Muscle-Building Made Easy (No, Really!)

 

Some Simple Methods and Workouts for Easy Mass Gains

My son Garrett displays the kind of NATURAL physique that can be built using the methods in this article.

     Modern lifters can often be quite confused about what makes for an effective, result-producing workout.  They think that if their training is “hard” or if it fatigues their whole body or if their muscles “burn” during a tough set or if their workouts made them sweat profusely—I could go on and on—then, surely, that must mean that their training is effective.  But this simply isn’t true.  Now, don’t get me wrong, it could very well be that a “good” workout program does contain some of the above “symptoms” but not necessarily.  Let me explain.

     When lifters train under my personal direction—and this is especially true for any bodybuilders that I’ve worked with—they are often doubtful that what I have them doing will be effective.  Sometimes, they don’t say it outright—though occasionally they most certainly do—but even when they don’t, I can see it on their faces.  They simply can’t figure out how training that doesn’t involve a lot of “intensity techniques” and rarely seems “hard” can produce the results they are seeking.  My workout programs involve a lot of frequent training, taking sets a few reps shy of momentary muscular failure, full-body workouts, and fairly high volume.  It flies in the face of what they always assumed builds muscle.  They usually stop complaining, however, after a few weeks when they have gained more muscle than in the several months prior.

     Off the top of my head—the following might contain somewhat random thoughts—here are some ways that you can apply some of these “easy” mass-building methods to your own training.  In this essay, I hope to touch upon what I think are the real keys to hypertrophy.  In case you haven’t figured it out by this point, these muscle-building keys are probably not what you think, assuming you think like the majority of modern trainees.

     The very first thing that I think bodybuilders—and by “bodybuilders” I mean anyone that is after aesthetics instead of performance, which, let’s admit, is most of the training population—should do is train using full-body workouts.  I’m not sure exactly where it all went wrong or what the hell is going on in modern gyms—I must confess that I have only trained at a commercial gym a handful of times in the past 25+ years, so there is that—but nowadays I see personal trainers start their clients off with multi-bodypart splits, where one day is chest, another day is back, a third day is quads, a fourth day is arms, and so on and so forth.  At best, a lot of modern bodybuilders may use a “push-pull-legs” split, which, though not ideal, is at least better than the one-bodypart-per-workout split.  Everyone, no matter their training goals, should begin training using full-body workouts.  But full-body training is not just for beginners.  Full-body training should be the “base” of all bodybuilders’ workout programs, especially natural bodybuilders.

     Do a handful of exercises at each full-body session, give or take an exercise or two.  I think 5 exercises per session is a good starting point.  Some lifters find they get good results with only 3 or 4 movements, and others may find that they need 6 or 7.  Seven is probably the upper limit, at least when starting out unless you are going to only do 1 or 2 sets per exercise.  In that case, you could push your movements to as many as 10 or even 12 per session.

     Using around 5 exercises per session, do 3 to 5 sets for each movement.  Keep your reps for the most part between 6 to 12 per exercise.  Remember, this is strictly my hypertrophy recommendations.  If you’ve read some of my past articles, then you know that I often recommend far less reps than even 6.  There is no contradiction here.  Those other recommendations are for either strength only or strength with concomitant mass gains.  (I also do have some programs that involve high-sets and low-reps for mass-building, but those use an entirely different system of training and also don’t apply here.  Remember: there is not just one way to train, however much the foolish—but somehow deemed wise—Mike Mentzer said otherwise.  Rather, there are different forms of training that work in different ways, and many lifters who respond well to one won’t respond well to others.  The methods outlined here are simply the ones that I think are “best” for most natural bodybuilders who don’t get everything from a needle and have families and regular 9-to-5 jobs.)

     Another technique you could use, especially if you like to think in terms of “bodypart” training over “movement” training, is to just do roughly 30-50 reps for each muscle group at each session.  If you get good quad development from just squatting, you could do 5 sets of 10 reps on squats, but then, if you get better chest development from doing multiple exercise, you could do 1 or 2 sets of incline benches, 1 to 2 sets of incline flyes, and 1 set of cable crossovers.  This latter approach, however, is best if you already have built some degree of muscle and are now in need of “toning” it or “shaping” it as opposed to simply adding mass in the first place.

     Stop each set a few reps shy of momentary muscular failure.  At least, at first.  You may reach a point where you can take each set close to momentary muscular failure, but I wouldn’t advise that at the start.

     Train 3 days a week.  As you build up your work capacity—in other words, your ability to do more and more work—you can increase this to 4 days per week.  But start with 3.  Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are probably the most popular days to train since it leaves one with the weekends free.  Personally, I’ve always enjoyed training on the weekends, so I would often make one of my training days either Saturday or Sunday.  When I was a competitive powerlifter, and was using a 3 days per week program, I always enjoyed starting my training week on Sunday.  I had a family and a “regular” job (unlike now when I make my living strictly as a freelancer), and I always enjoyed having off on Friday and Saturdays.  After working hard Monday through Friday, it was nice to take off on Friday night and all-day Saturday, so I could spend time with my kids and just (attempt to) forget about lifting for a couple of days.  Then, training on Sunday—which was my longest training day, as it would sometimes last upward of 3 hours—seemed to get my week started off “right.”  After a hard and heavy Sunday session, I was ready for whatever work, or just life in general, threw at me on Monday.  But train whatever 3 non-consecutive days feels best for you.

