How's This Push/Pull Routine?

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

A few years back I did the “Best damn workout for natural lifters” and absolutely loved doing Quads and Hams on separate days as I always disliked doing a full leg workout.

Now iv been doing a typical PPL for the last year, it worked great but After around 2 months I would always feel very drained and lost all motivation to keep lifting and ended up taking long breaks.

I want to start doing a Push Pull routine again with 3x/week frequency

I made my own routine from my experience but if someone can point in the right direction if I’m all over the place that would be appreciated.

My routine:

Note: I do realize my glutes get hit quiet alot but it’s really a weak point for me, and the reason for Smith split squats as opposed to regular back squats is that it’s giving me knee issues once I get up in weight. I Did do front squats for a while and it worked but once hitting around 285Lbs mark it started giving me knee issues.

Pull 1

Smith Rows 3x6-10
CG Pulldowns 2x8-12
Straight Arm Pulldown 1x10-15
Face Pull 2x10-15
RDL 3x6-10
Leg Curl 3x10-15
Glute Machine 3x10-15
Incline 1 Arm DB Curl 4x10-15
Crunch 3x10-15

Push 1

Bench 3x6-10
Military 3x6-10
Inc DB 2x8-12
Cable Leaning Lateral 2x10-15
Leg Press 3x8-12
1 Leg Extension 2x10-15
Katana Extension 4x10-15
DB Calves 3x10-15

Pull 2

Reverse Grip Pullups 3x6-10
Seated Rows 3x8-12
Leg Curls 3x6-10
Hip Thrusts 3x8-12
Reverse Flies 2x10-15
Barbell Curls 4x6-10
DB Shrugs 3x8-12
Leg Raise 3x10-15

Push 2

Flat DB press 2x6-10
Inc Barbell 2x8-12
Flies 1x10-15
Seated DB Lateral 5x6-12
Smith Split Squat 3x10-15
1 Leg Extension 2x10-15
Tricep Dips 4x6-10
Seated Calves 3x10-15

2

What are your goals? Having never done push pull I’ll offer no concrete advice. But for my money lots of fluff. To many exercises. I like to work one exercise hard. And then add a bit of volume. Use this as a template;

Push-Pull Training: The Next Generation (t-nation.com)

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If you are getting knee issues from squats then why not invest some time to figure out why?

If I were to do 3x/wk push/pull I’d do

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4

The main benefit of something like Push/Pull is that you can hit the biggest and best movements more frequently throughout the week than a bro split.

The main detractor of Push/Pull is over-fatiguing specific muscles that end up overlapping both days (glutes are the prime example).

Maybe cut some of the less meaningful exercises like single-arm pulldown (aka “junk volume”) and focus on the more important exercises? I love volume too, but doing too much volume deliberately takes away the primary benefit of density-driven programs like Push/Pull. Doing 20-25 sets in a workout, thinking they’ll all be meaningful, is a bit much.

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5

Big fan of the push pull but doing it EOD on a one on, one off split. I take a page out of fortitude training when doing it. Heavy quad variation and a heavy chest variation then pump on delt/triceps. Vice versa following push workout. Heavy behind neck presses and cg floor presses, then pump on quads and pecs say deficit Bulgarian split squats and gironda dips

I remember doing a push pull split in the mid 2k’s called BossHog. Similar to DC rest pausing and it was a rest pause system but 4 sets to hit 30 total reps and it was a push pull split

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