Fact Checked
Evidence Based
A push day workout is a strength training routine targeting all the muscles involved in pushing movements.
Compared to training routines that focus on just one muscle group per workout, push day workouts allow you to train harder in less time and don’t cause as much soreness, making them excellent for gaining mass and strength.
A common problem with push day workout routines, however, is that people program them poorly. They choose exercises that overemphasize some muscles and neglect others, or they try to do too much in each session.
In this article, you’ll learn to avoid these common missteps.
You’ll discover which muscles push day workout routines train, the best push workout for gaining upper body size and strength, tips for making your workouts more productive, and more.
What Is A Push Day Workout Routine?
A push day workout routine trains the main upper body muscles involved in pushing things away from your torso: the chest, shoulders, and triceps. Typically, they emphasize compound pushing exercises, including the flat and incline barbell bench press and overhead press.
They also often include isolation exercises to target the parts of your pushing muscles that compound push exercises may not fully develop.
For example, while the bench press effectively trains the medial and lateral triceps heads, it doesn’t target the triceps long head as well. To address this, a push day routine might include the overhead triceps extension, which trains the long head to a high degree.
Push workout plans are usually part of “push pull legs split,” which is a method of organizing your training that dedicates specific days to exercises that focus on either pushing, pulling, or training your lower body.
Muscles Worked in a Push Day Workout
The main muscle groups worked in a push day workout are:
Here’s how these muscles look on your body:
The Best Push Day Workout Routine for Size and Strength
Below is a top-tier push day workout routine for gaining mass and strength.
It works well because it includes exercises that are easy to progressively overload and let you safely train with heavy weights.
It also contains the perfect amount of volume (sets) to stimulate growth without wearing you to a frazzle:
- Bench Press: 3 sets of 4-to-6 reps with 2-to-4 min rest
- Overhead Press: 3 sets of 4-to-6 reps with 2-to-4 min rest
- Incline Dumbbell Bench Press: 3 sets of 4-to-6 reps with 2-to-4 min rest
- Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise: 3 sets of 6-to-8 reps with 2-to-3 min rest
- Overhead Triceps Extension: 3 sets of 6-to-8 reps with 2-to-3 min rest
Now let’s look at how to perform each exercise and why they’re so effective.
1. Barbell Bench Press
Any good push day workout routine revolves around the bench press because it allows you to handle heavy weights, progress regularly, and train almost every major muscle in your upper body, particularly your pecs, triceps, and deltoids.
How to:
- Lie on a flat bench and place your feet flat on the floor.
- Pull your shoulder blades together and down, and without lifting your butt or shoulders off the bench, slightly arch your back.
- Grab the bar with a slightly wider than shoulder-width grip and unrack the barbell.
- Lower the barbell to your chest, keeping your elbows tucked 6-to-8 inches from your sides.
- Press the bar back to the starting position.
2. Overhead Press
In addition to improving upper-body strength and shoulder, triceps, and upper chest mass, the overhead press develops your whole-body balance and coordination.
How to:
- Set a barbell in a rack at the same height as your upper chest.
- Grip the bar with a shoulder-width grip and your palms facing away from you.
- Unrack the barbell, step backward, and plant your feet just outside of shoulder width.
- Push the bar toward the ceiling until your arms are straight.
- Reverse the movement and return to the starting position.
3. Incline Dumbbell Bench Press
The incline dumbbell bench press is a worthy inclusion in a push day workout routine for mass because it emphasizes your “upper pecs,” which is vital for developing overall chest size. It also allows you to stretch your chest muscles slightly more than the barbell bench press, which benefits muscle growth.
How to:
- While lying on a bench angled at 30-to-45 degrees, hold a dumbbell in each hand and rest them on your thighs.
- Lie back, hoisting the dumbbells up so you’re holding them on either side of your chest by giving them a nudge with your thighs.
- Press the dumbbells over your upper chest until your arms are straight and your elbows are locked.
- Lower the dumbbells to the starting position.
4. Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise
The dumbbell side lateral raise isolates the lateral (side) head of the deltoids, which is important if you want to develop proportional shoulder mass.
