Push Pull Workout to Maximize Your Muscle Gains

Want greater gains in less time? If so, try push-pull workout combinations. This training method promotes muscle growth, allowing you to train two or more big muscle groups in a short amount of time. It’s quite similar to Arnold’s popular chest and back superset workouts, so you should give it a try. For best results, use moderate to heavy loads and compound movements.

 

How Do Push Pull Combinations Work?

Training agonist and antagonist muscles in supersets will take your workout to a whole new level. This way you allow your pulling muscles to rest while your pushing muscles are working, and vice versa. Push-pull combos engage more muscles at once, which helps increase growth hormone levels and promote muscle growth.

Push muscles

Both your upper and lower body can benefit from this push pull workout. For instance, training your pecs, triceps, latissimus dorsi, biceps, and triceps muscles in a single session would be considered a push pull workout. Push muscle groups include the calves, glutes, deltoids, triceps, pectorals, and quadriceps.

Pull muscles

The main pull muscles are your traps, obliques, hamstrings, lats, forearms, and biceps. Many bodybuilders combine larger and smaller muscle groups into the same workout to burn fat and get stronger.

How Does a Push Pull Workout Look Like?

There are lots of ways to incorporate push-pull combinations into your workout routine. This approach can be used twice a week, with at least two days of rest between training sessions.

A typical push pull workout can include big movements such as bent-over rows and barbell bench presses (superset), pull-ups and dumbbell shoulder presses (superset). For each exercise, do four sets, five to eight reps each.

Give yourself a day of rest, after which you will work the legs.

A couple of days later, you can try the following push-pull combo: pull downs, push presses (superset), incline dumbbell bench (superset), and single arm dumbbell rows. Perform three sets, eight to twelve reps each. When doing supersets, do not rest between exercises. Increase the load gradually in each set so you can stick to the rep ranges listed. 

Push Pull Workout Example

 

Day 1 – push – pull – chest, back, shoulders

Dumbbell shoulder press 4 x 8 reps in a superset with
Pull Ups 4 x 8-10 reps
Barbell bench press 4 x 8 reps in a superset with
Bent over barbell rows 4 x 8 reps

Day 2 – legs

Squats 4 x 10 reps in a superset with
Leg curls 4 x 10 reps
Lunges 4 x 10 reps (each leg) in a superset with
Standing calf raises 4 x 10 reps

Day 3 –  push – pull – chest, back, shoulders

Standing barbell shoulder press 3 x 12 reps in a superset with
Pull downs 3 x 12 reps
Incline Dumbbell Bench Press 3 x 12 reps
Cable row 3 x 12 reps