If you’re looking for a list of the 5 best bodybuilding programs for mass, size, and overall fitness, then you’ve come to the right place. It’s no secret that I’ve been writing workout plans for many years, and I have a program for just about any fitness goal. In this article I’m going to cover my most popular programs for building muscle mass. There will be pure bodybuliding programs, and several hybrid programs where you can build serious size, and functional fitness. Keep reading for more.
If I had a dollar for every time a new athlete told me they wanted to gain muscle size, strength, and fitness, I’d be living in a different zip code. The vast majority of athletes want a muscular physique, and they want to be strong. They also don’t want to look like a super heavy weight powerlifter, and have trouble walking up stairs.
On the surface you might think that these goals aren’t realistic. While I’m not promising that you’ll look like your favorite “fake natty” instagram influencer, you can certainly gain a lot of muscle mass and strength. There’s quite a lot of research that shows you can build an impressive physique, while training for endurance as well.
In this article I will be covering my 5 best bodybuilding programs for a variety of fitness goals. I will include programs for those that like pure lifting, and I’ll include some strength biased workout programs too. You can also expect to see several of my hybrid bodybuilding programs for those that want size, fitness, and strength. Be warned, I don’t write easy programs. Here are they are.
5 Best Bodybuilding Programs
- The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program (Most popular training program)
- 12 Week Advanced Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program (For advanced lifters)
- 12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program [PDF] (For pure bodybuilding athletes)
- 8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training Plan (For athletes needing endurance and mass)
- 7 Week Free Functional Bodybuilding Program (short intense hybrid program)
Before you go clicking away on all of these programs, I recommend that you check out the next section first. We will review the scientific reasons why these programs work to build muscle mass. As you’ll see, getting the programming volume, and progressive overload plan correct, is key for optimal muscle and strength gains.
After this quick review we’ll cover each of these 5 programs in more depth. This will give you a good idea if the program is appropriate for your goals, and current fitness level. Towards the end of this article I will provide some free resources on nutrition, and recovery.
Before we get into all the details of building muscle. I recommend checking out this article where I provide one of my most valuable training resources. In it, you’ll find a calculator that can predict your natural strength and muscular potential with just a few measurements. I think you’ll find that you have a lot of room to grow. Let’s get to the science behind the best bodybuilding programs.
The Science Behind the Best Bodybuilding Programs
No matter what you’ve see on weird Youtube ads, building a muscular physique isn’t about complicated science. It’s about consistent behavior. Notice I’m not telling you that science has nothing to do with it, it just isn’t a complicated matter.
There are three primary drivers of muscle growth, and they are intuitively understood. The first mechanism of muscle growth is the mechanical tension your muscle fibers experience. The next is muscle damage, and the final driver of muscle hypertrophy is metabolic stress.
Most popular programs I see don’t take these drivers into account. In fact, most of them actually have too much volume, which can slow your muscular growth. Moreover, they’re often over complicated with isolation exercises, that are much too light to force your muscles to grow. The majority of your workout routine should be compound exercises, done with moderately heavy weights (65-85% of 1RM), in the 5-20 rep ranges.
If you’re interested in this topic, then I highly recommend you check out these articles where I review how many sets you should actually be doing per body part, as well as the amount of overall volume you can handle in a workout program. In your past programs, I bet you were doing too much easy work, which is something you won’t see in my hybrid programs.
If you plan on using these programs for weight loss that will work as well. Just make sure you check out the nutrition section towards the end, and download my calculator. You should be using the weight loss tab for your nutritional needs. You can also read more about losing body fat here.
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Hybrid Bodybuilding Programs
I write a lot of hybrid programs for a reason. They work very well! This is because they include enough heavy lifts to challenge your muscles mechanically. They also include enough volume to trigger growth without excessive soreness, which can slow your gains.
The key component to these programs is actually the metabolic stress. The functional fitness WODs are designed to compliment the pure lifting work you do, and are full-body workouts. This ensures the right total volume per muscle group, and it generates metabolic stress in the targeted muscles.
In my experience this programming method works well, but it isn’t easy. That’s why I have several programs that start at the advanced beginner level, and continue all the way up to the elite athlete level. In the next section we’ll review the specifics of each program, so you can determine which one is right for you.
My 5 Best Bodybuilding Programs: Mass, Strength, Fitness
As I mentioned above these best bodybuilding programs are designed to achieve a variety of specific goals. Some are appropriate for athletes who just want to lift. Others will have quite a bit of conditioning, and muscular endurance work. I highly recommend you follow the links for each hypertrophy program.
Those links will take you to the web page for each program, where I cover all the details. You’ll see things like warm ups, cool downs, and execution notes. However, if you really want all the details, then I recommend checking out my premium programs, where I provide all the same information I would to my one on one clients. Let’s get to the programs.
8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program
The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program is by far my most popular program. It’s been around for several years and thousands of athletes have given it a go, with tremendous results. This program is split into three different parts, all of which are 8 weeks in length.
In this first portion you can see it’s a 4 day split, with an alternating upper body and lower body focused training session each day. There is also a functional fitness WOD planned for each workout as well. The workouts are high intensity and are generally shorter than 10 minutes.
This program is appropriate for athletes that like functional fitness workouts and want to build muscle mass. As you can see, there is a lot of lifting prior to the WOD, and this is the primary driver of muscular growth. It’s also quite taxing, so don’t be surprised at how hard the WOD feels after these intense lifts.
