Old-School, Full-Body Mass Building

Get Big and Strong Using this Old-School Workout Program

     Old school bodybuilders—from the ‘70s and before—built their muscles with full-body workouts.  They started their lifting careers with basic, full-body training sessions using only a limited amount of exercises, with a limited amount of sets to boot.  As they slowly built up their work capacity, they added sets to their exercises, and then added new exercises once they had the ability to handle them.  They stuck with full-body workouts even as they began to use multiple exercises per bodypart for multiple sets.  Eventually, some of these classic bodybuilders began implementing split programs, but that was only if their workouts got so long that they were almost forced to change to a split system.  But then there were guys like Clancy Ross—perhaps bodybuilding’s original mass monster—who stuck with full-body workouts throughout his career.

     The old-school way is in stark contrast to modern bodybuilding.  Today, it’s not uncommon for the modern gym-goer to never do a full-body workout.  Instead, they often start with bodypart-only training, where Monday, of course, is “International Arm Day,” as I like to refer to it, and the other days are all chest days, back days, leg days, and so on and so forth—you know the drill.  It’s enough to make a decidedly old-school guy such as myself want to vomit in my mouth.

     But it doesn’t have to be this way.  There’s no reason that the modern bodybuilder can’t follow his not-so-long-ago ancestral past, and train almost exclusively with full-body workouts.  In fact, it’s exactly what he/she should do.  Let me make myself perfectly clear: if you’re a natural lifter who plans on staying a natural lifter, and you want to gain as much muscle and strength as possible in the shortest time possible then you need to start your training with full-body workouts, and continue with full-body workouts for a considerable amount of time before you finally make the change to split workout programs.  At the very least, you need to use full-body workouts quite a lot, and alternate back and forth between split programs and full-body ones.

     What follows are a few programs that you can use over, at least, the next 6 months.  This is a great way to introduce your physical system to full-body workouts, whether you have never picked up a weight in your life or whether you have been training for years, albeit with split programs.  This is also good for you even if you have used full-body workouts a lot in your lifting career, especially if you have been doing a lot of high-volume split workouts as of late and now need to get “back to the basics” in training (maybe in life too).  The program I recommend here is very similar to what old-school bodybuilders from the “Silver Era” of bodybuilding would have used, and is, overall, inspired by my recent essay on Marvin Eder.

Starting Out

     Start out for the first 2 weeks of training by doing the following workout 2-days-per-week.  The most popular days will probably be Monday and Thursday for most people.  I always enjoyed training at least one day on the weekend when using 2-days-per-week programs, so Saturday and Tuesday or Sunday and Wednesday would also be viable options.

     After 2 weeks, switch over to a 3-days-per-week of training following the same program.  Continue to follow it for 3 days each week for 3 to 4 weeks straight.

Squats: 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Bench presses: 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Bent-over rows: 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Barbell curls: 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Ab work of your choice: 1 to 2 sets of 12 to 15 reps

• Sets listed do not include warm-ups, so do 1 or 2 warm-up sets before your 2 work sets.

• Take each set several reps shy of failure.  This is the key to adapting to full-body workouts.  When you finish each session, you should not feel tired, but should feel the opposite.  You should feel almost energized and refreshed.  After the first couple of weeks, and this is the beauty of not training all-out, you will be ready for the 3 days of weekly training.

• Do not add extra work and do not train harder than what I have recommended.  The key is to slowly and methodically progress to more and more work.

     After 3 to 4 weeks of training on the above program 3-days-weekly, do the following program.  Here, you will add 1 additional exercise, and increase your sets to 3 per movement.

Squats: 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Bench presses: 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Bent-over rows: 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Military presses: 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Barbell curls: 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Ab work of your choice: 2 to 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps

• Once again, the sets listed don’t include warm-ups, so make sure you do at least 1 warm-up set.

• As with our first workout, make sure you leave several reps “in the tank.”  Never come close to missing a rep.  You should feel “good” when the workouts are over.

• Follow this program at least 6 weeks, perhaps 8 to 10 would be even better.  After that, you’ll be ready for the more “advanced” program below.

