5-Day Workout Split – Upper/Lower/Push/Pull/Legs

If you want a highly effective 5-day workout split you can use to build muscle, this page will show you what to do.

First thing I want to do is explain briefly what a 5-day workout split is, and what the benefits are.

Then I’ll lay out the routine in full, so you can see which exercises you’ll be doing on which days, as well how many sets and reps to do.

Finally, I’ll show you a few other ways to set up a 5-day split workout routine.

What Is an Upper/Lower/Push/Pull/Legs Routine?

An upper/lower/push/pull/legs (ULPPL) split involves dividing the body into different areas, and training different muscle groups on different days.

It combines an upper/lower split with a push/pull/legs routine. 

There are five different workouts in total:

• Upper Body Workout
• Lower Body Workout
• Push Workout
• Pull Workout
• Legs Workout

Here’s a breakdown of the muscles trained in each workout:

Upper Body Workout

• Chest
• Back
• Shoulders
• Biceps
• Triceps

Lower Body Workout

• Quadriceps
• Hamstrings
• Glutes
• Calves

Push Workout

• Chest
• Shoulders
• Triceps

Pull Workout

• Back
• Biceps
• Rear delts

Legs Workout

• Quadriceps
• Hamstrings
• Glutes
• Calves

What Are the Benefits of the Upper/Lower/Push/Pull/Legs Workout Schedule?

Many 5-day split workout routines are based on the so-called bro split, which usually has a chest day, a shoulders day, a back day and so on.

Bro split routines are often criticized because they involve training each muscle group directly just once a week, which is less than ideal as far as muscle growth is concerned.

This routine differs from the typical bro split in that each body part is trained twice a week.

There’s a link between training volume and hypertrophy. That is, the more hard sets you do for a particular muscle group, up to a point at least, the faster that muscle will grow.

Problem is, more sets typically means longer workouts, particularly if you’re getting enough rest between sets (which you’ll need to for best results).

If you’re limited in terms of time, there’s always going to be an upper limit on the number of sets you can fit into a workout.

And even if you do have the luxury of spending as long as you want in the gym, you’re eventually going to get tired and run out of steam.

As a result, the muscles being trained at the end of the workout aren’t going to get as much attention as the ones trained at the start.

What’s more, there’s a limit on the amount of stimulation your muscles can respond to in any given workout, which is somewhere in the region of 6-10 hard sets per muscle group.

Doing more than that will end up creating large amounts of muscle damage (which is going to prolong recovery time) without necessarily stimulating any additional muscle growth.

While bombing your muscles with lots of sets gives you much more of a pump, as well as generating a high level of post-exercise muscle soreness, it’s no guarantee that muscle is going to be built any faster.

The solution?

The solution is to train each body part more often. Rather than hitting the gym 3-4 times a week, you add an extra 1-2 training days so that you’re training five days a week.

Compared to a typical 3-day full-body workout or 4-day push/pull split, those extra 1-2 training days allow you to get some extra volume in while still keeping the workouts down to a manageable length.

Why Bodybuilders Like 5-Day Workout Schedules

Research shows that bodybuilders will often lift weights 5-6 days a week, sometimes twice a day, simply because that’s the only way to fit in all the exercises and sets they need to stimulate growth.

Bodybuilders typically need a large amount of training to ensure that every region of every body part is developed to its full potential, and a 5- or even 6-day training split is ideal for that purpose.

It’s not something you can do with a 2- or 3-day split.

Even if you have no plans to step on stage in a bodybuilding contest, but you’ve moved past the beginner stages of training and your progress in the gym has come to a halt, the extra volume is sometimes all an intermediate or advanced lifter needs to get their muscles growing again.

Upper/Lower/Push/Pull/Legs Routine

• Day 1: Upper Body
• Day 2: Lower Body
• Day 3: Off
• Day 4: Push
• Day 5: Pull
• Day 6: Legs
• Day 7: Off

You also have the option of training Monday through Friday, and taking the weekend off.

• Day 1: Upper Body
• Day 2: Lower Body
• Day 3: Push
• Day 4:Pull
• Day 5: Legs
• Day 6: Off
• Day 7: Off

Upper Body

• Chin-Ups 4 sets x 5-8 reps
• Bench Press 4 sets x 5-8 reps
• Bent-Over Barbell Row 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Incline Dumbbell Bench Press 3 sets x 8-12 reps

Lower Body

• Leg Press 4 sets x 8-12 reps
• Romanian Deadlift 4 sets x 8-12 reps
• Bulgarian Split Squat 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Standing Calf Raise 4 sets x 5-8 reps

Push

• Flat Bench Dumbbell Press 4 sets x 8-12 reps
• Cable Crossover 3 sets x 12-15 reps
• Lateral Raise 3 sets x 12-15 reps
• Triceps Pushdown 3 sets x 12-15 reps

Pull

• Reverse Grip Lat Pulldown 4 sets x 12-15 reps
• Seated Cable Row 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Bent Over Lateral Raise 3 sets x 12-15 reps
• Barbell Curl 3 sets x 8-12 reps

Legs

• Back Squat 4 sets x 5-8 reps
• Leg Extensions 3 sets x 15-20 reps
• Hip Thrust 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Seated Leg Curl 4 sets x 12-15 reps
• Standing Calf Raise 4 sets x 15-20 reps

While there’s no work for your abs listed, just add one or two ab exercises – rollouts, crunches, or reverse crunches – to the end of your workouts 2-3 times a week.

