Bench press, overhead press, dips. Your pushing numbers keep climbing and it feels like real progress, because it is. Meanwhile rows and face pulls get treated as the exercises you do if there's time left at the end of the session, not the main event.
Almost everyone who lifts consistently ends up pushing more than they pull, usually without ever deciding to. It's one of the most common and least noticed imbalances in strength training, and it's worth actually auditing rather than assuming your program is balanced just because it has "pull day" written on it somewhere.
What actually counts as push and pull
Push movements extend a joint away from the body: bench press, overhead press, incline press, dips, push-ups, and any triceps or chest isolation work.
Pull movements bring a joint toward the body: rows in every variation, pull-ups and pulldowns, face pulls, rear delt work, and biceps isolation. Most programs include both categories somewhere in the week, the question isn't whether you're doing pulling work at all, it's whether the volume is anywhere close to matched.
Why the imbalance happens to almost everyone
Pushing exercises are more visible. You can see your chest and shoulders working in a mirror, you can watch the bar move, and bench press specifically carries a kind of cultural weight as the lift people ask about first. Pulling exercises are harder to see happening on your own body and don't carry the same social currency.
Add to that the fact that pushing strength tends to be the number lifters are most motivated to chase, and it's easy to end up with a program where pushing gets prioritized in exercise selection, effort, and even the order sets happen in, while pulling volume quietly lags behind without anyone deciding it should.
What the research actually recommends
Strength and rehab coaches commonly recommend a pull-to-push ratio somewhere between 1:1 and 3:1, meaning equal to triple the volume on pulling compared to pushing. A 2:1 pull-to-push ratio shows up frequently as a specific target.
It's worth being precise about why: this isn't because pulling muscles inherently need more volume than pushing muscles to grow. It's a corrective recommendation, aimed at counteracting the fact that most lifters already start from a push-dominant baseline. If you'd been training with a genuinely balanced 1:1 split from day one, there'd be less need to over-correct toward pulling.
The practical takeaway is simple: if you've never deliberately weighted your program toward pulling, you are very likely still push-dominant, even if you feel like you train "both" every week.
Why this shows up as more than just a training stat
A chronic push-pull imbalance doesn't stay contained to your workout log. Over months and years, the anterior deltoid, chest, and internal rotators of the shoulder, all loaded by pushing, tend to get relatively tight and dominant. The posterior deltoid, external rotators, and lower trapezius, loaded by pulling, tend to get relatively weak and lengthened.
The result is a shoulder that sits slightly forward in its socket, less room for the rotator cuff tendons to move through cleanly during overhead work, and the kind of subtly hunched posture common among people who train hard but train push-heavy. It's the same anterior-posterior mechanism behind a lot of chronic shoulder issues, and pushing more than pulling is the training pattern that creates it in the first place.
How to actually check and fix it
Count your weekly working sets. Add up everything that qualifies as push, then everything that qualifies as pull, separately. Most lifters who do this for the first time are surprised by how lopsided the number is, often closer to 2:1 in favor of pushing rather than the other way around.
Fixing it doesn't require abandoning your pushing work, it means adding real, prioritized pulling volume: rows and face pulls treated as main exercises rather than finishers, and enough total pulling sets to actually shift the ratio, not just one extra set tacked onto the end of a session.
Seeing your actual push/pull split, instead of guessing from how balanced your program feels on paper, is where tracking volume by movement pattern helps. Valen shows your push versus pull ratio directly from your logged training and flags it when the gap gets large, free, with no wearable or manual spreadsheet required.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good push to pull ratio for training?
A commonly cited range is a 1:1 to 3:1 pull-to-push ratio, with 2:1 frequently recommended as a corrective target for lifters who already push more than they pull, which is most people.
Why do most lifters push more than they pull without realizing it?
Pushing exercises like bench press are more visible in a mirror and carry more motivation to chase numbers on. Pulling exercises like rows and face pulls are less visually rewarding and easy to under-program.
What happens if I push a lot more than I pull?
Chronically, it's associated with tighter anterior shoulder and chest muscles and weaker posterior shoulder muscles, contributing to forward-shoulder posture and less room for the rotator cuff during overhead movements.
How do I know my actual push/pull ratio?
Add up your weekly working sets for pushing and pulling exercises separately. Most lifters have never done this and are surprised by the gap. Apps that track volume by movement pattern, like Valen, show this automatically.
For how this same imbalance shows up specifically in the shoulder, see why your shoulders never seem to recover, or how it plays out in chest and back development specifically. For the broader picture, see the complete guide to muscle subzone tracking.