Pull Day Workout: A Back and Bicep Routine for Every Level

What Is a Pull Day Workout?

A pull day workout trains every muscle that pulls weight toward your body: your lats, upper back, rear delts and biceps. A solid one is 5 or 6 exercises: a heavy row, a vertical pull (pull-ups or a lat pulldown), a second row, a rear delt movement and one or two curls, done for 2 to 4 sets each in about 50 to 60 minutes.

Most people's pull days go wrong in one of two ways. Either the back work turns into a sloppy contest of who can heave the most weight, or the session slowly becomes an arm day with a few rows thrown in. Below is a pull day that avoids both, with a beginner and an advanced version, the cues that keep your back (not your lower back or your ego) doing the work, swaps for any equipment, and an honest look at what pull day does and does not do well.

What Muscles Does Pull Day Train?

Your back is not one muscle, and that is why a good pull day uses more than one kind of pull.

The practical takeaway: you need at least one vertical pull (pulling from overhead) and at least one horizontal pull (rowing toward your torso). Vertical pulls bias the lats. Rows hit the lats too, plus the mid back and rear delts. Do only one type and your back develops unevenly.

The Complete Pull Day Workout (Intermediate)

This is the main version, and it is the same session as Pull A in our PPL workout, so you can follow either guide without anything clashing. Heavy compound pulls go first while your grip and lower back are fresh, then lighter rows, then rear delts, then arms. Leave 1 to 3 reps in reserve on most sets and push closer to failure on the last set of the curls and face pulls.

That is about 10 hard sets for your back, 3 for your rear delts and 5 to 6 direct sets for your arms. The heavier rows build strength you can measure and load over time. The 8 to 20 rep work adds muscle-building volume that is easier on your elbows and lower back. Muscle grows across a wide range of reps as long as sets are hard, which our guide on building muscle vs. getting stronger covers in detail.

Beginner Pull Day Workout

In your first six months or so, the hard part of pulling is not strength. It is feeling your back work at all. Most beginners pull with their arms and shrug with their traps. Machines and supported rows make it much easier to learn the movement, so this version uses them and keeps the exercise count low.

Once 3 sets of 12 on the pulldown feels solid with a challenging weight, start practicing pull-ups: a few sets of slow negatives (jump to the top, lower yourself over 3 to 5 seconds) at the start of the session. Once your chest-supported row feels solid, add the barbell row and you have graduated to the intermediate session.

Advanced Pull Day Workout

After a couple of years of steady training, the intermediate session stops being enough stimulus. This version adds load to the vertical pull, uses a stricter heavy row, adds a unilateral row for the lats and splits arm work between a stretched curl and a neutral-grip curl.

The Pendlay row starts each rep from the floor, so you cannot use momentum from the previous rep or quietly turn it into a shrug. The incline curl puts the biceps on a stretch at the bottom, which complements the hammer curl's work on the brachialis and forearms. If this session takes longer than 75 minutes, cut the close-grip pulldown first.

The deadlift version

Plenty of programs open pull day with deadlifts. It works, and it has real advantages: your back, grip and hamstrings all get hit hard in one lift, and pull day often has more room in it than leg day. The trade-off is fatigue. A heavy deadlift tires your lower back and grip, and both are exactly what you need for barbell rows and pull-ups afterward.

If you want to deadlift on pull day, do it first for 3 sets of 3 to 5, then swap the barbell or Pendlay row for a chest-supported row so your lower back gets a break. And if your leg day the following day includes Romanian deadlifts, keep them lighter that week. Heavy hinges on back-to-back days is where most lower back complaints on push/pull/legs come from. If you would rather keep things simple, leave deadlifts on leg day, as our leg day workout does with the Romanian deadlift.

A Shorter Back and Bicep Workout

A back and bicep workout is really just a pull day with the rear delt work dropped. If you have 40 minutes and want the essentials, this covers both vertical and horizontal pulling plus direct arm work:

Chin-ups lead here because the underhand grip puts your biceps in a stronger position, so they get more work than on overhand pull-ups.

How much direct bicep work do you need on pull day?

Less than most people think, but more than zero. Your biceps bend the elbow on every row and pulldown, so they are already working hard before the first curl. In a 10-week study by Gentil, Soares and Bottaro (2015), untrained men who did only lat pulldowns for their arms grew their elbow flexors about as much as a group that did only barbell curls (6.1% vs 5.8% in muscle thickness), with no meaningful difference between groups.

