Upper/Lower vs Push/Pull/Legs (PPL): Which is Better for Gaining Muscle?

If you want to gain muscle, which routine works best? An upper/lower or a push/pull/legs split? Let’s find out.

Is there a big difference between an upper/lower vs a PPL split when it comes to gaining muscle?

As a rule, an upper/lower split is a better fit for someone who’s relatively new to lifting weights, and can only train 4 times a week. A PPL split is better suited to more advanced lifters able to train 5-6 days a week.

In practical terms, pick the one you’re more likely to stick with, as the gains will be very similar for the average lifter.

Let’s take a closer look at the benefits and drawbacks of each one, so you can choose a routine that’s right for you.

What’s an Upper/Lower Split?

An upper/lower split is a training routine that works the muscles in your upper body on one day, and the lower body on another. Here’s what a 4-day upper/lower split looks like:

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

Upper body exercises like the barbell bench press, dumbbell shoulder press, barbell row and triceps pressdown are done on one day, with lower body exercises, such as the deadlift, squat, leg extension and calf raise, performed on another.

What’s a Push/Pull/Legs (PPL) split?

A push/pull/legs routine is a training program that devotes one day to upper body pushing movements (chest, shoulders and triceps), a second day to upper body pulling movements (back, and biceps), and a third day to leg exercises (quads, glutes, hamstrings and calves). Here’s what a 6-day PPL split looks like:

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

Upper Lower vs Push/Pull/Legs (PPL): Which is Better?

Ultimately, the effectiveness of a given routine, be it an upper/lower split or push/pull/legs routine, depends on a number of factors, including:

• What are your goals?
• How many days a week can you train?
• How much time can you spend in the gym?
• How well do you recover?
• How much stimulation do your muscles need to grow?

Let’s take a look at each in turn.

What are your goals? If you’re Googling around for advice on the relative merits of an upper/lower vs PPL split, chances are you want to build muscle.

But how much muscle exactly? Do you just want a bit of extra muscle here and there? Or are you planning to enter a bodybuilding contest? 

How quickly do you want that muscle to be gained? Do you want to put on the maximum amount of muscle your genetics will permit in the shortest time possible?

Maybe gaining muscle is one of several goals you’re chasing at the moment, and you don’t have the time or the energy to give it your all. As a result, you know it’s going to take longer to gain the muscle you want.

How many days a week can you train? A training program is only effective if you actually do it. There’s no point starting out on a routine that involves lifting weights six days a week, if you only have the time (or the inclination) to train four times a week.

How much time can you spend in the gym? If you can train four days per week, your workouts are going to take longer than they would do if you were lifting weights 5 or 6 times per week. 

If you’re training six times a week, for example, you might be able to get each training session done in 45 minutes. Compressing the same amount of work into four training sessions means that each one is going to take longer than an hour, which may not fit your schedule.

Some people find it easier to stick to a training program that involves shorter, more frequent workouts. Others prefer longer, less frequent training sessions.

For the same volume of training, most people will see comparable results with both approaches, and should pick the one they’re most likely to stay consistent with.

How well do you recover? You also need to think about how well you’re able to recover from one workout to the next.

And it’s not just what you do in the gym that you need to consider when you’re deciding how often to train.

Non-training stressors, which is stuff you have going on in your life that’s causing you an undue amount of anxiety, worry or some other form of psychological stress that you don’t want to feel, can slow the rate at which you recover from and adapt to your workouts.

Pressure at work… money worries… a turbulent private life… lack of sleep… a poor diet… all have the potential to screw around with recovery.

How much stimulation do your muscles need to grow? For a beginner, gains are relatively easy to come by. Their muscles typically respond well to resistance training, and beginners can often make impressive gains with a relatively small volume of training.

But over time, your body adapts, making the acquisition of additional muscle mass progressively slower and more difficult. Stimulating more growth will typically require more work in the gym. 

