Why Push, Pull, Legs Falls Short If You Only Train 3 Days a Week – and the Smarter Split that Works
Push, pull, legs (PPL) remains one of the most popular and effective training splits. But despite its widespread use, it isn’t without drawbacks, particularly for seasoned lifters or anyone short on time. More advanced trainees may find it lacks the specificity needed to drive progress, while others may struggle to recover adequately between sessions.
Exercise researcher Dr Milo Wolf outlined several limitations of the programme while speaking to Dr Mike Israetel. He argues that the split only works as intended when training frequency is high. ‘It’s only for those who are consistently training six days a week or more,’ he says. ‘Because otherwise you’re missing out on training each muscle twice a week. To train each muscle twice a week, you need two full rotations of the push pull legs sequence.’
He adds that traditional body-part splits can still be effective, but only with careful planning. ‘A body-part split can work, but you need to be smart about it. Essentially, you need to make sure you’re making those modifications to ensure each muscle is trained at least twice a week.’
For lifters with limited time, a full-body routine performed three times a week may be more efficient than running a push, pull, legs split across three sessions.
In another video on the topic, Dr Israetel says, ‘It’s not dead, but it’s not like automatically, “Oh, push pull legs is the ideal split.” It has, like every split, serious limitations.’
Why Push Pull Legs Can Fall Short
‘In a push pull legs routine, push days tend to be far easier than leg days, with pull days somewhere in the middle,’ says Dr Wolf. ‘So you’re not necessarily matching how ready you feel on a given day to how difficult the workout is.’
He explains that leg days can become so demanding that effort drops off. ‘Push pull legs tends not to make them much better because leg days are abhorrently difficult. As a result, people often end up not giving it their full effort.’
This is known as the pacing effect. ‘Because you know you have a lot left to do, you’re not necessarily going to give it your best effort at every stage,’ says Dr Wolf.
As with any programme, the structure should be tailored to your goals, schedule and ability to recover if you want to maximise results.
Dr Wolf also warns against unnecessary volume. ‘You probably don’t want to do more than about 11 sets in a single workout for a single muscle. You’d be better off training that muscle on an extra day in the week and spreading the volume out instead.’
‘A push pull legs routine nearly always forces you to do more than 10 sets per session if you want to reach a solid weekly volume target. As a result, you’re dipping into junk volume,’ he explains.
How to Make Push Pull Legs More Effective
One of the main structural issues with PPL is uneven recovery between muscle groups. Dr Israetel offers a simple adjustment. ‘We’re going to use push pull legs as the ultra structure because some of the bigger muscles do need that much time to recover, but for the smaller muscles we’re going to pepper them in way more.’
Smaller muscle groups, such as the biceps and lateral delts, often recover faster than larger ones, yet they’re typically trained only once per rotation. That can lead to long gaps between sessions or excessive volume crammed into a single workout.
Instead of waiting five or six days to train those muscles again, you could add a few sets of biceps or lateral raises to both push and pull days. Larger muscle groups still get adequate recovery, while smaller ones are trained more frequently, spreading volume across the week rather than overloading one session.
Alternatively, a full-body routine performed three times a week can distribute volume more evenly without requiring six training days.
Another option is an upper/lower split. According to Dr Wolf, this approach solves many of the volume distribution issues seen with PPL. By separating upper- and lower-body sessions, it becomes easier to train each muscle group two to three times per week without exceeding the 10 to 12 sets per session that research suggests maximises returns.
Despite these limitations, Dr Wolf emphasises that PPL doesn’t need to be abandoned if it works for you. ‘If you aren’t time constrained, if you genuinely enjoy the push pull legs routine and it keeps you training everything, that’s a perfectly valid reason2 to do it,’ he says.
