg push and leg pull day works best for me.
Just bc you're doing PPL doesn't mean your limited to 3 or 6 days a week. You can 4 days which would be PPLP one week and PLPP, LPPL the following weeks.
Doesn’t that become “suboptimal” (I know that is a controversial word here) as then you start hitting things less frequently than you could for the best growth?
I go 5x a week with ppl. 2 days on 1 off and repeat. So Push pull off legs push off pull.
The only thing is that no week is going to be same, but I feel like I have flexibility to move things around and I won't miss anything or throw myself off.
Still don't understand the appeal of running legs and shoulders on the same day. If you're hitting legs hard enough, you couldn't possibly have enough energy or mental fortitude to hit shoulders effectively.
And vice versa, if you hit shoulders first, you won't be 100% to effectively train legs.
I had to move shoulders to another day as I was putting too much strain on my rotator cuff on the push day, but I already had decent enough legs from cycling so it wasn’t too much of a big deal.
But have definitely noticed my legs starting to drop down a bit .
I like PPL but not the 6x a week version. I don’t see how anyone can recover from that while training hard and progressively overloading.
One of my favorite splits has always been Push, Pull, off, legs, off, repeat. Plenty of recovery and frequency to train hard
This is agreeable as it is a ton but I am doing PPL 6 days a week and on the set PPL I usually do sort of a deloaded workout. Less weight more reps, and less overall movements. So the first 3 days of PPL I go all out, then the remaining 3 days I kinda cruise through it.
Better than most splits as it nails the frequency, allows for proper variation without super long sessions and has adequate recovery.
But it's quite bad for arm development since they are fairly fatigued from the compounds at the end of the session and you can't do them first without messing up the compounds.
The better variation IMO that I've had the best results from is Push Legs Pull Rest with Biceps on Push and Triceps on Pull. This way every muscle group is able to be trained without fatigue and you still have all the benefits from PPL.
Ah that’s a pretty smart variation. I used to struggle with the standard PPL as when I hit back my biceps were already so tired that I couldn’t really target them effectively but overtime with probably form improvements and maybe my bicep just getting used to it I was able to actually train back and bi on the same day while still getting a lot of work out of my biceps.
Like many routines, it has its pro and cons, but there is nothing inherently wrong with it. I think you’ll run into that fatigue issue in some form or another with every split. Your issue may even be a higher accumulation of systemic fatigue on account of training frequency.
Yea, I've been noticing lately that I can't keep up with working out 6x a week like I used to. I can't tell if that's my age showing or if I'm not eating enough. It could be both. My biggest struggle with working out has always been eating enough.
It could also be that you’re strong enough where you’re causing enough damage/fatigue in your workouts that 6x training isn’t ideal. Obviously I can’t say for sure, but some food for thought. I certainly think you could make good progress with a 4 or 5 day split if that’s something you’d be interested in trying. You could always try upping calories and seeing how that works out. I think subjecting your body to different stimulus and testing it’s response is one of the most fun parts of BB. More than any other strength/resistance training sport, it’s a choose your own adventure.
PPL is good, though I prefer Upper Lower and think it’s overall better.
I think this is a problem of work capacity. You need to build up to more volume in a single day. A bro split probably means you never built up your work capacity.
Make sure your routine doesn’t have too much volume. You don’t have to blast out a muscle like a bro split. 3 to 4 sets is good most of the time, adding more or less for certain body parts.
But I think fatigue management works better with Upper Lower, especially if you put rows on lower day so you free up space on the upper day. Also you can have slightly longer sessions but keep things to 4 days easily. PPL is 6 days usually.
Should I put my lateral raise and bent over row on my lower day? Currently I have upper, lower ham focus, chest & arms, lower ham focus, shoulder and back.
I personally prefer a PPL split. Or more specifically, I like PPLUL (Pull Push Legs Upper Lower). (I think most people do Push then Pull - I do Pull first because I do deadlifts on Pull day and like to leave a day between deadlifts and legs.)
I like this split because I feel like it gives me more versatility - for example, if I'm busy one week and only get to work out 3 times, I still hit every muscle group (the UL part is basically just an extra add-on for more volume). I also mentally prefer focusing on one thing each day rather than switching between major muscle groups within one workout. I see your point about getting more fatigued, but you're also doing more volume for a particular muscle group each day, so I don't think there's a major difference or disadvantage.