How to:
- Stand up straight with a dumbbell in each hand.
- Raise the dumbbells out to your sides until your upper arms are parallel to the floor.
- Reverse the movement and return to the starting position.
5. Overhead Triceps Extension
The overhead triceps extension trains the entire triceps (especially the long head) when fully stretched, which maximizes growth.
How to:
- Sit up straight on a bench.
- Grip one end of a dumbbell using both palms and lift it overhead so your arms are straight. Your palms should be flat against the end of the dumbbell and facing the ceiling.
- Lower the weight until it’s behind your head by bending your elbows, then straighten your arms and return to the starting position.
What Are the Benefits of Push Day Workouts?
The main benefits of push day workout routines are:
- Time Efficiency: Push day routines train your chest, shoulders, and triceps in one session, eliminating the need for separate workouts for each muscle group and making it ideal for those with limited time.
- Higher-quality training: When you train one muscle group per workout, its performance decreases as the workout progresses. To compensate, you have to use lighter weights or do fewer reps, which isn’t ideal for muscle and strength gain. Push day workouts avoid this issue by distributing the effort across several muscle groups.
- Less Soreness: Since you never train any single muscle group to the point of exhaustion, most people find they’re less sore from push day workouts and can recover faster, making it easier to maintain training intensity across the week without one session negatively affecting the next.
3 Tips for More Productive Push Day Workouts
1. End every set 1-to-3 reps shy of muscle failure.
As I explain in my fitness books for men and women, to maximize your results, you must take most of the sets in your push workouts to within a rep or two of failure.
Ask yourself at the end of each set, “If I had to, how many more reps could I have gotten with good form?” If the answer is more than two, increase the weight or reps to make your next set more challenging.
2. Once you hit the top of your rep range for a set, move up in weight.
If your push workout plan calls for 4-to-6 reps of the bench press and you get 6 reps for a set, add 10 pounds to your next set.
If you manage 3 or fewer reps with the new weight, reduce the weight by 5 pounds to ensure you stay in the 4-to-6 rep range.
Follow this pattern of trying to add reps or weight to every exercise in every workout.
3. Take the right supplements.
These supplements can help you optimize your push day workout performance and gains:
- Protein powder: Protein powder provides your body with the nutrients needed to build muscle tissue and recover from workouts.
- Creatine: Creatine boosts muscle and strength gain, improves anaerobic endurance, and reduces muscle damage and soreness from your workouts.
- Pre-workout: A high-quality pre-workout enhances energy, mood, and focus, increases strength and endurance, and reduces fatigue.
(If you’d like even more specific advice about which supplements you should take to reach your health and fitness goals, take the Legion Supplement Finder Quiz, and in less than a minute, you’ll know exactly what supplements are right for you. Click here to check it out.)
+ Scientific References
- Oranchuk, Dustin J., et al. “Isometric Training and Long-Term Adaptations: Effects of Muscle Length, Intensity, and Intent: A Systematic Review.” Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, vol. 29, no. 4, 13 Jan. 2019, pp. 484–503, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/sms.13375, https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.13375.
- Bloomquist, K., et al. “Effect of Range of Motion in Heavy Load Squatting on Muscle and Tendon Adaptations.” European Journal of Applied Physiology, vol. 113, no. 8, 20 Apr. 2013, pp. 2133–2142, link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00421-013-2642-7, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-013-2642-7.
- Landin, Dennis, and Melissa Thompson. “The Shoulder Extension Function of the Triceps Brachii.” Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, vol. 21, no. 1, Feb. 2011, pp. 161–165, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jelekin.2010.09.005.
- Ochi, Eisuke , et al. Higher Training Frequency Is Important for Gaining Muscular Strength under Volume-Matched Training. 1 July 2018, www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2018.00744/full, https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2018.00744.
- Stokes, Tanner, et al. “Recent Perspectives Regarding the Role of Dietary Protein for the Promotion of Muscle Hypertrophy with Resistance Exercise Training.” Nutrients, vol. 10, no. 2, 7 Feb. 2018, p. 180, www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/10/2/180/pdf.