How to Warm Up

The number of sets listed are the actual work sets only, and don’t include warm-up sets.

It’s always a good idea, especially if you’re using heavy weights, to do several progressively heavier warm-up sets. This will prepare the joints, the muscles and the nervous system that controls those muscles for the heavy work to come.

In most cases, somewhere between 1-3 warm-up sets will do the job. However, the exact number of warm-up sets you do will vary depending on a number of factors, including the temperature of the gym you’re training in, how your joints feel, the amount of weight you’re lifting, and where that exercise is placed in the workout.

There have been times when I’ve been training in a cold gym, it’s early in the morning and my joints are feeling a bit stiff, where I’ve ended up doing 7-8 warm-up sets before getting into the heavy stuff.

On the flip side, with some of the exercises that come later in the workout, the muscles being worked are already warm, so you won’t need many, if any, warm-up sets.

What about stretching?

In most cases, there’s very little benefit in stretching, be it dynamic or static, as part of a warm-up.

While the adverse effects of stretching on strength and power have been exaggerated, most studies show that pre-exercise stretching does little for injury prevention and has no beneficial effects on lifting performance.

Can you stretch as part of your warm up? Yes. Do you have to? No. It’s certainly not mandatory, and many people will do just as well without it.

You can read more about how to warm up for weight training here.

How Long To Rest Between Sets

Take 2-3 minutes rest between sets. If in doubt, err on the side of giving yourself too much rest rather than not enough.

As a rule, I’d suggest resting for longer between sets of compound exercises that work a large amount of muscle mass, such as squats, rows, deadlifts, leg presses and so on. 

You won’t need as much rest between single-joint exercises, such as dumbbell curls, lateral raises and pressdowns.

Don’t try to save time by cutting your rest periods short and racing from one exercise to the next. The hypertrophy stimulus generated by a given workout will be that much greater if you get a decent amount of rest between each set before tackling the next one.

How To Progress: The Double Progression Method

No matter how your training split is set up, it’s important to train hard and focus on improving your performance in the gym over time.

Do the same exercises, for the same number of sets and reps, while lifting the same amount of weight, for the next five years. Nothing much is going to happen.

That’s because the training you’re doing is a challenge your body has already adapted to. As a result, no new muscle mass will be gained.

I’m not saying you’ll make progress every time you go to the gym. To do so indefinitely would be impossible, and there’ll be times when you end up lifting the same amount of weight, for the same number of sets and reps you did before.

However, you should be pushing yourself to increase the amount of work your muscles are doing in the gym, whether that’s lifting heavier weights, doing more reps with the same weight, or doing more sets.

You need to give your muscles a reason to get bigger, or you’ll remain stuck at the same size you are right now.

So make sure to keep a training journal, write down your numbers, and always try to beat your previous workout in some way.

You’ll notice that the workouts use rep ranges, such as 5-8 or 8-12, rather than a fixed number of reps in each set.

For example, let’s say that the prescription for a particular exercise is 3 sets of 5-8 reps.

The idea is that you select a weight that allows you to perform at least 5 reps in each set, but no more than 8.

Every time you go to the gym, you try to do more reps than you did the workout before. Once you’re able to do 8 reps in every set, increase the weight for the following workout.

It’s a form of progression known as the double progression method. Here’s an example of how it might look in practice:

Workout 1

• Set 1: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 2: 100 pounds x 7 reps
• Set 3: 100 pounds x 5 reps

Workout 2

• Set 1: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 2: 100 pounds x 7 reps
• Set 3: 100 pounds x 7 reps

Workout 3

• Set 1: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 2: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 3: 100 pounds x 7 reps

Workout 4

• Set 1: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 2: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 3: 100 pounds x 8 reps

Workout 5

• Set 1: 105 pounds x 7 reps
• Set 2: 105 pounds x 6 reps
• Set 3: 105 pounds x 5 reps

As you can see, in workout four, once you’re able to do 8 reps in all 3 sets, you add weight in the fifth workout and repeat the cycle. 

This simple double progression method can work well for most exercises, and will produce decent gains in muscle mass over several months, just as long as you stay consistent and work hard.