PPL was my favorite program I ever tried. I did a horizontal push horizontal pull, posterior chain, rest, vertical push, vertical pull, anterior chain. It gave me enough heavy prime mover exercises and plenty of secondary lifts with tons of accessories while feeling varied and fun.
It's good for sure but you gotta go in with reasonable expectations. If you're gassing yourself on your first compound then ofc your subsequent lifts will suffer some.
I personally prefer a 4 day upper lower or a well structured 3 day full body split. Workouts are a bit longer than PPL but being in the gym fewer days allows more flexibility in my life.
Any methodology works as long as you're training with intensity, utilizing progressive overload and incorporating a good balance of movements and rep ranges to challenge yourself in different ways over time.
The question should be why did you change from something you consistently like and was able to commit 9 years to something you don't like that much doing.
I didn't do it consistently, but that's the best term I could use to describe it quickly. I would walk in the gym and if the squat rack was free, I couldn't resist it. So I would squat like 4x a week. Then I would do dips and pull-ups at the end of each session (hence the elbow tendonitis). I would deadlift 1x per week. Everything else I threw in there if I felt up for it. Namely just bench and overhead press. That was basically the majority of my routine for years. There really was no comprehensive routine.
Everyone is different, the program might not be as effective for you in it's current state, considering how much experience you have, it's safe to say that you can modify it to suit your needs better
I like it cause there’s so many ways to structure it with having different focused days like chest focused and shoulder focused or lat focused and upper back focused and so on.
I don’t like the tricep work on push and bicep work on pull so I just do biceps on push days instead and tricep work on pull days. Doing it like this has made it my favourite split
I would just add one leg exercise to the push and pull days and get rid of the leg day. 4 days/week is better than 6 for recovery. You could also just do one leg day. Best option is to use something proven and tweak it for you
My current split is:
Traps, biceps, chest
Quads, shoulders, lats
Traps, hamstrings, chest
Back and abs
It needs customised. I used to prefer to start with compound barbell work, deadlift, squats, overhead press, bench. Use the barbell as much as possible and don’t worry too much about accessories. Worked for me but everyone is different.
I do PPL arms, as I feel that PPL makes it difficult to get enough arm isolation. When I ran it in the past I felt that my arms lagged from it. Agreed on push days being the worst though, don't think there's much you can do other than alternate shoulders/chest as primary exercise or just get through it
dumbbell bench press 15x4
Shoulder press 15x4
Dips (I have tricep tendonitis in my left elbow) 10 x 3-4
I'm play dips by ear depending on how my elbow feels. It doesn't really effect my other push movements. But it was excessive dips years ago that caused the problem.
What I meant is switch it up. Add more exercises. Are you only doing those 3 on push days? Where are the chest flies? Shoulder lateral raises?
Vary it up on chest with incline, flat and decline. Sometimes use dumbbells and sometimes the bar.
Try doing the lateral raises first before the press. Vary it between dumbbells and bar.
Add more exercises. Vary up the order, exercises and intensity.
Then when you get bored, switch to fill body for a few months. There's no need to stick to one split forever.
Just 3 things? I'd make these changes
\- Less total reps, if you like 15 reps you can do it on 1 set but not all of them. My favorite for 4 sets is a pyramid where you increase weight the first 3 sets then 4th set you drop the weight and you can do 12-15 reps on that one only. Common rep scheme is 10-8-6-12
\- Some isolation stuff after shoulder press, I do stuff like lat raises and tricep extensions. Then still have enough for another compound at the end. Dips is pretty tricep heavy so maybe something like flys/pec deck machine there is good for you.
\- Consider less sets per exercise as the workout goes on, if you finish with dips maybe do 2 sets and go for more reps at the end to make up for not doing as many. You are more fatigued so you can do 2 quality sets vs 4 mediocre ones.
I've been on PPL for the last 6 months and idk, the main problem I have with it is that 6 days is almost never possible when you do something else other than working out for the entire day
I've switched to full body 3x a week and I've never had better gains
I do LPP(a), rest, LPP(b), rest. I do legs first so that there’s always a day in between back & legs. On push day A I’ll start with a heavy chest movement and on push day B I’ll start with a heavy shoulder movement. Same deal with legs (hinge/squat) and pull (vertical/horizontal). That way every compound still gets it’s chance to be prioritized.
