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This is almost certainly the most thorough article on the web about the Science-based PUSH-PULL-LEG Workout Program.
I seen many people follow different type of workout program based on their goal. However, there are mainly three type of workout split/program:
First is The Bro’s split, second is Upper and lower body i.e. Push-Pull-Leg split and in the final is full body for twice a week.
These program is highly effective except The Bro’s split. Beginner should start your fitness journey from this program and it is also very good for develop muscle maturity and shape.
Here, we’re going to talk about Push-Pull-leg workout program which is loved by everyone in the fitness industry. In fact, you might seen many people follow this program in your gym(Like Me!!).
We all know that in this program, at one day we have to movement including push and on the other day pull movement and at last leg workout.
But what about plenty of push and pull exercises because they are a lot of to choose from right?
So, let’s see which push-pull-leg workout program best for mass and Hypertrophy based on science.
Make sure you should do proper warm-up before starting any workout.
If you’re at intermediate level or new to type of workout split then let me introduce the which day we perform which workout.
Day 1: Push
Day 2: Pull
Day 3: Leg
Day 4: REST
Day 5: Push
Day 6: Pull
Day 7: Leg
Day 1: PUSH Workout(Chest, Shoulders & Triceps)
Chest Workout:
Of course, this workout will start with chest because it is largest muscle in the front upper body right?
Exercise 1: Bench Press: it is impossible to do any chest workout without doing bench press. What you say?
We’re going to do 4 sets of 4-6 reps only.
We do only 4 to 6 reps because bench press is a great chest builder so, we should more focus on lifting more weight as we can.
If we’re lifting more weight and doing more reps then there are likely chances that we injured our shoulders.
There is also one research that shows if an individual has big bench press then he have big pectoralis major.
I believe that if person had very strong bench press then it is easy for his/her to lift more weight with dumbbells or machines.
In terms of execution, I do bench press with arch and many power lifting judges say that this technique isn’t cheating or dangerous as long as your upper back, butt and feet are planted.
And this technique will definitely helps you to lift more weight in the bench press.
I saw many people who complaint that the arch will target the lower pecs too much, some EMG study shows that the slight decline press comes out on top as an overall pec builder.
So, sometime I also include decline bench press in my chest workout.
While training your chest, you should remember that there are no upper and lower chest muscles there is only “PECS”.
You can do some variations in your grip because for slightly close grip will train more of your upper pecs and wide grip more focus on your lower pecs.
However, in close grip it is difficult for you to lift heavy weight so you can lift light weight with close grip bench press to train your upper pecs.
The goal will be to increase reps until you get to the top end of the 4-6 reps zone for all 4 sets and then begin adding weight.
Read Science Based Chest Workout:
Exercise 2: Incline Cable Fly
Set and reps for this exercise would be 3 sets of 12-15 reps.
The main reason to do this exercise is to isolate the chest as much as possible and focus on particularly on activating the clavicular head.
Most of US set a forty-five degree angle for the incline bench movement right?
But, a study shows that the forty-four degree angle is slightly better than higher or lower bench angles in activating upper pecs.
It is not possible to do arch in this exercise. However, you should cross your hands while doing this movement to shorten your pec fibers and this will burn your chest Trust me!!.
If you would like to do this exercise with dumbbells then you can do it, but in incline cable fly will give you more tension on the pec than incline dumbbell fly.
I believe that these exercises are more than enough if you have proper technique and lift properly.
Shoulder Workout
Exercise 1: Standing Dumbbell press
This exercise has many names and you can do this exercises with barbell and on smith machine too.
But, I prefer to go with the dumbbells because of greater range of motion.
Set and reps would be like 4 set of 10 to 12 reps.
I show many people do this exercise seated with barbell or dumbbell. However, one study compare seated or standing dumbbell press and seated or standing barbell press.
Study conclude that standing dumbbell press is better to activate medial deltoid then any other shoulder movements.
You can perform this exercise on barbell or on the smith machine but if you want to focus more on your target muscle i.e. medial and front deltoid then perform this exercise.
If your focus more on lifting more weight on shoulder press then you can go with the barbell because it is not possible to lift heavy with the dumbbells in this exercise.
Exercise 4 : Cable lateral raise
This exercise is also known as Egyptian lateral raise and we’re doing 4 sets of 12 to 15 reps in this exercise.
In this exercise, we’re leaning in the direction of raise.
which is based on some research suggested that side deltoid will become more involved as near the top end of ROM as rotator cuff tends to do more work at the bottom end of ROM.
So, by leaning away, you basically put that arm at about 15-30 degrees abduction from the very beginning of the movement.
Many people prefer to do cable side raises by putting cable behind their back but we should keep cable between both cables as cable are in the line with the side shoulder muscle fiber.
