Push day workout: the complete push day routine

What is a push day workout?

Push day is the session in a push pull legs split that trains every pressing muscle together. When you bench press, the chest does most of the work, the front of the shoulders helps, and the triceps straighten the elbows. When you press overhead, the shoulders lead and the triceps finish. Training all three on one day means the muscles that work together recover together, and your pull day and leg day are free for back, biceps and lower body.

Two muscles are easy to miss. The side shoulders get little from pressing, so they need their own raises. The long head of the triceps crosses the shoulder joint, so it is stretched most when the arm is overhead; a pushdown alone leaves it short of work. The routine below covers both.

The best push day workout routine

Push A is the main session. It starts with the bench press while you are fresh, moves to the incline dumbbell press for the upper chest, then trains the shoulders and triceps with lighter, higher rep work. Push B is a second push day for weeks when you train push twice: it leads with the overhead press instead, so each big press gets one heavy day a week. Switch between them in the planner.

Push A is 18 sets and takes about an hour with full rest. Push B is 16 sets and a little shorter. If you are short on time, drop the cable fly and the rope pushdown from Push A first; the presses, raises and overhead extension carry the session.

Why the exercises go in this order

Whatever you do first, you do best. A review of exercise order studies found that people complete more reps on an exercise placed at the start of a session, and over weeks of training the first exercise gained the most strength while the last one gained the least (Simão et al., 2012). So the press you most want to improve goes first, and the small muscles, which tire fast but recover fast, go last. Flies before pressing to "pre-exhaust" the chest did not increase how hard the chest worked in that review, so there is no reason to start with them.

1. Heavy press (bench or overhead): 5 to 8 reps, longest rest.
2. Second press at a different angle: 8 to 12 reps.
3. Shoulder press or dips: 8 to 12 reps.
4. Fly: 12 to 15 reps, a stretch the presses do not give.
5. Side raises: 12 to 20 reps.
6. Triceps: one overhead extension, one pushdown or skull crusher.

Best push day exercises and why they made the list

Every push day exercise in the planner earns its place by training a part of a muscle the others miss. This table is the reason behind each pick and what to swap it for if your gym lacks the equipment.

The incline press is there for a measured reason. In a study of 47 untrained men who trained once a week for eight weeks with the same number of sets, the incline bench group grew the upper part of the chest more than the flat bench group (a mean difference of 0.62 cm at that site), while strength gains were similar across all groups (Chaves et al., 2020). Flat for load, incline for the upper chest is a sound pair.

The overhead extension is the strongest triceps choice. When 21 adults trained one arm with cable extensions overhead and the other arm with the elbow at the side for 12 weeks, the overhead arm grew the long head of the triceps by 28.5% against 19.6%, and the whole triceps by 19.9% against 13.9%, even though it lifted lighter weights (Maeo et al., 2023). That is why Push A has the overhead rope extension before the pushdown, and Push B uses the skull crusher, which also works the triceps with the arm raised.

Push day sets, reps and rest times

Most push days need 16 to 20 hard sets across 5 to 7 exercises. The first press uses heavier weights for 5 to 8 reps, the other presses 8 to 12, and flies, raises and triceps work 10 to 20. Stop most sets with one to three reps left in the tank; the RPE scale explains how to judge it.

Do not cut the rest on the presses to save time. In a study of 21 trained men doing the same program, those who rested 3 minutes between sets gained more bench press and squat strength than those who rested 1 minute, and grew their thighs more, with a trend toward more triceps growth as well (Schoenfeld et al., 2016). Short rests only make you lift less on the next set. Save time on the raises and triceps instead, where one minute is enough.

Weekly sets per muscle

Once a week, Push A gives the chest 8 hard sets. That is enough to grow on a 3 day split, especially early on. Twice a week, Push A and Push B together bring the chest to 15 and the side shoulders and triceps to 6 to 8 direct sets on top of all the pressing, which is a solid weekly dose for an intermediate lifter.

Dumbbell push day and beginner push day

Not everyone has a free bench and a cable stack. The dumbbell push day needs only dumbbells and an adjustable bench, so it works at home or in a crowded gym. The beginner push day uses machines and one cable, which are easier to learn and safer to push hard on without a spotter. Both keep the same order: presses first, raises and triceps last.

The dumbbell version has 18 sets, the same as Push A, with the dumbbell bench press in place of the barbell and push-ups as the finisher. The beginner version has 14 sets on five exercises, which is enough while every session still brings new strength. After two or three months, move to Push A. For a whole week of dumbbell training, see the dumbbell workout plan.

Women can run any of these push days as written. Nothing in them needs changing, and the lateral raises are what shape the shoulders. If upper body is not a priority, the beginner session is a good once a week push day next to two lower body days, as in the workout split for women.

How often should you do push day?

Push once a week if you train three days, push twice a week if you train six. Both work. Pooling 25 studies, Schoenfeld and colleagues found no significant difference in muscle growth between training a muscle once or several times a week when the weekly sets were the same, and concluded that people can choose their frequency by preference (Schoenfeld et al., 2019). What twice a week gives you is room: 15 sets for the chest fit far more comfortably in two sessions than in one.

Keep at least two days between push sessions, and do not put push day right after an upper body or shoulder day. The full week plans are written out in the 3 day workout split and the 6 day workout split.

How to progress your push day

Use double progression. Pick a weight that lets you reach the bottom of the rep range with one to three reps left. Keep it until every set hits the top of the range, then add the smallest jump and work back up. Write each set down so you know what to beat next week.

Warm up before the first press with two or three lighter sets; the warm-up calculator works out the weights, the plate calculator loads the bar, and the one rep max calculator estimates your max from a recent set. Lateral raises stall the fastest. When the next dumbbell is too big a jump, add reps up to 20 before moving up, or switch to the leaning cable lateral raise, where the weight steps are smaller.

Common push day mistakes