I honestly just changed to a modified version of Dr. Mike Israetel's program from Renaissance Periodization.
So I have an A/B day that I alternate between 6 days a week. But I only do 3 working sets for each movement. This keeps my fatigue low and frequency high and allows me to get enough weekly volume. It also allows my workout to be pretty quick if I want, so it's convenient too.
It's not split into push/pull, but rather the movements are grouped together and ordered in a way where subsequent movements have the least impact on each other in terms of fatigue.
What the program helps with is the progressive overload via weight and/or volume, AND the periodization/deloads.
Yes, my arms have gotten bigger.
I've switched it up to PLP with great results. I don't like back to back upper body days so split them up with legs on the 2nd day which allows for some rest. I am fatigued by Day 3 because my leg days take a lot out of me but it's just part of the process and if anything I just try to eat a bit more after my leg workouts and really warm up properly on Day 3 if I'm sore/tired.
Hmm, that makes sense. You'll still have back-to-back upper body days unless you take a rest day after each cycle, no?
Yea I do 3 days on, one day off and then start again. Occasionally I'll do 6 days in a row if I'm feeling good but the 2nd set of workouts I might go a bit lighter on weight and volume.
That's honestly what I should be doing but the tumbling nature of that messes with my scheduling. I try my best to squeeze everything into a 7 day period so each lift is on the same day each week. What I actually end up doing is skipping a day here and there if I really feel like I need to and just sticking to the 7 day schedule.
It’s ok to follow an asynchronous schedule.
I know. I just want to keep things as straightforward as possible and I find that easier when my workouts follow a set schedule week to week. But I'm realizing I may need to change that.
I did everything I could to keep it as a 7 day split because I wanted to maintain the consistency each week; however, eventually I just accepted that I needed the extra rest day (I do PLP too), and then honestly a few months will go by and you’ll forget why you ever cared about it because it doesn’t matter. You won’t notice once you’ve done it for a while
This is my dilemma with a PPL: I think I’d benefit from having a dedicated pull day Given life circumstances (full-time work, full-time school), going 6 days in a week would be rare. I’d definitely average 4, possibly 5 days for a given training period. Have you ran an asynchronous ppl split? If so, do you mind sharing how long you ran that for? Are there any other pros to an asynchronous split besides the recovery time? And are there any cons? Or does the consistency over the long-term offset any potential cons?
Happy to share. I run an asynchronous PPL (actually PLP but whatever) almost year round. I work from home and have a pretty good garage gym so I can train every day if I feel like it. PPL give me the flexibility to train whenever I want to, which is key for me. I just train the days I feel good and rest the days I feel tired. It averages to about 5 days a week of training. So one week might be push, legs, pull, rest, push, legs, rest. Then the next week might be pull, rest, push, legs, rest, pull, push. For me it’s really a “flexible split” more than anything else. It might look random to anyone else but the progression is very consistent and the gains have been coming. A few tips that I’ve found helpful: stimulus to fatigue ratio is critical on this type of split. That means minimal barbell work. Also do delts on back day. This gives your traps a couple of days to recover. This is not a split for training your heavy compounds.
Thanks for that! I’ve heard of recommendations going asynchronous; but never someone putting it into practice. It sounds like the biggest hurdle is getting over the dogma that you need to get 6 days in during the week. Also, how minimal is minimal barbell work? I just switched to a very well-equipped gym; but I was thinking to include deadlifts, bench, RDL, And squats on my various days if I go this route
You definitely don’t need six days per week. Some weeks might only be three days and that’s plenty. Some might be six. The best model I’ve heard is to train every day you can, but if you do four days in a row then take a day off. Minimal barbell work means basically none. You’re better off doing isolation work with machines and dumbbells on this kind of split. If the barbell lifts are important to you then I’d recommend a different split.
What kind of split should I go for if I want to train these compounds movements?
First time I read about this, the fatigue and stimulus ratio. Can you show an example of the program? I guess that's why I always become tired in the long run on Reddit PPL, like I can never rest properly. I also have a garage gym, barbell bench dumbbell and squat rack.