Thus, this position is the idle lifting to generating maximum tension, which mean more tension i.e. more GAINS.
Triceps Workout
Exercise 5: Triceps Push down: This is the best isolation exercise for the triceps.
However, both the bench press and shoulder press target triceps at very large degree thus, there is no need to lift heavy weight in the triceps exercises.
Because of that, I would say that assistance tricep work isn’t require to make progress, but it may be required to optimise progress.
In your combine workout of arms with other muscle, you should include one exercise like a press down where your arms are down to target more of the lateral head.
Set and reps would be like 4 set of 12 to 15 reps.
Apart from this exercise you can add single arm overhead press with the help of cable. Which target your long head of your tricep.
Try to do alternate this both exercises every time when you’ve push workout. Choose any one exercise from these and reps and sets are the same.
If your triceps are lagging then include both the exercise in your workout.
Exercise 6 static dumbbell hold for 2 sets of 60 seconds.
Weight for this exercise is roughly forty percent of your typical weight..
The purpose of doing this exercise is both high degree of metabolic stress and a high stretch.
By doing stress and stretch at the same time in the last push workout exercise, there are likely chance to get hypertrophy because this exercise increase your capacity in time under tension.
Which is very important factor while considering muscle development.
Last exercise of the push workout is Face Pull which is optional.
Sets and reps would be like 3 sets of 20 reps
Day 2: PULL Workout(Back, Biceps & Real Delts)
Back Workout: Like the chest, back is the second biggest part of our body.
Exercise 1: Single arm lat pull-in: If you haven’t read exercise name then read again because this exercise is not like conventional lat pull-down.
I include this workout in this program is because this exercise will help you to activate your lats.
So, we’re doing 2 sets of 15-20 reps in light weight because we don’t want to exhaust our lats at very first beginning right?
one research shows that, if you do pre-activation glutes training before lower body compound movements, then it will help us to lift more in lower body workouts.
Therefore, we can say that this same theory can applied to lats.
There are few advantages of doing this exercise such as improved mind-muscle connection, additional warm-up, increase blood flow in the lats, reduced the injury chances.
In terms of performing it, it is exactly opposite to the shoulder side raise, in lateral raise, we raise our arm up, what we called is shoulder abduction
In this exercise we do shoulder moving toward the body (in other words) driving our elbow down.
Make sure you don’t hit failure because we do this exercise for warm-up and developing mind-muscle connection.
Now! It’s time to do actual science-based back workout.
Exercise 2: Pull-up
Pull-up is the best exercise to develop your overall back and the main loading exercise for your back workout.
Sets and reps would be like 3 sets of 6-8 reps.
One study shows that there is more lats activation when you’re doing pull-ups rather than lat pull-down.
I saw, there are various type of lat pull down machine loading in every gym. So, if you’re travelling a lot and try different gym twice a month then pull-ups are far better than lat pull down.
Although this is the heavy weight compound movement(GOLDEN 5), only body weight may not be enough to get you sufficiently close to failure.
So, add loading belt to add resistance as needed to get you into their target intensity zone, which should be somewhere around RPE: 8 or 9.
If you’re beginner or heavy weight then there is no shame to use assisted pull-up machine.
In terms of execution, only two things that should be keep in mind, first is range of motion and the lifting tempo.
However, there are many pull-ups tutorial but this two things is very important to get maximum from the pull-ups.
Lifting tempo for the pull-ups should be use a steady and controlled eccentric (negative), and a forceful but still controlled concentric (positive). This lifting tempo is based on this research.
Exercise 3 : MEADOWS ROW: I guess this exercise is probably new for you but I will try to acknowledge you.
First of all, we’re doing 3 set of 10-12 reps for this exercise.
This exercise is very similar to barbell bent over row and should be our main heavy row for this workout.
This movement is not so much popular in the fitness industry for a few reasons.
First reason is your arms are more outward ,and a plain of motion is directly in line with mid-traps muscle fiber orientation.
So, this exercise leads to more development of mid-back muscles and sometime rear delts too.
You can also modified this exercise to be more lat dominant by standing side to the barbell. So, you’re basically doing dumbbell rows with the barbell.
Exercise 4: Omni-grip lat pull down:
You might remember I said that, pull-ups are better than lat pull down. but the difference between conventional lat pull down and omni-grip lat pull down is in the omni-grip lat pull down we’re using three grips in one set.
So, we’re doing 3 set of 12 to 15 reps but for each sets our grips will be different. For the first set, grip is supinated, for second grip should be close and in the last set grip is reverse.
There is no hard evidence on varying grip for more lats recruitment. but one study shows that underhand grip for back workout is bad because it involves more of the bicep muscle.That is why sequence should be like above.