That does not mean curls are pointless. A later study by Mannarino and colleagues trained one arm with dumbbell rows and the other with curls for 8 weeks, and the curling arm grew roughly twice as much (11.1% vs 5.2%). Both studies were small and used beginners, so treat them as a sign, not a rule. The sensible middle ground: let your rows and pulldowns do the heavy lifting, then add 4 to 6 direct sets of curls per pull day. Run pull day twice a week and that lands right in the range our bicep workout guide recommends. If your arms are lagging, add sets there rather than piling on more back work.

Technique Cues for the Key Lifts

The difference between a pull day that builds your back and one that builds your lower back pain is mostly form. Here is what to think about on each main lift.

Barbell row

• Hinge until your torso is about 45 degrees or lower, knees soft, and brace your midsection as if you are about to be poked in the stomach.
• Pull the bar to your lower ribs or upper belly, not your chest. Think "elbows to back pockets."
• If your torso rises a few inches with every rep, the weight is too heavy. A little body English on the last rep is fine. A standing shrug is not a row.

Pull-ups and lat pulldowns

• Start each rep by pulling your shoulder blades down, away from your ears, then bend your elbows. If you cannot feel that first move, practice scapular pull-ups.
• Drive your elbows down toward your hips. Aim to get your chin over the bar or the pulldown bar to your upper chest.
• Go all the way back to a full hang (or arms straight on the pulldown) every rep. Half reps are the most common way people fool themselves into thinking they are progressing.
• On the pulldown, lean back only slightly. A big lean turns it into a sloppy row.

Seated cable row

• Sit tall and let the handle pull your shoulders forward at the start for a full stretch, but keep your lower back from rounding.
• Row to your stomach and pause for a second with your shoulder blades squeezed together.
• Your torso can move a few degrees. If it swings back and forth like a rowing machine, lower the weight.

Face pull

• Set the cable at about forehead height and use a rope.
• Pull the rope toward your face while pulling the ends apart, finishing with your hands beside your ears and knuckles pointing back.
• Go light. This is a 15 to 20 rep exercise for small muscles. If you have to lean back to move it, it is too heavy.

Curls

• Pin your elbows at your sides. If they drift forward, your shoulders are taking over.
• Lower the weight in about 2 seconds. The lowering half is half the exercise.
• No swinging. If you need your hips to start the rep, the weight is too heavy.

Grip Is Usually the First Thing to Give Out

Here is a downside of pull day nobody warns you about: your forearms often fail before your back does. By the third set of heavy rows, your hands may be opening while your lats still have plenty left. That means your back gets less work than it should.

Two fixes, used together, solve it:

• Use lifting straps on your heaviest back sets. Straps let your back be the limit instead of your hands. Do your warm-up sets and your first working set without them so your grip still gets trained, then strap up.
• Train grip directly, once or twice a week. A couple of sets of dead hangs at the end of pull day, or farmer's walks on leg day, builds grip without stealing from your back sets. Chalk also helps a lot if your gym allows it.

Back and Shoulder Workout: Where Rear Delts Fit

Your shoulder has three heads. The front head works on every press, so push day covers it. The side head needs lateral raises. The rear head pulls the arm back, which makes it a pulling muscle, and that is why face pulls and rear delt flyes belong on pull day. If you bench a lot and never train rear delts, your shoulders tend to drift forward over time.

Should you go further and train back and shoulders together? It is a legitimate pairing. Rows warm up your shoulder blades and rotator cuff, which makes pressing afterward feel better, and the two don't compete much for the same muscles. It shows up most often in body-part splits, or on a 4-day plan where chest is paired with arms. On a push/pull/legs split, though, keep overhead pressing on push day, or your front delts get trained two days in a row. If you want a dedicated back and shoulder session, this is a balanced one:

Exercise Swaps: Home, Dumbbell-Only and Machine Versions

Keep the structure (vertical pull, row, rear delts, curl) and swap the tools. Each row of this table is a like-for-like replacement for the exercise on the left.

The honest weak spot for home training is the vertical pull. Without a bar, nothing really replaces a pull-up, which is why a doorway pull-up bar is the single most useful piece of home equipment for your back. A resistance band looped over the bar gives you assistance until you can do full reps.