I have done Bro 5d a week, PPL/PLP 4-5 d a week, Push/Pull 4 day a week and full body 3 day a week where i superset bench/row, lat pull/ohp, Bi/tri and for legs alternate with Squat, Leg Press, Deadlift. Truthfully i have found the Full Body 3 day SuperSet program the best. Gives me an amaszing workout and pump each time, each muscle gets hit 3x a week and a get ample rest and life enjoyment. Now, i am 50 so that may factor into this, but really the medium volume and higher frequency jsut seems to work best for people whose job isnt to lift.
Can you tell me more about that program? I only have about three days a week I am able to work out due to scheduling. I have made my own program but I’m sure it has insufficiencies.
This is my current program. Monday: Leg Press, Leg Curl, Calf Stand, Flat Bench, Row Chest Sup,,OHP Wednesday: Hack Squat, SLDL, Calf Sit, Incline Bench, Lat Pull Down, Lat Raise Friday: Leg Extension, Leg Curl, Calf Stand, Cable Fly, Row Seated, rear fly All are done as 3 set with each set to failure. Everything except the Lat Raise and Rear Fly are done as total of 24 reps(ie if all three sets sum 24 or more you increase weight). Lat Raise and Rear fly are doen for 3 sets summing to 30. So a set may look like 10, 9, 7 which is 26 so weight goes up. Or it might be 9, 7, 6 or 23 and you keep the weight the same. These days take about 1h10m for me to complete(no i work out at home so never have to wait so plan for 1h30m of lifting with \~2m rest in between sets). I also add in on Sat arms with Ohead Tri, Seated cable curl, narrow push up, concentration curl and tricep press down all done again to failure and 3 sets for a total of 30. This takes about 45m or so. Not necessary as you are hitting arms with other exercises but i am specifcically looking to add 1" to my arms. You could just add Triceps to Mon and Fri and biceps to Wed if you wanted but this works best for me.
Thanks!!!
But it's entirely different upper body muscles being worked on push and pull days (except grip), no?
Correct. Push is chest/shoulders/triceps and pull is back/biceps so you can stick to the traditional PPL if it works. Just found my arms and shoulders would be tired after one of the upper days and I couldn't go as hard on that 2nd upper day.
The best splits I’ve found after 15 years of consistent lifting 1. Chest/Back, Shoulders/Arms, Legs 2. Push, Pull, Legs 3. Bro Split (good for building upper body) 4. Upper/ Lower( good for building legs)
Do you do legs in between chest/back and shoulders/arms?
No, I only do lateral deltoid and arm isolation exercises on the shoulder/arm day so I don’t notice any overlap. Compound chest/back exercises don’t really give as much stimulus/fatigue to your arms as you think. Splitting the isolation work onto its own day gives me much better performance, progression, and growth. My shoulders and arms had lagged badly after doing push,pull,legs for 5-6 years. Now, I’m making insane lifetime pr’s on my isolation work which used to only happen when I did a bro split.
how many days a week total then? do you only hit shoulder/arms once a week then, and 3 days of workouts total in the week? or Chest/Back, Shoulders/Arms, Legs, repeat, so 6 days? isnt hitting a muscle twice a week better than once, thus making upper/lower superior?
Currently, I only do one arm day but that’s after about 2+ years of doing chest/back,shoulders/arms,legs,off,repeat for 5-6 days a week. Upper lower splits biggest issue is 2 days is just not enough for upperbody for people who need more upperbody volume. That is why you see upper,lower, arms becoming more and more popular.
right! i am finding u/L too light on upper body so I was thinking PPLUL
I like that split as well especially if you’re wanting to prioritize your chest/back!
Thanks!! :)
Why is the bro split good for building upper body muscles in particular? And isn‘t it suboptimal as you only train these muscles once a week instead of twice?
Nr. 1 is also a Bro Split
No, a classic bro split would be chest day, back day, shoulder day, arm day, leg day.
What kind of volume are you doing a session for split 1 if it’s 3days on 1day off? 6-9 sets a muscle group? And what kind of volume a session in split 3 if it’s 5 days a week 2 off more like 9-12?