The Marvin Eder-Inspired  Program

     You should have trained between 11 to 15 weeks following my above suggestions before moving on to this next program.  This program runs in 8-week training blocks.  

Weeks 1 and 2

Front squats: 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Incline bench presses: 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Power cleans: 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Behind-the-neck presses: 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Chins: 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Lying triceps extensions: 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Dumbbell curls: 3 sets of 6-8 reps

Ab work of your choice: 2 to 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps

Week 3

Front squats: 4 sets of 6-8 reps

Incline bench presses: 4 sets of 6-8 reps

Power cleans: 4 sets of 6-8 reps

Behind-the-neck presses: 4 sets of 6-8 reps

Chins: 4 sets of 6-8 reps

Lying triceps extensions: 4 sets of 6-8 reps

Dumbbell curls: 4 sets of 6-8 reps

Ab work of your choice: 2 to 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps

Week 4

Front squats: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Incline bench presses: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Power cleans: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Behind-the-neck presses: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Chins: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Lying triceps extensions: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Dumbbell curls: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Ab work of your choice: 1 set of 12 to 15 reps

Week 5

Front squats: 5 sets of 5-7 reps

Incline bench presses: 5 sets of 5-7 reps

Power cleans: 5 sets of 5-7 reps

Behind-the-neck presses: 5 sets of 5-7 reps

Weighted chins: 5 sets of 5-7 reps

Lying triceps extensions: 5 sets of 5-7 reps

Dumbbell curls: 5 sets of 5-7 reps

Ab work of your choice: 2 to 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps

Week 6

Front squats: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Incline bench presses: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Power cleans: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Behind-the-neck presses: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Chins: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Lying triceps extensions: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Dumbbell curls: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Ab work of your choice: 1 set of 12 to 15 reps

Week 7

Front squats: 5 sets of 5-7 reps, 2 sets of 10-12 reps

Incline bench presses: 5 sets of 5-7 reps, 2 sets of 10-12 reps

Power cleans: 5 sets of 5-7 reps, 2 sets of 10-12 reps

Behind-the-neck presses: 5 sets of 5-7 reps, 2 sets of 10-12 reps

Weighted chins: 5 sets of 5-7 reps, 2 sets of 10-12 reps

Lying triceps extensions: 5 sets of 5-7 reps, 2 sets of 10-12 reps

Dumbbell curls: 5 sets of 5-7 reps, 2 sets of 10-12 reps

Ab work of your choice: 2 to 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps

Week 8

Front squats: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Incline bench presses: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Power cleans: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Behind-the-neck presses: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Chins: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Lying triceps extensions: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Dumbbell curls: 1 set of 6-8 reps

Ab work of your choice: 1 set of 12 to 15 reps

• After Week 8, you can run the program again.  In fact, you could run it continuously in this manner for as long as you want, so long as you rotate in new exercises.  You don’t have to swap to new exercises until you’ve run it for another 8 weeks, but, after that, it would be a good idea to do so.  Just remember to swap in same but different movements.

• You should have noticed that weeks 4, 6, and 8 are all “active recovery” weeks.  Do NOT try to get by without utilizing these in the program, otherwise you will burn out.

• Make sure that, once again, you leave a little something in the tank after each repetition.  The amount of volume you will use in this one will make up for none of the sets being “all-out.”  By Week 7, you can start coming close to failure, but make sure you always have at least one rep, two would be better, left in you.

• Eat plenty of food while following this program.  Eder recommended 30 times your bodyweight in calories on a daily basis.  That might be too much, but if you’re a “hardgainer,” then, by all means, follow his advice.  But, at the minimum, eat at least 20 times your bodyweight in calories daily, and at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.

     After training a few cycles on the above program, feel free to swap over to some split workouts for a while, or you can even try some more advanced methods of full-body training.  I have a heap of program ideas here at Integral Strength, so look through the blog and see what you can find.  And if you want even more muscle-building programs, be sure to get my latest e-book, Ultimate Mass & Power.