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I'm a 54-year-old beginner. I started going to the gym twice a week last October. I'd like to increase that to three times a week, and the personal trainer I had for a few months (who's no longer available) suggested a push/pull/legs regimen when I was ready. I work from home on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, and go to the gym on Tuesday and Friday now, so I was hoping to add Monday. All of the "beginner push/pull/legs" plans I've seen suggest a rest day in between each, but that timing doesn't really work for me. Is it a good idea to do the PPL on Mon/Tues/Fri, or am I setting myself up for problems or injury?

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Rest between different muscle groups is not necessary. What is essential is is adequate rest and recovery between training of the same muscle group. Your split stated there has you doing one PPL cycle every week meaning you have 7 days between each workout of the same muscle group. That is perfectly fine, of not ideal, for a beginner. From what I've read and also confirmed through my own experience, you need 5 days between chest workouts, 3 days for arms, and 4 for everything else. I train on a 6 day cycle with only the sixth day being a rest day. I'm perfectly able to train on 5 out every 6 days because it is set up so I have the necessary rest between for each muscle group as stated above.

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    There something to be said when you get more advanced and training volumes get really high. Not relevant to a beginner, but when I do a high volume bench program, where on my main bench day Im doing 2-3 singles at 90+% and 10+ working sets between 80% and 90%, I can’t do anything the next day. Training can get intense enough the overall fatigue becomes too high for the “just train a different muscle group tomorrow” idea.
    – Thomas Markov ♦
    Aug 26 at 21:55
  • @ThomasMarkovwasonStrike Well I'm coming form high intensity, low volume POV. I train at near enough RPE 10 for every set but only do 2 sets per exercise so 6 or 7 sets total for a chest workout. With that programming of course I'll sometimes have soreness the next day but never any general bodily fatigue.
    – Ethan
    Aug 27 at 11:58
  • @ThomasMarkovwasonStrike but yes, you're still right, it all just depends on your preferred training method.
    – Ethan
    Aug 27 at 12:03

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