Is PPL or Upper/Lower better for a beginner?

Upper/Lower, or full body, almost always. PPL usually runs as six sessions a week, so a beginner has to hit six slots before they know whether they can hit four. Upper/Lower at four days a week gives each muscle group roughly twice-weekly work and leaves two spare days for life to happen. Full body three times a week gives beginners even more frequency per lift, which is what a novice linear progression needs to work.

How many days a week should I lift?

As many as you actually attended over the last eight weeks, which may be fewer than you intend to. Public health guidance puts the floor at two muscle-strengthening days a week. Most people building strength land between three and five. A fifth or sixth day helps only if the first four are already reliable; if they are not, the extra day is where the program starts to fail.

What is 5/3/1 and how does its progression work?

5/3/1 is Jim Wendler's percentage-based program. You set a Training Max at 85 to 90 percent of your tested one-rep max (the original template uses 90) and run a three-week wave from it: fives, then threes, then a 5/3/1 week, with the final set taken for as many reps as possible. Week four is a deload. After each cycle you add a fixed increment to the Training Max, typically 2.5 kg on upper-body lifts and 5 kg on lower-body lifts. Your actual one-rep max is never the number you increase.

What is double progression?

Double progression means you add reps before you add load. You pick a rep bracket, say 3 sets of 8 to 12, and stay at the same weight until every set reaches 12. Then you add the smallest available increment and drop back to 8. It is the standard progression for intermediate lifters because it turns a failed load increase into a normal training week: you repeat the weight and try to add one rep.

How do I know when my novice linear progression has ended?

When two resets on the same lift produce no new personal record between them. Mark Rippetoe's rule is to reset roughly 10 percent after two or three consecutive failed sessions and build back. The first reset usually works. If the second reset brings you back to the same wall, the linear phase is over for that lift and you can no longer add load every session. Move that lift to double progression or a percentage cycle. The other lifts can keep running linear.

Can I run PPL if I can only train four days a week?

Yes, as a rolling rotation instead of a fixed weekly schedule. Run push, pull, legs, push, pull, legs, and do the next session in the sequence whenever you get to the gym, without tying sessions to weekdays. On four days a week that gives each muscle group roughly one and a third sessions per week, which is thin. At four days, Upper/Lower generally distributes the work better.

PPL vs Upper/Lower vs Full Body: How to Choose

Most program arguments are about the wrong variable.

Ask whether PPL beats Upper/Lower and you get a hundred confident answers about frequency, volume distribution and recovery. All of it is real, and almost none of it decides anything. Run two competently written programs, same person, same twelve weeks, and you would struggle to see the difference in your own logbook.

The outcome depends on whether you are still running the thing in week ten: the Tuesday you leave the office at 19:40, the fortnight in March when everyone in the house is ill. So the comparison below is built around days per week, session length, and the specific way each program breaks.

Which strength program should you run?

Program	Days/week	Realistic session	Progression model	Frequency per muscle	Suits	Characteristic failure mode
Full body 3×	3	50 to 70 min	Linear, then double progression	~3×	Beginners, unpredictable weeks, returning lifters	Sessions creep longer as the squat gets heavy. Near-maximal squatting three times a week stops being recoverable, and people quit instead of cutting back.
Upper/Lower 4×	4	55 to 75 min	Double progression, or percentage blocks	2×	Intermediates with four genuinely reliable slots	The fourth day gets dropped, and without anyone deciding it the split becomes a lopsided three-day plan where legs are trained once.
PPL 6×	6	45 to 75 min	Double progression, usually per exercise	2×	People who want six gym days and have a short commute	Miss two sessions and a fixed weekly rotation desynchronises. The make-up logic collapses within a fortnight.
Starting Strength / novice LP	3	45 to 75 min, growing	Linear: add load every session	3×	Untrained or detrained lifters, roughly the first 3 to 9 months of barbell work	The linear phase ends and nobody notices. Lifters reset the same 10% three or four times when they should change model.
5/3/1	3 to 4	40 to 60 min plus assistance	Percentage-based off a Training Max, 4-week cycle	1× per main lift, ~2× per muscle with assistance	Intermediates who want a long plan and few weekly decisions	It feels light in month one, so the Training Max gets inflated. The AMRAP set becomes a grinder and stops adding reps.

Weekly frequency per muscle doesn’t separate these programs much. Full body and PPL sit at three and two, and once weekly volume is held equal, the frequency research shows nothing dramatic in either direction. Greg Nuckols’ review of the frequency literature at Stronger By Science is the most careful public summary I know of. Twice per muscle per week is a fine default and nothing more binding than that.

