The Vegan Push/Pull/Legs Program: Your 6-Day Hypertrophy Split, Fully Planned

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This is what comes after Friday’s beginner program: six days a week, each muscle group hit twice, every set and rep planned, and a progression scheme that tells you exactly when to add weight instead of leaving you to guess. No “just listen to your body.” Your body is an unreliable narrator.

This is a hypertrophy program. The goal is more muscle, not a bigger one-rep max (though your numbers will climb). The research keeps circling back to three things: enough weekly volume, each muscle trained roughly twice a week, and protein in the 1.6–2.2 g/kg/day range. Push/pull/legs done twice a week delivers the first two by construction. The protein part is on you. I’ll cover the numbers at the end.

Who this is for

You’ve been lifting consistently for at least a few months. You can squat, bench, deadlift, row, and overhead press with form that wouldn’t make a trainer intervene. Three full-body days a week no longer feel like enough. You recover fast and leave the gym wanting more. If you can’t yet describe what “one rep in reserve” feels like, spend another month on the beginner program first.

Why push/pull/legs

The logic is boring, which is why it works. Muscles are grouped by movement pattern: pushing muscles (chest, front and side delts, triceps) together, pulling muscles (lats, upper back, rear delts, biceps) together, legs on their own day. While one group trains, the others rest. Run the three-day rotation twice and every muscle gets trained twice a week, which is the frequency the literature favors. Schoenfeld’s 2019 meta-analysis confirmed the dose-response between weekly sets and growth up to 10 sets per muscle per week, and the practical consensus lands most lifters at 10–20 sets per muscle weekly. This program puts you squarely in that zone without living at the gym: sessions run 60–75 minutes.

It also self-balances. Bro splits skew toward whatever the lifter likes (chest day, chest day again). PPL forces legs and back to show up equally.

The weekly layout

Day	Session
Monday	Push A (heavy)
Tuesday	Pull A (heavy)
Wednesday	Legs A (heavy)
Thursday	Push B (volume)
Friday	Pull B (volume)
Saturday	Legs B (volume)
Sunday	Rest. Actual rest.

The A days lead with a heavy compound in a lower rep range; the B days swap the emphasis so the same muscles get a different stimulus. Each muscle group gets one heavy day and one volume day per week.

Equipment note: this assumes a full gym (barbell, dumbbells, cables). If you train with dumbbells only, swap barbell bench for dumbbell bench, back squat for goblet or Bulgarian split squat, barbell row for one-arm dumbbell row, and deadlift for dumbbell Romanian deadlift. The sets, reps, and progression rules stay identical.

The workouts

Push A — heavy

Exercise	Sets × Reps	Rest
Barbell bench press	4 × 6–8	2–3 min
Overhead press	3 × 8–10	2 min
Incline dumbbell press	3 × 8–12	90 sec
Lateral raise	3 × 12–15	60 sec
Triceps pushdown	3 × 10–12	60 sec
Overhead triceps extension	2 × 12–15	60 sec

Pull A — heavy

Exercise	Sets × Reps	Rest
Barbell row	4 × 6–8	2–3 min
Lat pulldown (or pull-ups)	3 × 8–10	2 min
Chest-supported row	3 × 10–12	90 sec
Face pull	3 × 12–15	60 sec
Barbell curl	3 × 10–12	60 sec
Hammer curl	2 × 12–15	60 sec

Legs A — heavy

Exercise	Sets × Reps	Rest
Back squat	4 × 6–8	2–3 min
Romanian deadlift	3 × 8–10	2 min
Bulgarian split squat	3 × 8–10 per leg	90 sec
Lying leg curl	3 × 10–12	60 sec
Standing calf raise	4 × 12–15	60 sec

Push B — volume

Exercise	Sets × Reps	Rest
Overhead press	4 × 6–8	2–3 min
Close-grip bench press	3 × 8–10	2 min
Dips (weighted if easy)	3 × 8–12	90 sec
Cable fly	3 × 10–12	60 sec
Lateral raise	3 × 12–15	60 sec
Triceps pushdown	3 × 10–12	60 sec

