12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program: Building Pure Muscle Mass [PDF]

If you’re anything like me then you like lifting, and want to put on as much muscle mass as possible. This is exactly what this 12 week free bodybuilding program is designed to do. Unlike other programs, this muscle building plan was created based on the input of hundreds of studies on muscular hypertrophy. I’ve combed through the research to create a program that is effective, and will challenge even the most hard core lifter. Keep reading for more.

For those readers that are familiar with this website, this will be a departure from my normal programming. Usually I write functional fitness based programs, where you’re putting in as much effort on WODs as you are in your lifts. This program is designed for those that want to put on as much muscle mass in 12 weeks as possible. There are no WODs, or metcons, just lifting, lots of lifting. Let’s review the purpose of the 12 week free bodybuilding program.

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12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program Goals

• Acclimatize your body to high volume training
• Build as much muscle mass as possible
• Avoid adding excess body fat
• Increase strength in the 6-8 rep range

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If you review as much research as I have you’ll come to one conclusion. To build muscle mass you need to have a program with the right amount of lifting volume. In fact, most researchers agree that total volume is a critically important variable in any successful muscle building program. Take a look at this excerpt from a research study entitled, “Evidence-Based Guidelines for Resistance Training Volume to Maximize Muscle Hypertrophy.”

Moreover, a clear dose-response relationship between the number of sets per muscle per week and muscle growth was found when RT volume was stratified into <5, 5–9, and 10+ sets per week, with graded increases seen in percentage gains across categories (5.4, 6.6, and 9.8%, respectively).

https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Fulltext/2018/08000/Evidence_Based_Guidelines_for_Resistance_Training.11.aspx

Volume matters, but you can’t simply increase volume forever and hope that your program will keep working. This is the most common error you see in other programs. Even programs from big names in the fitness industry lack a clear volume based progression. After all, how often have you seen something like this, bench press for 3 sets of 8-10 for several weeks, or even months with no change. Come on! That’s just lazy, ignorant programming.

Your body undergoes a process called habituation where by it will gradually make changes to deal with any type of stressor. Even if your program is very hard, within a few weeks your body has acclimatized to this stress, and you won’t receive any further benefit. You have to plan to increase your volume correctly! This leads us to our next question. How much volume is enough?

How Much Lifting Volume Do You Need to Gain Muscle Mass?

This is a more interesting question as research has shown that athletes can continue to gain muscle mass with up to 45 sets per body part, per week. This is a crazy amount of volume, and it certainly isn’t sustainable for any significant length of time.

A more comprehensive examination of successful bodybuilding programs yields better guidelines. In fact, this article I wrote examined more than 200 research studies on hypertrophy and it’s clear that you can achieve great gains training each muscle group 2-3 times per week, averaging 40-60 reps per session.

Most research studies are done on folks that don’t have long term muscle building goals, so we need to take this recommendation with a grain of salt. This recommendation is most likely the lowest amount of volume that will yield good results. As program length increases, so will the volume.

For the 12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program, I’ve taken a lot of research into account, and I’ve also built in a volume progression that will keep you from stalling after a few weeks. The first few weeks of the program will start on the lower end, and as you progress, you’ll end up doing more than 20 sets per body part during some of the most intense weeks.

I don’t want to give you the impression that volume is the only variable that will build muscle mass. This research paper highlights that there are three variables that mediate your bodies’ ability to build muscle mass.

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• Mechanical Tension
• Metabolic Stress
• Muscle Damage

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Mechanical Tension To Build Muscle Mass

Mechanical tension is a very simple concept. Your muscles have various methods of determining how much load they are under. When they’re under a high load this causes them to signal that they will need more repair, and eventually the fibers will grow larger and thicken.

Said a little more plainly, heavy weight builds muscle. This isn’t to say that you can build the most muscle with the heaviest weights, otherwise olympic lifters and power lifters would be the largest athletes around. While they are muscular and strong, they don’t have as much muscle as bodybuilder.