The failure modes are specific. PPL fails because six fixed slots give a week six places to break; the volume is fine. Novice linear progression fails because it is designed to end, and almost nobody has a plan for what comes after.

What does each progression model actually tell you to do?

The split is the easy half. The progression model decides what you do on a Tuesday when the bar feels heavy, and it is where most self-written programs go vague.

Model	What you add	When you add it	On a failed session	Deload rule
Linear	Load	Every session: typically 2.5 kg / 5 lb upper body, 5 kg / 10 lb lower body early on	Repeat the same weight next session. After two or three consecutive failures, reset ~10% and build back	The reset is the deload. The classic novice template has no scheduled deload weeks
Double progression	Reps first, then load	Add load only when every set hits the top of the bracket. In 3 × 8 to 12: stay at the weight until all three sets reach 12, then add the smallest increment and drop back to 8	Nothing special. Repeat the load and try for one more rep. A failed increase is a normal week	Cut load ~10% or drop a set for a week when two or three lifts stall at the same time
Percentage / Training Max (5/3/1)	A fixed increment to the Training Max (your 1RM is left alone)	Once per completed cycle: +2.5 kg / 5 lb upper, +5 kg / 10 lb lower	If the AMRAP set falls below the prescribed minimum reps, hold the Training Max or cut it ~10% next cycle	Built in. Week four is the deload at 40/50/60% of the Training Max
Autoregulated / RPE	Load, chosen to hit a target RPE or reps-in-reserve	Every set. A top set at RPE 8, back-offs a set percentage below it	No session counts as failed, only lighter. The load that hits RPE 8 today is the prescription	Deload when the load at a given RPE drops for two or more sessions, or on a fixed 4 to 6 week cadence

Here is a worked example, because double progression is the one people describe correctly and then run incorrectly. Dumbbell rows, 3 sets of 8 to 12, at 30 kg. Session one: 12, 10, 9. No increase, because two sets missed the top. Session two: 12, 12, 10. Still no. Session three: 12, 12, 12. Now you take the smallest increment your gym has, go to 32 kg, and expect roughly 9, 8, 8. You haven’t gone backwards; the bracket resets and you climb it again, which may take five weeks. The other versions of the add-weight rule, and the plate arithmetic for lifts where 2.5 kg is too big a jump, are in double progression explained.

What is 5/3/1, exactly?

5/3/1 comes from Jim Wendler. Its central idea is the Training Max: you programme off 85 to 90% of your tested one-rep max (the original template uses 90%) so the percentages stay honest on a bad week. Every percentage below is of the Training Max, not your actual max.

Week	Set 1	Set 2	Top set
1	65% × 5	75% × 5	85% × 5+
2	70% × 3	80% × 3	90% × 3+
3	75% × 5	85% × 3	95% × 1+
4 (deload)	40% × 5	50% × 5	60% × 5

The “+” is where the progress shows. You take that last set for as many quality reps as you have, and its rep count is your progress signal, while the fixed sets stay at the same percentages forever. Finish the cycle, add 2.5 kg to the upper-body Training Maxes and 5 kg to the lower-body ones, and run it again. That is roughly a year of programming decided in one sitting, which is the appeal.

The failure mode is self-inflicted. Month one feels easy, so people set the Training Max at their real max, or add 5 kg a cycle to everything. Six cycles later the top set is one grinding rep. Wendler’s own advice is worth taking: start lighter than you think.

How many days a week should you lift?

The floor is well established. The US Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend muscle-strengthening activity on two or more days a week for adults, covering all major muscle groups. That is a health floor, and building strength usually takes more.

For building strength, most sustainable programs sit at three to five days. Work out your number from the past, though. Open whatever record you have of the last eight weeks and count the sessions. If it is 19, you train two and a bit days a week, and a six-day PPL is a wish. Add a day only after the existing days have been boring and reliable for a month.

The most common mistake I see is people picking a program for the version of themselves that exists in January.

When does a novice linear progression end?

Novice linear progression (Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength is the best-known version) works because an untrained lifter recovers between sessions in a couple of days and adapts fast enough to add load every session. That window is real, and it closes, usually somewhere between three and nine months of consistent barbell work depending on age, food and sleep.

The published stall rule is to repeat the weight, then after two or three consecutive failed sessions reset roughly 10% and build back. The rule doesn’t tell you how many times to do that.

The heuristic I use: two resets on the same lift with no new personal record between them means the linear phase is over for that lift. That applies to the lift, not to you or your other lifts. The press stalls long before the deadlift, so the press moves to double progression while the squat keeps running linear. A lifter can be a novice on one bar and an intermediate on another for months. Treating “am I a beginner?” as one global fact is what keeps people resetting the same 10% four times.