     As just mentioned, you can, but you certainly don’t have to, move to 4 days a week at some point.  If you do this, go to a 2-on, 1-off, 1-on, 1-off, 1-on, 1-off rotation.  So, if you were previously training on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, you might go to a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday rotation.  But, as with the 3-day week, pick whatever days work best for you.

     Some bodybuilders will do well with less exercises and less days per week.  Some will get better results from more exercises and more days per week.  And this isn’t just due to being a “beginner” or an “advanced” lifter.  Some lifters from the start of their training will respond to quite a bit of volume, and some lifters who have been training for years will do better with only a few exercises and 3 days weekly.  If you’re not sure what “volume boat” you fit in, experiment with both.

     For exercise selection, use primarily free weights, be they barbells, dumbbells, or kettlebells.  If there’s a machine or band exercise that you know is effective for you, then by all means use it, but stick with free weight movements for the most part.

     Make sure you include a squatting movement, a lower-body pulling exercise (deadlifts, cleans, etc), an upper-body pulling exercise (chins or rows of various types), a vertical pressing movement (some sort of overhead press), a horizontal pressing movement (some sort of bench press, for instance), and an exercise or two for your arms.  An abdominal exercise and a calf exercise are also good additions, as are loaded carries of one sort or another.  You don’t have to do all of these at each session—though you certainly can—but make sure you include them throughout the week.

     Putting all this together, let’s now see what a couple of 3 days a week workouts might look like:

Program #1:

Monday - Wednesday - Friday:

• Barbell squats: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Incline dumbbell bench presses: 3 sets of 8-10 reps
• Behind-the-neck presses: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Flat-footed power cleans: 3 sets of 6 reps
• Barbell curls: 3 sets of 8-10 reps
• Incline sit-ups: 3 sets of 12 reps

Program #2:

Monday:

• Front squats: 5 sets of 10-12 reps
• Flat barbell bench presses: 4 sets of 6-8 reps
• Dumbbell overhead presses: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Wide-grip chins: 4 sets of 6 reps
• Barbell curls: 3 sets of 6-8 reps
• Skull crushers: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Hanging leg raises: 3 sets of 12-15 reps

Wednesday:

• Walking lunges (dumbbells or bodyweight): 3 sets of 10 reps (each leg)
• Incline dumbbell flyes: 3 sets of 12 reps
• Dumbbell lateral raises (seated or standing): 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• One-arm dumbbell rows: 3 sets of 8-10 reps (each arm)
• Cable curls: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Rope pushdowns: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Incline sit-ups: 3 sets of 12 reps

Friday:

• Barbell squats: 5 sets of 10-12 reps
• Weighted dips: 4 sets of 6-8 reps
• Deadlifts: 5 sets of 6 reps
• Military presses: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Alternate dumbbell curls: 3 sets of 8-10 reps (each arm)
• Barbell pullover-and-presses: 3 sets of 10-12 reps
• Ab wheel: 3 sets of 6 reps

     Those are just example programs, although you certainly could use them exactly as written if you choose.  As also mentioned above, add in a calf exercise or even a loaded carry, such as farmer walks, to the end of the workout if you want.  You may not want to do the loaded carries at each session, but 2 days a week would suffice on, say, the Monday and Friday workouts.

     Remember to use a weight where you are several reps shy of failure.  Your workout should leave you feeling better when you finish it than when you started.  If you feel fatigued or drained, then you probably did too much.  In a half-hour to an hour after your workout, you should feel full of energy and have a big appetite for a post-workout meal.

     As you progress, you can add a set or two to your exercises or add more movements to each workout.  After 6-8 weeks on these sorts of workouts, you can also go to the 4-day model and see how that works for you.  Once again, if you know you respond better to less work, cut out one, two, or even three exercises from each session.  In the 2nd program above, for instance, you might cut out the dumbbell overhead presses and skull crushers from the Monday workout, the cable curls and pushdowns from the Wednesday session, and the weighted dips and pullover-and-presses from the Friday workout, but those are, again, just suggestions.

     The key to this easy mass-building is to be consistent with full-body training on the big exercises and to slowly build up your capacity to do more and more work.  Instead of focusing on working a muscle group, training with “intensity,” and then giving that muscle (or muscle groups) time to “rest and grow,” focus on frequent full-body workout sessions and building up your workload so you can handle more voluminous sessions.  By training multiple muscle groups for the whole body at one session and slowly building up your workload over time, your body will respond by growing larger and more “shapely.”  It may go against the grain of how most lifters, not to mention trainers, think mass is built but it does work.  And if you have doubts about the efficacy of this kind of training, then I have one word for you: TRY.  Try and see whether it works for you.  Heck, you could even do it in an attempt to prove me wrong, but you won’t know until you try.  Besides, you have nothing to lose and all the muscle in the world to (potentially) gain.