Pull B — volume

Exercise	Sets × Reps	Rest
Conventional deadlift	3 × 5–6	3 min
Weighted pull-up (or lat pulldown)	3 × 6–10	2 min
One-arm dumbbell row	3 × 8–10	90 sec
Straight-arm pulldown	3 × 12–15	60 sec
Preacher curl	3 × 10–12	60 sec
Cable curl	2 × 12–15	60 sec

Legs B — volume

Exercise	Sets × Reps	Rest
Front squat	3 × 6–8	2–3 min
Romanian deadlift	3 × 10–12	2 min
Leg press	3 × 10–12	90 sec
Walking lunge	2 × 12 per leg	90 sec
Seated calf raise	3 × 12–15	60 sec

How to progress: double progression

This is the entire engine of the program. Every exercise has a rep range (e.g., 6–8). Pick a weight you can lift for the bottom of the range with 1–2 reps left in the tank. Each session, add reps. When you can hit the top of the range on all sets with good form, add weight and drop back to the bottom of the range:

• Upper-body lifts: add 2.5–5 lbs, restart at the bottom of the rep range.
• Lower-body lifts: add 5–10 lbs, restart at the bottom of the rep range.
• Isolation moves (curls, laterals, pushdowns): same rule, smallest plates available. Nobody cares that your lateral raise went from 12.5 to 15 lbs; your delts notice.

Effort matters more than the spreadsheet. Compounds should end 1–2 reps shy of failure (RPE 8–9); the final set of isolation moves can flirt with failure (0–1 reps in reserve). If you’re grinding the last rep of every set, the weight is too heavy and your progression will stall within two weeks. Leave the ego lifting for the guys filming in the squat rack.

When you stall: if you can’t add a rep or any weight to a lift for two consecutive sessions, drop that lift’s weight by 10% and rebuild. This is not failure; it’s how intermediate lifting works. Progress is a staircase, not a ramp.

Warm up: 5 minutes of easy cardio, then ramp sets on the first compound of the day (bar × 10, ~50% × 8, ~75% × 5, then work sets).

Eating to grow on plants

The program provides the stimulus; food provides the bricks. A 2018 meta-analysis by Morton and colleagues (49 studies, 1,863 participants, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine) found that protein supplementation stopped adding lean-mass gains beyond about 1.6 g/kg/day, with the confidence interval stretching to 2.2 g/kg/day. Aim for 1.6–2.2 g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight daily. At 80 kg, that’s 128–176 g. And you don’t need to obsess over “complete proteins” at every meal; the meta-analysis found total daily intake, not timing or source, drove the gains.

Eat in a small surplus of roughly 200–300 calories above maintenance. Hypertrophy without surplus calories is negotiating with physics and losing. If the scale hasn’t moved in two weeks, add another 150–200 calories.

One thing worth knowing: the old “plant protein is inferior” talking point mostly collapses when leucine is matched. A 12-week randomized trial comparing soy and whey protein found no significant differences in muscle growth or strength when leucine content was equal. So pick your protein sources (soy, pea blends, seitan, lentils, tofu) and hit the daily total. Your muscles can’t read the label.

Run it, deload it, repeat it

Run the six-day rotation for six weeks. In week seven, deload: keep the same workouts but cut every set count in half and stop each set 3+ reps shy of failure. Then start over at slightly heavier weights than week one. After two full cycles, swap two or three exercises you dislike for equivalents you don’t (incline dumbbell press for machine press, Bulgarian split squats for belt squats) and keep going.

If something hurts in a sharp, joint-y way, that’s not “the burn.” Get it checked. But if you’ve outgrown beginner programming and want the actual plan instead of another motivational quote about discipline: six days, three rotations, double progression. That’s the whole secret. Now go earn your leg day.