Push Pull Legs 6-day program: the full split, exercise by exercise

1.Where this plan comes from

The best-known version was posted to Reddit’s r/Fitness by the user u/Metallicadpa, under the title "A Linear Progression Based PPL Program for Beginners". It joins two things that usually live apart: the linear progression of beginner strength programs, where the load goes up from one session to the next, and the accessory volume of hypertrophy training.

The exercises, sets, reps and progression rule on this page are that post’s. What it does not fix and the app needs, we filled in, and we say where: the rest times, the secondary muscle each exercise counts for, and the equipment for a few accessories. NoteFit has no connection to the author.

2.The week: six sessions and one rest day

Six sessions a week — two push, two pull and two legs — and one rest day. Each session has a theme: chest, shoulders and triceps on push days; back, rear delts and biceps on pull days; the whole leg on leg days.

The two push sessions are not the same. On Push A the main lift is the bench press and the overhead press sits at 3×8-12; on Push B they swap. Same on pull days: Pull A opens with the deadlift, Pull B with the barbell row. Leg days repeat the same session. The tables are the full week, exactly as it sits in the app.

3.The main lifts: 4×5 and one set of 5+

On the bench press, overhead press and barbell row, when they are the day’s main lift, the prescription is 4×5 followed by 1×5+: four sets of five and a last set where you do as many reps as your form allows. The squat is 2×5 and 1×5+, and the deadlift gets a single set of 5+.

In the tables each main lift takes two rows: first the sets of 5, then the set of 5+. That last set works as a gauge: if you did well over five reps, the load is still light for you; if you barely got to five, you are close to that lift’s limit and progress is about to slow down.

4.How to progress

The plan’s rule is progressive overload in its simplest form: if you got every rep on a main lift, next session you add 2.5 kg to the upper-body lifts and 5 kg to the squat and the deadlift. Not per week — per session, which is why the plan suits people who are still in the phase where the load goes up almost every time.

On the accessories, the 8-12 and 15-20 rep work, progression is double: first you add reps within the range, and only when every set reaches the top do you add load and drop back to the bottom of the range.

When the load stops moving, the plan has a rule for that too: if you miss the reps on a main lift three sessions in a row, take 10% off and build back up from there. You step back a little and return to where you stalled with cleaner technique.

5.How many sets it gives each muscle

Across the whole week the PPL has 124 sets: 23, 20 and 17 in the first three sessions, 23, 24 and 17 in the second three. The table below shows what that delivers to each muscle group, with every set counting for the main muscle and for the secondary one — the same rule the app’s volume panel uses.

Three numbers stand out. Triceps reach 34 sets, but only 12 are direct: the other 22 come from bench and overhead pressing. Biceps get 33, 17 of them indirect from rows and pulldowns. And shoulders take 30 direct sets between overhead press, lateral raises and face pulls.

On the other side, chest ends up with 14 sets and abs with zero: the plan has no direct core work. If that matters to you, add two or three sets at the end of leg days and check in the panel that the rest of the week did not move.

6.Who it is for, and who it is not for

It is for people who can train six days a week consistently and are still in the phase where the load goes up from one session to the next. Before you start, check that you have six free days in most weeks: a six-session plan with two or three sessions missed every week is no longer this plan.

If you only have three or four days, do not cut sessions from this plan at random. Running the PPL once a week over three days works, but every muscle is then trained once instead of twice. With three days, a full-body plan trains each muscle three times; with four, an upper/lower trains it twice. The training split guide compares the options.

7.Adapting it without breaking it

Accessories can be swapped freely, as long as the replacement trains the same muscle in the same rep range: pulldowns for pull-ups, seated cable rows for chest-supported rows, cable face pulls for band face pulls. The main lifts stay, because they are what carries the progression.

In NoteFit you swap an exercise inside the workout itself, and the volume panel shows straight away whether the change took sets away from a muscle. At the end of the four weeks the copy creates, look at which loads went furthest and plan the next mesocycle from there.

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