Day 1: Chest & Back
| # | Exercise | Sets x Reps |
|---|
| A1 | Incline Smith Press / Incline DB Press / Incline Machine Press | 3 x 6-10 |
| A2 | Neutral-Grip Lat Pulldown | 3 x 8-12 |
| B1 | Machine Chest Press / Flat DB Press | 2-3 x 8-12 |
| B2 | Chest-Supported Row / Seal Row / Machine Row | 2-3 x 8-12 |
| C1 | Cable Fly (mid/lower chest) | 2 x 12-15 |
| C2 | Wide-Grip Cable Row / Face Pull (elbows flared, upper back) | 2 x 10-15 |
Day 2: Quad biased
| # | Exercise | Sets x Reps |
|---|
| 1 | Heel-Elevated Smith Squat / Hack Squat / Pendulum Squat | 3 x 5-8 |
| 2 | Leg Press (quad bias) | 3 x 10-15 |
| 3 | Bulgarian Split Squat / Walking Lunge | 2 x 8-12 each |
| 4 | Leg Extension | 2 x 12-18 |
| 5 | Seated Leg Curl / Lying Leg Curl | 2 x 8-12 |
| 6 | Standing Calf Raise / Leg Press Calf Raise | 3 x 8-12 |
| 7 | Adductor (inward) | 2 x 10-15 |
Day 3: Arms + Delts
| # | Exercise | Sets x Reps |
|---|
| A1 | Overhead Cable Triceps Extension | 3 x 8-12 |
| A2 | Incline Dumbbell Curl / Bayesian Curl | 3 x 8-12 |
| B1 | Rope Pressdown / V-Bar Pressdown | 2-3 x 10-15 |
| B2 | Preacher Curl / Machine Curl / Spider Curl | 2-3 x 10-15 |
| C1 | Cable Lateral Raise / DB Lateral Raise | 3 x 12-20 |
| C2 | Reverse Pec Deck / Face Pull | 3 x 12-20 |
Day 4: Rest
recovery, joint freshness, performance reset.
Day 5: Back & Chest
| # | Exercise | Sets x Reps |
|---|
| A1 | Lat Pulldown / Weighted Pull-Up | 3 x 6-10 |
| A2 | Incline Machine Press / Incline Smith Press | 3 x 8-12 |
| B1 | Chest-Supported Row / High Row | 3 x 8-12 |
| B2 | Pec Deck (seat high, lower chest bias) | 2 x 12-15 |
| C1 | Reverse Fly / Face Pull (upper back, elbows flared) | 2 x 12-15 |
| C2 | Cable Lateral Raise / DB Lateral Raise | 2 x 15-20 |
Day 6: Posterior chain + Glute-biased
| # | Exercise | Sets x Reps |
|---|
| 1 | RDL / DB RDL | 3 x 6-10 |
| 2 | Lying Leg Curl / Seated Leg Curl | 2-3 x 8-12 |
| 3 | Hip Thrust / Cable Pull-Through | 3 x 8-12 |
| 4 | Goblet Squat / Heel-Elevated Smith Squat | 3 x 8-12 |
| 5 | Seated Calf Raise / Smith Calf Raise | 2-3 x 10-15 |
| 6 | Abductor (outward) | 2 x 10-15 |
Day 7: Arms Touchup + Delts
| # | Exercise | Sets x Reps |
|---|
| A1 | Bayesian Curl / Hammer Curl | 3 x 8-12 |
| A2 | Overhead Tricep Extension / Skull Crusher | 2 x 10-15 |
| B | Cable Lateral Raise / DB Lateral Raise | 2 x 15-25 |
| C | Rope Pushdown / V-Bar Pushdown | 1-2 x 12-15 |
i’ve been running PPLR since day 1 for a long time, and recovery was getting harder with my schedule. my weak points are shoulders and arms, and pure PPL wasn’t giving them enough direct, high-quality work without wrecking everything else.
so i’m switching to an arms-focused parts split - two upper days (chest-first vs back-first), two lower days (quad vs posterior chain), and two dedicated arm + delt sessions.
shoutout to cayden for reviewing and helping me clean up the plan - cut the redundant volume, fixed the back movement angles, and made sure arms actually get trained fresh instead of always last when fatigued.
i’ll talk more about my fitness journey and why i’m moving away from PPL in a separate blog post next time.