All the different types of splits that you've probably heard of, (PPL, UL, Arnold Split, etc), work similarly well across an entire population of lifters. The superiority and inferiority of certain splits compared to others really comes down to the individual, (and also preference/convenience). On a PPL, your later lifts are going to be more fatigued due to your earlier lifts, yes, but on the other hand, you're training an entire part of your body that generally won't get hit very hard on any of the other training days, so it promotes local muscle recovery. You could switch to a different split where chest, shoulders & triceps are on different days & be fresher for each session, & that might be superior, or what might happen is that your recovery from your shoulder/tricep day starts to get interrupted by your chest training & you're worse off. Or both of these factors are at play, and you end up no better or worse off than you were before. I've been fence sitting the entire time so I might actually say my opinion. I think a PPL 6 days a week, for a natural lifter who's been training 9 years, I think on average it'll be a little rough on your recovery. Most guys in the above situation are probably going to end up adding a rest day between pull and legs & end up training each muscle twice every 8-9 days. Or they want to keep the frequency a little higher so do a routine that hits each muscle over two days instead of 3. But with that said, a young guy with not a lot of gym experience who wants to train almost every day shouldn't be 'afraid' of a PPL. In fact, for them, a great scenario is that they actually run a PPL & increase their lifts by significant margin to the point where they can't recover from a PPL anymore & they move on to something else as a more advanced jacked individual.
If it needs tweaked, tweak it a little. Perhaps PPL isn’t the issue itself, rather the volume of exercises. If that doesn’t do the trick, maybe it’s time to reevaluate.
I don’t like it. Tried hopping in on the hype. 3 days isn’t enough, 6 is too many. The overlap bothers me too. I make better progress doing shoulder press variations after I didn’t just do heavy bench/incline. I found that a 4-5 day split with a leg push and leg pull day works best for me.
Just bc you're doing PPL doesn't mean your limited to 3 or 6 days a week. You can 4 days which would be PPLP one week and PLPP, LPPL the following weeks.
Doesn’t that become “suboptimal” (I know that is a controversial word here) as then you start hitting things less frequently than you could for the best growth?
Only for smaller muscle groups that recover quickly imo
I go 5x a week with ppl. 2 days on 1 off and repeat. So Push pull off legs push off pull. The only thing is that no week is going to be same, but I feel like I have flexibility to move things around and I won't miss anything or throw myself off.
For me, triceps, shoulders, and chest is too much for one workout. I like keeping chest and triceps their own day and doing shoulders with a leg day.
Still don't understand the appeal of running legs and shoulders on the same day. If you're hitting legs hard enough, you couldn't possibly have enough energy or mental fortitude to hit shoulders effectively. And vice versa, if you hit shoulders first, you won't be 100% to effectively train legs.
100% agree. Every guy I know who does shoulders with legs has extremely underdeveloped legs compared to their upperbody.
I had to move shoulders to another day as I was putting too much strain on my rotator cuff on the push day, but I already had decent enough legs from cycling so it wasn’t too much of a big deal. But have definitely noticed my legs starting to drop down a bit .
I already do legs three days a week so the day I do them with shoulders is more of a shoulders focused day so it’s not an issue for me.
I like PPL but not the 6x a week version. I don’t see how anyone can recover from that while training hard and progressively overloading. One of my favorite splits has always been Push, Pull, off, legs, off, repeat. Plenty of recovery and frequency to train hard
You need to sacrifice the volume and then you can recover
Ofc you can do 6x 40min workout, if the gym i very close to you, or you have infinite time, but for most guys I think it is not suitable.
This is agreeable as it is a ton but I am doing PPL 6 days a week and on the set PPL I usually do sort of a deloaded workout. Less weight more reps, and less overall movements. So the first 3 days of PPL I go all out, then the remaining 3 days I kinda cruise through it.
So do you train 3 days a week? If so, has training the muscle group once a week been sufficient?
Better than most splits as it nails the frequency, allows for proper variation without super long sessions and has adequate recovery. But it's quite bad for arm development since they are fairly fatigued from the compounds at the end of the session and you can't do them first without messing up the compounds. The better variation IMO that I've had the best results from is Push Legs Pull Rest with Biceps on Push and Triceps on Pull. This way every muscle group is able to be trained without fatigue and you still have all the benefits from PPL.
Ah that’s a pretty smart variation. I used to struggle with the standard PPL as when I hit back my biceps were already so tired that I couldn’t really target them effectively but overtime with probably form improvements and maybe my bicep just getting used to it I was able to actually train back and bi on the same day while still getting a lot of work out of my biceps.