- Jd, Branch. “Effect of Creatine Supplementation on Body Composition and Performance: A Meta-Analysis.” International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 1 June 2003, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12945830/.
- Eckerson, Joan M., et al. “Effect of Creatine Phosphate Supplementation on Anaerobic Working Capacity and Body Weight after Two and Six Days of Loading in Men and Women.” The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, vol. 19, no. 4, 2005, p. 756, https://doi.org/10.1519/r-16924.1.
- Bassit, Reinaldo Abunasser, et al. “Effect of Short-Term Creatine Supplementation on Markers of Skeletal Muscle Damage after Strenuous Contractile Activity.” European Journal of Applied Physiology, vol. 108, no. 5, 3 Dec. 2009, pp. 945–955, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-009-1305-1.
You May Also Like
Our Most Popular Evidence-Based Articles
You don’t need supplements to build muscle, lose fat, and get healthy. But the right ones can help.
Take our 60-second quiz now to learn which supplements can help you achieve your fitness goals faster.
Sending…
Your free stuff is on the way!
Follow the Diet Plan that Helped Nikita Lose 15 Pounds in 3 Months
“I never thought getting in shape would be this simple! Everything just WORKS when you follow this plan.” And if he can do it, why not you?
![Custom Meal Planning Tool](https://legionathletics.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/meal-plan-exit.png)
Wait!
Want a Free Custom Meal Planning Tool?
Quickly calculate your calories, macros, and micros for losing fat, building muscle, and staying healthy.
Our “No Return Necessary”
Money-Back Guarantee
If you don’t like something of ours, guess what happens next?
No, we don’t request you deliver it to a PO box in the Gobi Desert by carrier pigeon. Nor do we ask you to fill a cursed inkwell with orc’s blood and demon saliva and then use it to complete reams of return forms written in ancient Cyrillic script.
We just . . . wait for it . . . give you your money back. Holy moo cows. And that means you can say “yes” now and decide later.
Free Worldwide Shipping & Returns
Many companies use shipping and handling fees to increase their profit margins, but here at Legion, we hate profits, so our shipping is free!
Okay, so we do dig on profits, but we also go in for happy customers, and free shipping works like gangbusters. So, if you live in the United States, your order ships free regardless of order size, if you live in the UK, Canada, Puerto Rico, or Guam, your order ships free when it’s over $99, and if you live elsewhere, your order ships free when it’s over $199.
Also, if you don’t absolutely love our stuff for whatever reason, we don’t request you deliver it to a PO box in the Gobi Desert by carrier pigeon.
We just . . . wait for it . . . give you your money back. No returns. No forms. No nonsense. Holy moo cows.
That means you can say “yes” now and decide later. You really have nothing to lose.
Free Worldwide Shipping & Returns
Many companies use shipping and handling fees to increase their profit margins, but here at Legion, we hate profits, so our shipping is free!
Okay, so we do dig on profits, but we also go in for happy customers, and free shipping works like gangbusters. So, if you live in the UK, Canada, Puerto Rico, or Guam, your order ships free when it’s over $99.
Why the restriction on international orders? Unfortunately, shipping abroad is very expensive, and if we didn’t require a minimum order size, we’d lose a lot of money. But! We’re also hustling to improve our international logistics and will be passing our savings along to our international customers.
Also, if you don’t absolutely love our stuff for whatever reason, we don’t request you deliver it to a PO box in the Gobi Desert by carrier pigeon.
We just . . . wait for it . . . give you your money back. No returns. No forms. No nonsense. Holy moo cows.
That means you can say “yes” now and decide later. You really have nothing to lose.
Free Worldwide Shipping & Returns
Many companies use shipping and handling fees to increase their profit margins, but here at Legion, we hate profits, so our shipping is free!
Okay, so we do dig on profits, but we also go in for happy customers, and free shipping works like gangbusters. So, if you’re outside the USA, your order ships free when it’s over $199.