Real delts workout
There is only two sets of 12 to 15 reps but we’re doing giant set that is we perform three exercises with minimum rest.
Exercise 1: ROPE FACE PULL
Exercise 2: REVERSE PEC DECK
Exercise 3: BAND PULL APARTS
Many people do rope face pull at different pulley height but rope face pull should be done as a high row.
face pull is a multi-joint movement therefore you can go heavy with this exercise.
After performing heavy face pull, reverse pec deck should be done with the light weight in order to have a mind-muscle connection in the rear delts.
Because here we’re trying to isolate our rear delts and minimise trap involvement using driving your arms out and back using a rear delts rather than shoulder blades.
When it comes to grip, you can use different grip such as pronated or neutral grip.
The last exercise for the rear delts is band pull apart, the reason to include this exercise is to sort of burn out the rear delt to generate high degree of local metabolic stress.
Read More Science Based Workouts:
Exercise 6: Ez-bar bicep curl
Sets and reps would be like this 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps.
We perform low reps with high volume in this exercise because we’re already done a lot of pulling work. so, there is no need to lift heavy weight in this exercises.
I prefer to do bicep curl with the Ez bar because I found it easier on my wrist, however, you can use straight bar for this curl.
Like lat pull down, there isn’t much activation difference between medium and wide grips, although some data suggest a very close grip could decrease biceps involvement and put unwanted stress on your wrist.
If you want to do more exercise and these exercises are not enough for you then try to add 2 sets of 15 to 20 reps of incline dumbbell curl. It totally depend on your priority of arms development.
Day 3: Leg Workout
First thing first is warm-up, do it for at least 5-10 min on elliptical or bikes. It is very important when you’re going to perform lower-body movements.
Which reduced the risk of injury and performance also up to certain extent, shown in this study.
Exercise 1: Squat
How we can do leg workout without squats because it is the only exercise in which we feel pain right?
We only do 3 set of 4-6 reps for this workout.
Squat is an overall lower-body mass builder exercise because of its larger range of motion and activates more lower-body muscles.
First set should be warm-up without any weight or some weights if your PR is high. And increase the weight after every working set.
Most of the time people are confused whether they should go for high-bar squat or low-bar squat.
I personally prefer to go for high-bar squat when I have to focus on my quads and if it is about breaking my PR then I prefer low-bar squat.
One research shows that high-bar squat focus more on your quads when low-bar squat focus more on the glutes and more pressure on your lower-back.
While performing it, you should take only 3 to 4 steps back in order to reduce energy loss. After that take a deep breath and squat, exhale your breath when you’re all the way to up.
Breathing technique will not only help you in the squat but also in other exercises like heavy deadlift and bench press.
I saw many people who didn’t perform deep squat and only do shallow squat. A study shows that deep squat will develop more quads than shallow squat.
So, always do deep squat no matter what weight you put on the bar.
One study also shows that if you’re performing ATG Squat then it will focus more on your glutes.
Another question that most beginner have is how wide our squat stance should be? Answer is very simple just squat with a stance that feels most comfortable to you and with that you can lift more weight.
Research has shown that similar quadriceps activation between the narrow and wide stance but wide stance has more influence on glutes activation.
Exercise 2: Romanian Deadlift
Sets and reps would be 3 sets of 8 reps
I include this second compound movement because there is more hamstring activation than all other lower body resistance movement.
It is also a good idea to combine hip extension and knee flexion exercise which is RDL and Leg curls.
Because leg curls was slightly better at activating outer hamstring, while RDL was better at activating inner hamstring.
Exercise 3: walking lunges w/o weights(optional)
Sets and reps would be 2 sets of 10 reps each side.
Exercise 4: Single leg Extensions
Set and reps would be 3 sets of 10 rep on each leg
The reason we’re doing extension with single leg is when we’re doing with both leg, one leg will definitely contribute more than the other. So I ensure that both quard will get similar amount of load.
Exercise 4: Single leg lying curl machine
Sets & reps: 3 set of 8+4 reps
Again we’re doing it to avoid left to right imbalances.
One thing we’re doing different here is altering ankle position for the last 4 reps
Exercise 5: Single leg press calf raise
Sets & reps: 3 sets of 10-12 rep
This exercise will target both the soleus and the gastrocnemius.
Exercise 6: seated calf raise
Sets & reps: 3 sets of 20 rep
This exercise will also target your soleus muscle but it will target your more dipper soleus muscles.
Soleus is slow-twitch muscle fiber so it is better to do high reps in order to grow calf muscles.
After the third day, you have to repeat this workout for other three days in same manner. If you want to change something which you feel is better and more comfortable to you, you are feel free to do it.
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