In general, heavier weights are better than lighter weights, provided that you can achieve the appropriate volume. Remember that we need at least 40-60 reps per session, and I can tell you that no one should be lifting that many reps of extremely heavy weights (90%+ of 1RM). That’s how you get injured.

Metabolic Stress to Build Muscle Mass

Your body has the ability to analyze how much stress it’s cells are under. When you workout very hard, your body produces metabolic waste products. These products need to be cleared out of your body by your circulatory system. The more they build up, the longer the clearance takes.

Your body knows that larger, stronger muscle fibers can operate more efficiently, without producing as much of these waste products. There are several ways to increase metabolic stress. You can do large sets with relatively heavy weights. You can cut down your rest time, or do things like supersets, and giant sets. The moral of this story is that the hardest training will yield the most metabolic stress.

Muscle Damage to Build Mass

As you might imagine, when you workout, your muscle fibers become damaged. This damage signals your body to repair itself. The most common way to create muscle damage is to increase lifting volume. Imagine that! However, you can do things like forced negatives, which emphasize eccentric loading, to create more damage too.

Once your body repairs it’s cells, it then goes about creating larger muscle fibers, so they aren’t damaged as easily. In the long term this is the process that actually builds muscle mass. The 12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program utilizes all three techniques, in the correct proportion, to send a strong muscle building signal to your body.

No matter how strong this signal is. You can’t build muscle mass if you aren’t providing the right nutrition for your body. You need to support your daily requirements, and provide surplus of protein so your body can physically make new cells. Let’s talk about nutrition.

How Should You Eat for the 12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program?

It isn’t super complicated to gain muscle mass. It can be complicated to gain muscle mass without gaining a ton of unwanted fat. You need to prioritize protein, and carbohydrate, while eating as much fat as you need to hit your caloric goals.

I’ve taken the liberty of putting together the Ultimate Nutrition Calculator, and it will automatically calculate your per session energy expenditure, body fat, and give you your macros. Give the article a read, and download the spreadsheet. Remember, this is only a starting point for your nutrition. If you’re gaining too much fat, then dial back the calories by 300. As long as you’re in a surplus and eating enough protein, you’ll gain muscle mass with this program.

We’ve covered the science behind the 12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program, so let’s get straight into the details of the program!

12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program

In this article, you’ll be able to see the programming for the first four weeks. I will do follow up articles which will be linked at the bottom for the second and third parts, once I finish them. They’ll be released in the coming months, so I’d recommend signing up for my mailing list below, so you don’t have to keep checking in.

If you don’t want to miss out on the rest of this program sign up here and we’ll email them directly to you once they’re released. As a bonus, I’ll send you our strength training, and fat loss guides!

General Guidance

Each block is written with five sessions. I expect most athletes will be able to do these five sessions in a week. I don’t specify exactly how that occurs, as I like to leave flexibility to schedule your own workouts. Each daily session is one vertical column. As long as you get the work done each day, I don’t really care how you do it.

Most athletes will choose to do it from top to bottom, but you can pick and choose which moves you want to do in which order. I’ve color coded the movements so that the primary movements are green or gray. The accessory work is in blue, and the daily accessory is in dark gray.

Note that none of these blocks are super sets. I will specify when I want you to do a superset or drop set. I generally expect you to keep your rest intervals around 2 minutes. For your most challenging sets you might go to three minutes, but don’t go longer than that. This isn’t a power lifting program!

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DOWNLOAD THE 12 WEEK FREE BODYBUILDING PROGRAM PDF HERE!

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I know I said I wouldn’t program any WODs or Metcons for this bodybuilding plan, but I did anyway. If you’re like me and want to do some quick WODs, at the end of the session, you can add in these. I’ve written them to pair with each session, and they’ll help you maintain your conditioning, and perhaps build a little more muscle. You can see my 20 WOD addendum to this bodybuilding program here.

12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program: Week 1

This week is your introduction to this style of training. The programming becomes very hard towards the end so you should expect that it will only increase in difficulty from here. This program is designed so that you can do it in any commercial gym, and most well equipped home gyms. You might have to sub a few movements, if you lack cable machines, but you can still build a lot of muscle mass either way.