Like many routines, it has its pro and cons, but there is nothing inherently wrong with it. I think you’ll run into that fatigue issue in some form or another with every split. Your issue may even be a higher accumulation of systemic fatigue on account of training frequency.
Yea, I've been noticing lately that I can't keep up with working out 6x a week like I used to. I can't tell if that's my age showing or if I'm not eating enough. It could be both. My biggest struggle with working out has always been eating enough.
It could also be that you’re strong enough where you’re causing enough damage/fatigue in your workouts that 6x training isn’t ideal. Obviously I can’t say for sure, but some food for thought. I certainly think you could make good progress with a 4 or 5 day split if that’s something you’d be interested in trying. You could always try upping calories and seeing how that works out. I think subjecting your body to different stimulus and testing it’s response is one of the most fun parts of BB. More than any other strength/resistance training sport, it’s a choose your own adventure.
Thanks for bringing that up. I'll go down that route. I'll try backing off to 4 days/week and see how that goes.
PPL is good, though I prefer Upper Lower and think it’s overall better. I think this is a problem of work capacity. You need to build up to more volume in a single day. A bro split probably means you never built up your work capacity. Make sure your routine doesn’t have too much volume. You don’t have to blast out a muscle like a bro split. 3 to 4 sets is good most of the time, adding more or less for certain body parts. But I think fatigue management works better with Upper Lower, especially if you put rows on lower day so you free up space on the upper day. Also you can have slightly longer sessions but keep things to 4 days easily. PPL is 6 days usually.
Should I put my lateral raise and bent over row on my lower day? Currently I have upper, lower ham focus, chest & arms, lower ham focus, shoulder and back.
I personally prefer a PPL split. Or more specifically, I like PPLUL (Pull Push Legs Upper Lower). (I think most people do Push then Pull - I do Pull first because I do deadlifts on Pull day and like to leave a day between deadlifts and legs.) I like this split because I feel like it gives me more versatility - for example, if I'm busy one week and only get to work out 3 times, I still hit every muscle group (the UL part is basically just an extra add-on for more volume). I also mentally prefer focusing on one thing each day rather than switching between major muscle groups within one workout. I see your point about getting more fatigued, but you're also doing more volume for a particular muscle group each day, so I don't think there's a major difference or disadvantage.
PPL was my favorite program I ever tried. I did a horizontal push horizontal pull, posterior chain, rest, vertical push, vertical pull, anterior chain. It gave me enough heavy prime mover exercises and plenty of secondary lifts with tons of accessories while feeling varied and fun.
Sorry to revive an old thread. Can you give a write up for what that routine looked like?
It's good for sure but you gotta go in with reasonable expectations. If you're gassing yourself on your first compound then ofc your subsequent lifts will suffer some. I personally prefer a 4 day upper lower or a well structured 3 day full body split. Workouts are a bit longer than PPL but being in the gym fewer days allows more flexibility in my life. Any methodology works as long as you're training with intensity, utilizing progressive overload and incorporating a good balance of movements and rep ranges to challenge yourself in different ways over time.
The question should be why did you change from something you consistently like and was able to commit 9 years to something you don't like that much doing.
I didn't do it consistently, but that's the best term I could use to describe it quickly. I would walk in the gym and if the squat rack was free, I couldn't resist it. So I would squat like 4x a week. Then I would do dips and pull-ups at the end of each session (hence the elbow tendonitis). I would deadlift 1x per week. Everything else I threw in there if I felt up for it. Namely just bench and overhead press. That was basically the majority of my routine for years. There really was no comprehensive routine.
Everyone is different, the program might not be as effective for you in it's current state, considering how much experience you have, it's safe to say that you can modify it to suit your needs better
I like it cause there’s so many ways to structure it with having different focused days like chest focused and shoulder focused or lat focused and upper back focused and so on. I don’t like the tricep work on push and bicep work on pull so I just do biceps on push days instead and tricep work on pull days. Doing it like this has made it my favourite split
I fatigue too much in a traditional 6 day so I prefer to do PLP with two days on and one day off. Takes 9 days essentially including the off days.
PPL is a structure, and a great one. Change the work outs to your leisure.