How to choose, in four questions

How many days did you actually train in the last eight weeks? Count them and divide by eight. That is your days per week, whatever you intended and whatever your best month looked like. Three means full body. Four means Upper/Lower. Six means PPL, if and only if six is a number you have hit before.
How long is a session on your worst weekday? Under 50 minutes, two things fit: full body three times a week, or 5/3/1 with trimmed assistance. A 75-minute PPL leg day does not shrink to 45 minutes; it gets skipped. Most of any session is rest, and how long you rest between sets is the first thing to trim, starting with the isolation work and leaving the heavy lifts alone.
What is your training age in this specific lift? Under six months of consistent barbell work: linear. Six months to two years: double progression. Beyond that: percentage cycles or autoregulation, and expect to measure progress per quarter.
What has hurt, and what made it hurt? If flat barbell benching aggravates a shoulder, no split solves that. Pick a structure organised by movement pattern, so you can swap the movement without deleting a day. A fixed list of named exercises makes that harder.

This is training information, not medical advice. If you are working around an injury or a condition that affects loading, have a clinician or a coach watch you lift.

Why the log is the part that decides it

Everything above assumes you know what you did last time, and that assumption carries more weight than any of the programming.

Linear progression is the only model in that second table you can run from memory, because the rule is last time plus 2.5 kg. Every other one is a rule applied to a record. Double progression needs three set counts from last session. A 5/3/1 cycle needs a Training Max and every AMRAP rep count going back months. Autoregulation needs a history of what a given RPE cost you in kilos, or the number is a feeling with a decimal point attached. That is the unglamorous reason logging apps exist, and the two I build take different sides of it.

LiftLog is the iPhone one. It ships 40 ready-made programs based on well-known routines, among them StrongLifts 5×5, Starting Strength, and 5/3/1, plus push/pull/legs splits, and you can give each exercise one of the progression models above: double progression, linear, percent of a training max, or RPE / RIR. LiftLog then fills each pending set with the weight the program prescribes, and after the workout a Progression review marks each lift as Progressed, Hold, Missed, or Deload. RPE is optional: you add it by editing a set after the workout, and no set requires it. The constraints: iPhone only, no Apple Watch app, and pricing is a seven-day trial with no card, followed by a one-time purchase between $9.99 and $39.99 at a tier you choose. The reasoning behind that model has its own post.

GymLogger X is the sibling with a free Apple Watch app. Logging is free, and Pro is $1.99/month, $17.99/year, or $39.99 lifetime. It exists because I wanted to log a set from the wrist instead of picking up the phone between sets, which is the entire argument for it. It has 44 ready-made programs (6 free), and its free Smart Program Creator builds one around your equipment, schedule, goals, and injuries, with linear, undulating, block, or wave periodization. With Pro, each lift gets a plateau status (Plateau, Watching, or Plateau Predicted) from its estimated 1RM trend, worked out on your iPhone from your own logs.

Neither is right for everyone, and several competitors solve problems mine do not.

If your programs die because choosing one is the friction, Fitbod is the better tool. It generates each session for you: you open it and it tells you what to do today, adjusted for yesterday. A manual logger can’t replace that with better templates. The trade-off is subscription-only pricing and reasoning you can’t inspect.

If accountability is what breaks, Hevy has a generous free tier and a social feed that, for some people, is what gets them to the gym on a Thursday. I don’t build social features, so for those people I am the wrong studio. Strong is the best-established logger here, with full standalone Apple Watch support, and Caliber pairs you with a human coach, the only option listed that can change your program when your week changes.

For the category sorted by pricing model, see the guide to workout apps without a subscription; what my apps collect is on the transparency page.

TL;DR

Adherence beats programming. Between two competent programs run for twelve weeks the difference is small; between finishing and quitting in week five it is enormous.
Count your days per week; don’t choose them. Count the sessions you did over the last eight weeks and divide by eight. Three: full body. Four: Upper/Lower. Six: PPL, only if you have hit six before.
Each split has one characteristic failure. PPL desynchronises after two missed sessions. Upper/Lower loses its fourth day. Full body’s sessions grow until heavy squatting three times a week stops being recoverable. Novice linear progression ends and nobody notices.
Match the progression model to training age, per lift. Linear under six months, double progression to roughly two years, then 5/3/1-style percentage cycles or RPE autoregulation.
Double progression in one line: stay at the weight until every set hits the top of the bracket, then add the smallest increment and drop back to the bottom.
Only linear progression runs from memory. Every other model is a rule applied to a written record, so the log decides whether you finish the twelve weeks more than the template does.

PPL, Upper/Lower, 5/3/1: choosing a strength program you will still be running in twelve weeks