It’s also important to make sure that your technique remains solid from one workout to the next. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that you’ve gotten stronger, when all you’re doing is cheating on those last few reps to get the weight up.

The exact number of workouts it takes to reach this point will vary from person to person, and from exercise to exercise.

IIt might take 10 workouts or it might take 5. But wait until you can do 3 sets of 8 reps before adding weight.

Alternative 5-Day Workout Routines

If the upper/lower/push/pull/legs split doesn’t appeal, but you still want to train 5 days a week, here are some alternative workout routines you can use.

Push/Pull/Legs Split

The push pull legs split involves three different training sessions:

• Push workout
• Pull workout
• Leg workout

The push workout is focused on the pushing movements for the upper body, which involve the chest, shoulders and triceps.

The pull workout is centered around pulling movements for the upper body, which work mainly the back and biceps.

With the legs workout, you train the quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings and calves.

You train for three days, then take a day off. This is followed by two days of training, followed by another day off.

You keep on rotating the workouts in the same order – push, pull, legs – making sure to insert rest days where appropriate. Each muscle group is trained twice every seven days.

Here’s what the 5-day push/pull/legs split looks like over a three-week period.

Week 1

• Monday: Push
• Tuesday: Pull
• Wednesday: Legs
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Push
• Saturday: Pull
• Sunday: Off

Week 2

• Monday: Legs
• Tuesday: Push
• Wednesday: Pull
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Legs
• Saturday: Push
• Sunday: Off

Week 3

• Monday: Pull
• Tuesday: Legs
• Wednesday: Push
• Thursday: Off
• Friday: Pull
• Saturday: Legs
• Sunday: Off

In the fourth week, the push workout ends up back on day one, and you start the whole cycle again.

Upper/Lower Split

With an upper lower split, you train the muscles in your lower body and upper body on separate days.

An upper body workout will hit your chest, back, shoulders, biceps and triceps, while the lower body workout trains your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes and calves

Most upper lower workout splits involve training four days a week, where each muscle group is hit twice a week.

However, there’s no reason why you can’t ramp up the training frequency and train five days per week.

In the first week, you’d do three upper and two lower body workouts, then two upper and three lower body workouts the following week. This way, you’re hitting each muscle group an average of 2.5 times per week.

Here’s what a 5-day day upper lower split looks like.

Week 1

• Monday: Upper Body
• Tuesday: Lower Body
• Wednesday: Off
• Thursday: Upper Body
• Friday: Lower Body
• Saturday: Upper Body
• Sunday: Off

Week 2

• Monday: Lower Body
• Tuesday: Upper Body
• Wednesday: Off
• Thursday: Lower Body
• Friday: Upper Body
• Saturday: Lower Body
• Sunday: Off

In week three, the upper body workout ends up back on day one, and you run through the whole thing again.

Push/Pull Split

A push/pull workout split involves two different workouts: a push workout and a pull workout.

The push workout is focused on the pushing movements for the upper body, which involve the chest, shoulders and triceps. The pull workout is based around pulling movements for the upper body, which involve the back and biceps.

The push training sessions also include some exercises for your quads, while the pull workouts include some work for your hamstrings.

The push/pull workout split is perfect for people who don’t want an entire day devoted to legs. Rather than train your lower body separately, you do a bit of leg work every time you train.

Like an upper lower split, a push/pull split is normally done four times a week. But you can also bump up the training frequency to turn it into a 5-day workout routine. This means each muscle group is worked an average of 2.5 times per week rather than twice.

Week 1

• Monday: Push
• Tuesday: Pull
• Wednesday: Off
• Thursday: Push
• Friday: Pull
• Saturday: Push
• Sunday: Off

Week 2

• Monday: Pull
• Tuesday: Push
• Wednesday: Off
• Thursday: Pull
• Friday: Push
• Saturday: Pull
• Sunday: Off

In week three, the push workout ends up back on day one, and you start the cycle all over again.

What About Cardio?

Should you do cardio on a 5-day workout routine? And what type of cardio is best?

If you’re trying to build muscle, there’s no need to do any cardio at all. While some people like to do it for health reasons, remember that lifting weights itself has been shown to deliver many of the same health and longevity benefits.

If you’re doing cardio because you want to burn off some extra calories and lose fat, I’d suggest thinking again.

Fat loss is mainly a function of diet than what you do in the gym. If you’re lifting weights 5 days a week and training hard, you’ll be burning plenty of energy without the need for additional exercise.

For those who insist on doing cardio, some low-to-moderate intensity cardio two or three times a week for 20-30 minutes is plenty. And by low-to-moderate intensity, I’m talking about something that gets your heart rate up to around 70% of its maximum.

Doing too much high intensity exercise on top of a 5-day strength training program does have the potential to put the brakes on muscle growth.