In this program I most often specify the intensity of effort using the acronym RIR. This stands for reps in reserve. If you see a set of 10 that says 2 RIR, that means you could do 12 reps if you truly had to. You’re leaving 2 reps in reserve. None of these sets are max effort. Don’t make them too hard otherwise you’ll be screwed in a few weeks!

12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program: Week 2

This week is generally the same volume, but I’ve increased the weight you’re lifting for each set. Most of last weeks sets were 2RIR. This week many of them are 1RIR. This indicates that you should be lifting heavier on each set, but it’s still not a max effort.

Once you get into the pattern of this program, you’ll see that I almost always increase either load, or volume, and rarely increase both at the same time. This is a key part of the program. It allows your body to recover from each session with enough reserves to attack the next session.

In this program, most body parts are trained twice per week, for large muscle groups. Smaller muscle groups, that recovery quickly, are hit 3 or more times per week.

If you like this program, and want to the full premium version then check this out!

12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program: Week 3

This week is where I put the hammer down. I expect you to keep the weight you did last week, and I’ve added some extra sets. Remember, if you have a set of 8 at 1RIR, then you should be lifting heavier for a set of 6. Most sets of 6 in this program should be around 85-90% of your 1RM.

On each of these movements, you need to focus on the muscles that are contracting. I expect you to use good, safe form, and put max effort into each rep. Most compound movements should be done focusing a bit more on the weight being moved, where as the accessory work is more technique focused.

12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program: Week 4

This week is a deload week. This means that I’ve cut the programmed volume. Don’t think of this as an easy week, as I do have you working heavier than you did last week. This week is very important to your overall success. If you don’t allow your body to recover from the work you’ve done, then you will make no further progress.

Most of the accessory work hasn’t been changed much, as small muscle groups are more quickly repaired than large muscle groups. Make sure you’re putting in the same effort, and resist the urge to do a little extra this week because you think you need to.

If you want to build strength and functional fitness then check out this program!

Recovery

Recovery is definitely a misunderstood topic. Just mentioning the word brings up images of cryo baths, and weird spa treatments. The research is pretty clear, while there may be some mental benefit to those things, they aren’t directly helping your recovery.

Read this article were I review some scientific studies on the topic. Your best bets are fairly simple. Make sure you’re sleeping enough, and eating adequately. Very easy cardio, like cycling or walking, can help you recover, as it increases circulation without incurring more damage to repair.

There is also some indication that wearing compression tights helps you both when you’re working out, and afterwards. Check out this article where I review the research on compression tights for building muscle and strength. Talking about recovery inevitably leads us to the next topic, supplements.

What Supplements Are Useful for Building Muscle?

I don’t write a whole lot about supplements because, for the most part, they really aren’t that big of a help for building muscle mass. There is strong evidence that creatine can help increase muscle mass, and it’s safe for most folks. I do recommend you ask your doctor before trying any supplements though.

I prefer creatine tablets, as most powders taste fairly gross to me. If you want to try creatine, you can pick up these GNC Creatine 189 tablets at Amazon (Amazon Affiliate Link). You can also benefit from protein powder. I recommend getting a flavor that you like and going with something with a lot of good reviews like this product from Body Fortress. It has 38,000 positive reviews, so it’ll work.

Most of your calories and nutrition need to come from actual food. You can’t live on supplements and highly refined food products, if you want to build the most muscle mass.

Final Thoughts

As I stated earlier, this is the first part of a multi part series. I recommend signing up for my email list so you can get the next portion sent directly to you. It’ll have the same general pattern but I like to change the movements, and the rep schemes as the program progresses. I will also be including some intensity methods like drop sets, limited rest sets, and a few other methods of my own design.

If you’re ready for the next installment of the 12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program, then check it out.

If you have any questions about this program, or training in general, leave them in the comments section below and I’ll get you an answer. Now get out there and get training!

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