Why the restriction on international orders? Unfortunately, shipping abroad is very expensive, and if we didn’t require a minimum order size, we’d lose a lot of money. But! We’re also hustling to improve our international logistics and will be passing our savings along to our international customers.
Also, if you don’t absolutely love our stuff for whatever reason, we don’t request you deliver it to a PO box in the Gobi Desert by carrier pigeon.
We just . . . wait for it . . . give you your money back. No returns. No forms. No nonsense. Holy moo cows.
That means you can say “yes” now and decide later. You really have nothing to lose.
Split your entire online purchase into 4 interest-free payments, over 6 weeks with no impact to your credit.
25%
today
25%
2 weeks
25%
4 weeks
25%
6 weeks
![Step 1 - shop the store](https://media.sezzle.com/branding/2.0/merchant/howItWorks/step-1-shop.png)
Shop and add items to your cart as normal!
![Step 2 - checkout at the store](https://media.sezzle.com/branding/2.0/merchant/howItWorks/step-2-checkout.png)
Choose Sezzle at Checkout! You’ll be redirected to Sezzle to Sign Up or Log In
to complete your order.
![Step 3 - Select Sezzle and Sezzleit](https://media.sezzle.com/branding/2.0/merchant/howItWorks/step-3-sezzle-it.png)
Your order will be shipped out right away* and your payments will be split up
over 6 weeks.
*shipping times subject to merchant shipping policy
Shop directory. Reschedule payments. Plus more!
Waiver and Release of Liability
In consideration of the services and/or products offered by Legion Athletics, Inc. (“Legion”) including, but not limited to, nutrition plans, exercise routines and coaching, and in addition to the payment of any fee or charge:
I knowingly and voluntarily enter into this waiver and release of liability and hereby waive any and all rights, claims or causes of action of any kind whatsoever arising out of my use of Legion’s services and/or products, and I hereby release and hold harmless Legion and its consultants, officers, contractors, agents, owners and employees from any and all responsibility, liability, cost and expenses, including for injuries, damages or disorders (physical, metabolic, or otherwise), resulting from my use of Legion’s services and/or products.
I understand that fitness activities including, but not limited to, strength, flexibility, and cardiovascular exercise, with or without the use of equipment, are potentially hazardous activities that involve a risk of injury and even death, and I am voluntarily participating in these activities and using equipment and machinery with knowledge of the risks involved. I hereby agree to assume and accept any and all risks of injury or death related to said fitness activities.
I understand Legion’s services and products are not meant to treat or manage any health conditions or circumstances, and I acknowledge that Legion has recommended I obtain a healthcare provider’s approval for my use of Legion’s services and/or products, through regular physical examination(s) and/or consultation. I acknowledge that I have obtained my healthcare provider’s approval or have decided to use Legion’s services and/or products without such approval and hereby assume all responsibility for my use of said services and/or products.
I understand that results from using Legion’s products and/or services are not guaranteed, and I agree to not hold Legion liable for any outcomes or lack thereof.
OUT OF STOCK
Security Check
Please click the checkbox below. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Fact Checked
Our scientific review board of nutritionists, dietitians, molecular biologists, doctors, and other accredited experts is responsible for reviewing every article, podcast, and video we produce to ensure they’re evidence based, accurate, trustworthy, and current.
Thanks to their connections, credentials, and academic experience, this team of MDs, PhDs, and other professionals has access to a wealth of research published in the largest and most prestigious journals in the world.
This allows them to not only review individual studies but also analyze the overall weight of the evidence on any and all topics related to diet, exercise, supplementation, and more.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, misleading, out-of-date, or anything less than factual, please let us know in the comments section of the article in question.
Evidence Based
We follow a detailed, rigorous, multi-step process to create content that meets the highest standards of clarity, practicality, and scientific integrity.
First, our research associates provide our editorial team with accurate, up-to-date, proven scientific evidence.
Then, our editorial team uses this research to draft articles and outlines for podcasts and videos.
Finally, our scientific review board reviews the content to ensure all key information and claims are backed by high-quality scientific research and explained simply and precisely.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, misleading, out-of-date, or anything less than factual, please let us know in the comments section of the article in question.