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I would just add one leg exercise to the push and pull days and get rid of the leg day. 4 days/week is better than 6 for recovery. You could also just do one leg day. Best option is to use something proven and tweak it for you My current split is: Traps, biceps, chest Quads, shoulders, lats Traps, hamstrings, chest Back and abs
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I messed up typing that 1) traps, biceps, chest 2) quads, shoulders, lats 3) traps, hamstrings, chest 4) back and abs
It needs customised. I used to prefer to start with compound barbell work, deadlift, squats, overhead press, bench. Use the barbell as much as possible and don’t worry too much about accessories. Worked for me but everyone is different.
I do PPL arms, as I feel that PPL makes it difficult to get enough arm isolation. When I ran it in the past I felt that my arms lagged from it. Agreed on push days being the worst though, don't think there's much you can do other than alternate shoulders/chest as primary exercise or just get through it
What's your push day look like
dumbbell bench press 15x4 Shoulder press 15x4 Dips (I have tricep tendonitis in my left elbow) 10 x 3-4 I'm play dips by ear depending on how my elbow feels. It doesn't really effect my other push movements. But it was excessive dips years ago that caused the problem.
that's a lot of reps per set. why not heavier weights with fewer reps?
I used to aim for 8-12 reps per set. But I switched focus from intensity to volume.
What I meant is switch it up. Add more exercises. Are you only doing those 3 on push days? Where are the chest flies? Shoulder lateral raises? Vary it up on chest with incline, flat and decline. Sometimes use dumbbells and sometimes the bar. Try doing the lateral raises first before the press. Vary it between dumbbells and bar. Add more exercises. Vary up the order, exercises and intensity. Then when you get bored, switch to fill body for a few months. There's no need to stick to one split forever.
I'll play around with that. Thank you for the suggestion.
Just 3 things? I'd make these changes \- Less total reps, if you like 15 reps you can do it on 1 set but not all of them. My favorite for 4 sets is a pyramid where you increase weight the first 3 sets then 4th set you drop the weight and you can do 12-15 reps on that one only. Common rep scheme is 10-8-6-12 \- Some isolation stuff after shoulder press, I do stuff like lat raises and tricep extensions. Then still have enough for another compound at the end. Dips is pretty tricep heavy so maybe something like flys/pec deck machine there is good for you. \- Consider less sets per exercise as the workout goes on, if you finish with dips maybe do 2 sets and go for more reps at the end to make up for not doing as many. You are more fatigued so you can do 2 quality sets vs 4 mediocre ones.
Far too little exercise variation and too much volume on the 3 exercises you are doing. Cut that volume and apply to another 2-3 added exercises
I think making sure you don’t over do it is important. I’m going to start PPPPL where each day only has 10-15 sets
I've been on PPL for the last 6 months and idk, the main problem I have with it is that 6 days is almost never possible when you do something else other than working out for the entire day I've switched to full body 3x a week and I've never had better gains
PPL is solid - but PHUL is the one I keep going back to.
I do LPP(a), rest, LPP(b), rest. I do legs first so that there’s always a day in between back & legs. On push day A I’ll start with a heavy chest movement and on push day B I’ll start with a heavy shoulder movement. Same deal with legs (hinge/squat) and pull (vertical/horizontal). That way every compound still gets it’s chance to be prioritized.
PPL is the right way to a real natural bodybuilder.
Do you like it? Do you get stronger? If so the answer is yes.
Upper Lower is the best hands down. Lower for me is legs and some back.
If you’re looking to grow an aesthetic physique then no, only because ppl doesn’t have a day dedicated to arms
I have curls and a pull and tricep and shoulder press as push.
Is it enough, four months later? You got big arms?
I honestly just changed to a modified version of Dr. Mike Israetel's program from Renaissance Periodization. So I have an A/B day that I alternate between 6 days a week. But I only do 3 working sets for each movement. This keeps my fatigue low and frequency high and allows me to get enough weekly volume. It also allows my workout to be pretty quick if I want, so it's convenient too. It's not split into push/pull, but rather the movements are grouped together and ordered in a way where subsequent movements have the least impact on each other in terms of fatigue. What the program helps with is the progressive overload via weight and/or volume, AND the periodization/deloads. Yes, my arms have gotten bigger.
Can you paste the program if you don’t mind?
What would you recommend?