How to Warm Up for Pull Day

• 2 to 3 minutes of easy cardio, or a rowing machine if your gym has one, which happens to rehearse the pull.
• 1 to 2 sets of 15 band pull-aparts and a set of 5 to 8 scapular pull-ups to get your shoulder blades moving.
• Ramp-up sets on the barbell row: the empty bar for 10, then roughly 50%, 70% and 85% of your working weight for 5, 3 and 1 to 2 reps. Stop well short of fatigue.

How to Progress Your Pull Day

Pulling strength comes slower than pressing strength for most people, so progress needs a plan rather than hope. The plan is progressive overload, and double progression is the simplest way to apply it:

• Pick a rep range for the exercise, such as 8 to 12 on the cable row.
• Start with a weight where you can hit the bottom of the range with good form on every set.
• Add reps from week to week until every set reaches the top of the range.
• Then add the smallest weight jump available (often 2.5 to 5 lb, or 1 to 2 kg) and work back up.

Pull-ups progress differently, since you cannot drop the weight. Build reps first: if you can do 3 sets of 5, aim for one more rep on one set each session. Once you hit 3 sets of 12 with full range, add weight with a belt or a dumbbell between your feet and drop back to 6 reps. If you cannot do 6 yet, use the pulldown or band assistance and keep practicing negatives.

A few tools help. The one-rep max calculator estimates your top-end row from a recent set, the RPE calculator helps you judge how many reps you really had left, and the plate calculator saves you barbell math between sets. If you prefer paper, the printable weight training log has room for every set.

When several lifts stall at once and your elbows or lower back feel beaten up, that is usually fatigue, not a bad program. Take a lighter week with about half the sets. Our deload week guide explains how.

How Pull Day Fits Into Your Week

Pull day is one third of the push/pull/legs split. Run it once a week on a 3-day plan, or twice a week on a 6-day plan, where the second session can be a lighter volume day. Our PPL workout guide has both schedules plus a 5-day hybrid, and the push day workout and leg day workout fill in the other two days.

Total weekly sets matter more than which split you choose. Many lifters grow well on roughly 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle group per week. The intermediate session above gives your back about 10 sets, so once a week is a reasonable minimum and twice a week puts you comfortably in the range. If you only have four days, an upper lower split hits your back twice with fewer sessions, and a full body routine is usually the better choice in your first few months.

One scheduling tip: avoid putting pull day right after a heavy deadlift or Romanian deadlift session if your pull day starts with barbell rows. Rows load the same lower back muscles. Either rest a day between them or use a chest-supported row.

Pull Day: Benefits and Downsides

What it does well

• It gives your back the attention it rarely gets when people train "chest day" and "arm day." Most lifters need more pulling, not less.
• Biceps get trained twice in one session, once indirectly through every row and once directly with curls, so short arm work goes a long way.
• Rear delt and mid-back work balances out pressing, which many lifters find helps their shoulders feel better on the bench.

Where it falls short

• Grip and lower back fatigue can limit how much work your lats and upper back actually get. Straps and supported rows help.
• Back muscles are hard to feel, so it is easy to do a lot of sets that mostly train momentum.
• Done once a week, as on a 3-day PPL, your back gets trained less often than it ideally would.
• Adding deadlifts makes the session long and tiring, and can clash with leg day.

Common Pull Day Mistakes

• Turning pull day into biceps day. Rows and pull-ups first, curls last. Your back is the bigger muscle.
• Only doing pulldowns, or only doing rows. You need both a vertical and a horizontal pull.
• Cutting the range of motion. Full hang on pull-ups, full stretch on rows. Partial reps let the numbers climb while your back does not.
• Heaving heavy rows with your hips. If your torso rises with every rep, lower the weight.
• Skipping rear delts. They are small, they take five minutes, and push day does nothing for them.
• Not writing anything down. Back progress is slow enough that you will not notice it, or its absence, without a log.

Tracking Your Pull Day

Pull-ups and rows tend to move a rep or a few pounds at a time, so remembering exactly what you did last week matters. In GymGod, your last weights, reps and goals appear the moment you start an exercise, and auto-progression sets your next target from what you actually lifted. You can log sets from your Apple Watch, and the rest timer starts automatically.

Stuck on the same row weight for weeks? Take the quiz on what is blocking your gains.

Pull Day Workout FAQ