Push / Pull / Legs — 5 Sessions Per Week — 1h 30min Each
Two rotation options — choose what fits your week best. The split ensures each muscle group gets trained twice and proper recovery time.
Targets: Chest, Front & Side Shoulders, Triceps
New to lifting? (Under 2 months): Start with full-body training 3×/week to build movement patterns and neural adaptation before transitioning to this PPL split. PPL 5×/week trains each muscle only once per week — the intermediate PPL 6×/week schedule achieves the optimal 2×/week muscle frequency.
Muscle Protein Synthesis: MPS peaks ~24–48hrs after training and returns to baseline. For maximum growth, each muscle group should be trained 2× per week — achieved in the intermediate program.
This day trains 3 main muscle groups: chest, front and side shoulders, and triceps. Make sure to do your warm up before starting.
| # | Exercise | Sets | Reps | Technique | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bench Press Chest | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | Warm up is very important to not hurt your shoulders. |
| 2 | Incline Dumbbell Press Upper Chest | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 3 | Cable Flies Chest (Inner) | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 4 | Shoulder Press Shoulders (Front) | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 5 | Lateral Raises Shoulders (Side) | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 6 | Tricep Pushdown Triceps | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 7 | Skull Crusher Triceps | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | Don't use big barbell, use short small ones. |
Targets: Back, Biceps, Rear Delts, Traps
| # | Exercise | Sets | Reps | Technique | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lat Pulldown Back (Lats) | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 2 | Bent Over Row Back (Mid) | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | DO IT WITH SMITH MACHINE |
| 3 | Seated Cable Row Back (Mid) | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 4 | Face Pull Rear Delts · Traps | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 5 | Bicep Curl Biceps | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 6 | Hammer Curl Biceps · Forearms | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 7 | Shrug Traps | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | You can do it using dumbbells, barbell, smith machine, or even cables. |
Targets: Quads, Hamstrings, Glutes, Calves
| # | Exercise | Sets | Reps | Technique | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Squat Quads · Glutes | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 2 | Romanian Deadlift Hamstrings · Glutes | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 3 | Bulgarian Split Squat Quads · Glutes | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 4 | Cable Pull Through Glutes · Hamstrings | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
| 5 | Calf Raises Calves | 3 | 12 → 10 → 8 | MuscleWiki | — |
Essential guidelines for your training — especially important as a beginner.
As a beginner, you shouldn't go to failure on your sets. Once you've been training for 4-5 months, then failure on each set becomes necessary for growth.
Start with comfortable weights and progressively move to heavier ones. DO NOT START WITH HEAVY WEIGHTS. Your joints and tendons need time to adapt.
Never skip your warm up. Cold muscles are injury-prone muscles. Do 5-10 minutes of light cardio followed by dynamic stretches before every session.
Pyramid down your reps across 3 sets. Start lighter with 12 reps, increase weight for 10, then go heavier for 8. This builds both endurance and strength.
Rest 60-90 seconds between sets for hypertrophy. For compound exercises like bench press or squats, you can rest up to 2-3 minutes.
Perfect form with lighter weight beats terrible form with heavy weight. Watch the MuscleWiki technique videos linked in each exercise to learn proper form.
Every exercise follows the same pattern across 3 sets
Your training should evolve as you get stronger. Here's the roadmap.
PPL 5x/week · 3 sets · 12→10→8 reps · Focus on learning proper form, building mind-muscle connection, and establishing consistency. As a 21yo at 187cm/81kg, you're in an ideal position — natural testosterone is at peak levels. No training to failure yet. Transition when you can no longer add weight every week (typically 4-6 months).
← YOU ARE HEREPPL 6x/week · 4 sets on compounds · Periodized rep ranges (5-5-8-8) · Deadlift added · Training to failure on last sets · Weekly progressive overload. Move here when linear session-to-session progression stalls.
View Advanced Program →12-week block periodization · Strength phase (4wk) → Hypertrophy phase (6wk) → Deload (2wk) · Advanced techniques (drop sets, rest-pause, myo-reps) · Weak point specialization.
View Specialized Program →