Three days a week of lifting, for example, may have worked just fine when you were starting out. But there’ll come a point when the gains slow down, or even grind to a halt completely. If you want to keep making progress, chances are you’ll need more training.

People also respond differently to different training programs. One person may need a higher volume of training than another to stimulate the same amount of hypertrophy. 

As a result, they’ll need more time in the gym, in the form of longer and/or more frequent workouts, to make similar gains.

In short, there’s no single best training split that works equally well for everyone.

A training program that’s optimal for someone over the age of 40 who wants to build muscle, for example, isn’t necessarily going to be the best training split for an aspiring bodybuilder in their twenties.

However, there are a few things that effective training splits have in common:

Training Frequency

From a frequency point of view, you want to hit each muscle group at least twice a week. 

Training a muscle group just once a week can certainly produce results. But in most cases, you’re better off working each muscle group at least twice every seven days, which you can do with both an upper/lower and PPL split.

However, if you want to hit each muscle group twice a week, an upper/lower split requires four workouts, while a PPL routine requires six.

That’s fine if you can train six days a week. One of the benefits of a 6-day PPL routine is that it allows for shorter workouts, while still hitting every muscle group twice a week. 

But not everyone is in that position.

If you can only train on a consistent basis 4 days a week, then go with an upper/lower split. If you can do 5-6 days a week, then a push/pull/legs routine is certainly a viable option.

A 5-day PPL split does hit your muscles twice every seven days (although not always every calendar week), in the sense that the major muscle groups get 3-4 days of recovery from one workout to the next.

Here’s what a 5-day push/pull/legs routine looks 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 Monday and you start the cycle all over again. Each muscle group is trained five times in every three-week block. 

Training Volume

In terms of the number of sets for each muscle group, you can build muscle with a relatively low number of sets (5 sets per muscle per week). But if you want to maximize your rate of muscular growth, 10-20 sets per muscle group per week is about right.

By “muscle group” I’m not talking about an area of the body like the arms or the legs. 

Specifically, I’m talking about groups of muscles that work together to create movement at a joint, such as the quadriceps, hamstrings, biceps, triceps and so on.

For example, if you do 4 sets of squats, 3 sets of leg presses and 3 sets of leg curls over the course of a week, you’ve performed a total of 10 sets for the legs.

But most of the work has been done by the quadriceps (the muscles on the front of your thigh).

Although the hamstrings are doing some work during the squat, for instance, it’s not equivalent to the work done by the quadriceps. That is, doing 10 sets of squats each week wouldn’t count as 10 sets for the quadriceps and 10 sets for the hamstrings.

As long as you’re hitting the major muscle groups with around 10-20 hard sets every seven days, that falls into the “optimal” category. 

Again, you can achieve that with both a PPL routine and an upper/lower split. But with an upper/lower split, the volume is distributed across four training days rather than six.

Of course, a PPL routine gives you the potential for more volume for your upper body, as the upper body work is spread across two workouts rather than one.

If you want to focus more on your chest, shoulders, back or arms, you can fit more volume in with a PPL routine and still keep the workouts to a manageable length.

In short, if a training split ticks the right boxes in terms of training frequency, total number of sets per muscle group (both per session and per week) and the reps per set are in the hypertrophy rep range, then it’s going to be an effective one.

A 3-day full-body workout would do the job… so would a push/pull/legs routine done 5-6 days a week… so would an upper/lower or push/pull split done 4 days a week.

All have their place at different times and for different people.

Final Thoughts

Overall, there are pros and cons to both an upper/lower and push/pull/legs split. In general, an  upper/lower split is a better choice if you’re relatively new to lifting weights, and can train 4 times a week, while a PPL routine is better suited to a more advanced lifter who’s able to train 5-6 days a week, and wants to focus on building upper body muscle groups.

However, for an identical training volume, the average lifter will see similar gains with both approaches, and should pick the one they’re most likely to stick with. Both routines will produce results if you train hard, eat right and stay consistent.