push/pull/legs is a three-day training split. push day is chest, shoulders, and triceps. pull day is back and biceps. leg day is quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves. three sessions a week, you've covered everything, and then you repeat.
it's the split we build every Arc plan around.
the split explained
the idea is simple: some muscles push things away from your body, some pull things toward it, and legs do neither. group them, train each group on its own day, and give each group time to recover before you hit it again.
three days, three categories. you don't have to think past that.
push day
push day is chest, shoulders, and triceps. these muscles work together when you're pressing or pushing weight away from you.
typical push day exercises:
- barbell bench press
- incline dumbbell press
- overhead press
- dumbbell lateral raise
- tricep pushdown
you'll do most of your chest work on this day, plus the shoulder and arm work that overlaps with pressing.
pull day
pull day is back and biceps. these muscles work when you're pulling weight toward you.
typical pull day exercises:
- lat pulldown
- seated cable row
- dumbbell row
- face pull
- barbell or dumbbell curl
the back is the biggest muscle group in your upper body, and it's also the one most beginners shortchange. pull day is how you build it. expect to feel it the next morning.
leg day
leg day is quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves. it gets its own day because the lower body is large enough, and demanding enough, to fill a full session on its own.
typical leg day exercises:
- barbell back squat
- leg press
- romanian deadlift
- leg curl
- calf raise
leg day has a reputation. (mostly because people skip it.) it's also where the most total muscle mass gets trained, so the leg session is where a lot of your overall progress comes from.
why it works for beginners
push/pull/legs works because the structure does the thinking for you.
you're not deciding which muscles to train each session. you're not accidentally hitting chest four days in a row. the rotation builds in recovery automatically: after push day, your chest and triceps rest while you train pull. by the time push rolls around again, they've had three or four days off.
each muscle group gets trained, rested, and trained again. that rhythm is what produces results. not any one exercise, not any one rep count. the rhythm.
it also scales. once you're stronger and ready for more volume, you can add a set here and there without reworking the whole program. the split holds. (progression within the split is called progressive overload.)
for someone who's never written their own program, push/pull/legs removes the biggest obstacle to actually starting: not knowing what to do when you get to the gym. (if you're at "not sure about the gym at all," we wrote how to start lifting for that.)
how Arc builds your plan
Arc asks three questions: what equipment you have, how many days you want to train, and your experience level. about a minute of setup.
from your answers, Arc builds a push/pull/legs plan. exercises are selected for your equipment. the order is set. sets and reps are decided. you don't research anything. you don't pick anything.
at the gym, you open the app. it shows you your next exercise, the weight, and the reps. you log as you go. when the session's done, you close the app and leave.
when Arc sees your recent performance supports more weight, the plan bumps the weight. you don't have to decide that either.
a sample week
a basic three-day push/pull/legs week:
- monday: push
- wednesday: pull
- friday: legs
- tuesday, thursday, saturday, sunday: rest
if you want to train more often, you can run a six-day version that rotates push, pull, legs, push, pull, legs across the week with one rest day. Arc handles both. most beginners should start with three.
if you miss a day, nothing breaks. the program doesn't reset. whichever session was next is still next.
ready to start?
Arc builds your push/pull/legs program in about a minute. free to download.
