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For your upper and lower body.

Anyone who’s dabbled with workout splits before be familiar with push-pull workouts, but for those of you who haven’t, rest assured it’s an easy strength training method to get to grips with.

In a nutshell, it’s the process of structuring training sessions to focus on push muscles and pull muscles individually, and doing so is a proven way to ‘create a more balanced body,’ so says Andy Vincent, a strength and conditioning coach. You’ll be strong all over without any weak spots, in other words, which can also help you achieve goals and new PBs sooner, if that’s what you’re aiming for. So without further ado, here’s everything you need to know about push workouts and pull workouts, including an example full-body push and pull workout.

‘Push movements are effectively any exercise that involves an action where a weight or load is moved away from your body,’ Vincent explains. ‘So, a push workout is something that involves these kinds of movements, like throwing and jumping. They can include your lower and upper body, and can form either a gym workout or a home workout, depending on which exercises you go for and which equipment you need.’

As we’ve mentioned, the point of implementing a push pull workout split is to isolate your ‘push muscles’ from your ‘pull muscles’, so the main benefit of a push workout is to strengthen and train your push muscles. ‘These are your explosive muscles which can aid in strength and performance,’ Vincent tells us. He shares the following examples of push muscles:

Perform three sets of 8-12 reps of the following exercises, with 10-15 secs between each set, taking 60 secs rest before moving on to the next exercise.

If your hips sag at any point during the exercise, your form has been broken. When this happens, consider that your last repetition and end the set.

Check out our edit of the best dumbbell arm exercises for more upper body workout inspiration.

Not a big fan of tricep extensions? Let us guide you through the most effective tricep exercises.

Other push workout exercises to consider:

‘A pull workout trains all of the muscles that do the action of pulling or hinging at the hips,’ Vincent tells us. ‘These “pull muscles” incorporate the entire posterior chain (the back of your body), so a pull workout can cover every part of your body, from your lower to your upper.’

‘”Pull muscles” are the most undertrained since they’re positioned at the back of your body,’ says Vincent, ‘So training them in a pull workout is a great way to improve any muscular imbalances. A pull workout is also great for improving posture, injury prevention, and helping you to land and manage your body as you run and jump.’ Here are the main pull muscles to be aware off, according to Vincent:

Perform three rounds of 8-12 reps of the following exercises, with 10-15 secs between each set, and 60 secs rest between each different exercise.

Confused as to how a hip thrust, with its pushing up movement, qualifies as a pull exercise? Vincent explains that it requires more strength from the posterior chain, which makes it a pull exercise.

Providing you do the same amount of push workouts as you do pull workouts, you're all good. Vincent recommends at least one push workout and one pull workout per week, incorporating progressive overload to help you get stronger and fitter over time, and always including warm-ups (mobility exercises are a great shout) and cool-downs.

If you decide to split your push/pull workouts into upper and lower body, Vincent advises that you look to do one lower body push workout, one upper body push workout, one lower body pull workout and one upper body pull workout per week. Balance should be your goal - if you only do lower body workouts, you could end up with a weak back and shoulders, which could result in injury or back pain.

That said, if you're focussing on building strength in one particular area, you may want to spend longer doing those workouts, so you might do a 1-hour upper body push workout and only a 30-min lower body push workout. Capiche?

It's less about duration and more about intensity. Listen to your body. If you feel like you've already worked hard and got a sweat on within 20 minutes and you're not feeling going for any longer, take that as your cue to stop.