If you have safe technique on the primary compound movements, you see in the first week, then you will most likely make great progress with this program. Before you know it you’ll need a whole new wardrobe! If you want to check out the premium version of my most popular muscle building program then look no further.
If this workout plan seems like it might be a little too tame for your liking, don’t worry, I have something that’ll make you cry in the next section. In fact, the next program is probably the highest volume option in this list of the best bodybuilding programs.
12 Week Advanced Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program
The 12 Week Advanced Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program is actually a hybrid of my 12 Week Free Bodybuilding program, and the WODs I wrote to accompany that pure bodybuilding program. As such, you will only find this in the form you see below as a premium program.
As in all of my premium programs, I try to provide the value I normally give to athletes who want a custom fitness plan. You’ll get detailed coaches notes, specific warm ups, and all the relevant details you need to maximize your progress.
If you take a gander at this program, you’ll realize that it’s heavily biased towards lifting for mass. In fact, this program is best for athletes that have several years experience in the gym. It’s just too much volume for newer lifters.
You can see that I’ve included a lot of accessory work, as well a short, intense WOD at the end. If I had to put a number to it, I would say its 80% muscle building and 20% conditioning, in the form of a WOD. There is no dedicated cardio work here. If this challenging program seems like your jam, then I recommend picking up your copy below.
Now that we’ve covered two great options for functional fitness athletes, who desire to build muscle mass. Let’s review a pure bodybuilding program for those who enjoy more traditional hypertrophy training.
12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program [PDF]
The 12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program includes my best bodybuilding workouts for athletes who want a great traditional style program. As you can see, there’s a lot going here. I’ll briefly cover some of the highlights in this section, but I recommend you follow the link to see all the details.
It’s designed to be done in almost any commercial gym, or a well appointed home gym. It’s a 5 day per week split, with all major muscle groups being worked at least twice per week. If you look closely, some of the smaller specific muscle groups are actually worked a bit more.
I’ve also included a WOD supplement on each section of this program, if you want to combine this with some functional fitness conditioning work. It’s important to note that there is a downloadable PDF for this program as well. If you’re looking for a very effective traditional bodybuilding program, then you should give this plan a shot. Next we’ll cover my newest hybrid program, for lifters looking for their best results in endurance activities as well.
8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training Plan
There’s no getting around the fact that the 8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Program is hard. It’s sole purpose is to build strength and muscle mass, while building aerobic capacity. To accomplish these two disparate goals, you will need a lot of hard work, and some smart planning. Luckily I’ve taken care of the planning part, but you have to put in the work.
Traditionally, many coaches would have you believe that you can’t build muscle and conditioning, but it’s certainly possible. There’s been a lot of solid research demonstrating that you can accomplish both goals, provided you do a few things correctly, in the program.
As with many of my programs, I recommend fitting it around your schedule. Many of these training days are best done as two separate workouts. Ideally, you want to separate your conditioning from your lifting by at least 3-4 hours. This maximizes the adaptation for each type of workout.
It’s also ok to add in extra rest days every now and again. Don’t feel artificially constrained by having to complete all this work in a 7 day period. If 8 days works better, and you can execute these workouts consistently on that schedule, then knock your socks off. Now let’s move on to our final program.
7 Week Free Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program
The 7 Week Free Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program is one of my newer programs, and it incorporates some of my updated programming methods. In this program, you can expect an even mix of strength training and bodybuilding style work. After all, the science is clear that we need some heavy lifts, along with more traditional bodybuilding style training.
This program is a 5 day split with a WOD each day. It’s appropriate for an intermediate or advanced bodybuilder who doesn’t mind spending 60-80 minutes in the gym each day. Given this amount of training volume, I don’t think you need to split the workouts into two per day, unless you really want to.
Now that we’ve covered the 5 Best Bodybuilding Programs, we need to get to the critical supporting elements to any fitness program, recovery, and proper nutrition. In the next section I’ll provide several resources that should keep you on the right track.
Nutrition and Recovery Resources
If you’ve read any of my other articles, then you’ll know that I don’t like to over complicate nutrition and recovery. Just like the gym portion of your program, these two aspects of fitness are key for overall muscle growth. They don’t have to be complicated.
Eating correctly to gain muscle isn’t a difficult concept, but it does require some discipline on your part. I’ve found there are generally two types of problems that athletes face when trying to gain muscle mass. Some folks like myself, find it very easy to over eat, and as a result, gain too much fat along with their muscle mass. These athletes need to limit their caloric surplus to 500-700 over their total daily energy expenditure.
It’s just as common to see athletes working very hard in the gym, not gaining any muscle. Often times those folks just aren’t eating enough to support muscle growth.
In order to keep you on the right track, I recommend downloading my nutrition calculator and use the muscle gain tab. This will give you a good idea how much you should be eating. It’s important to note that this is only a starting place for a great healthy diet. Everyone is a little different, and some folks will need to eat a little more or less than what the calculator recommends. Now let’s talk about recovery.
Recovery Methods
This is one area that’s been overly complicated many people. Most athletes fall into the trap of doing what they see top athletes do online. They see a CrossFit games athlete sitting in an ice bath and think that’s the thing they need to do as well. That would be a very bad idea if you want to gain muscle mass.
Recovery is really a biological process that returns your body to it’s normal resting state. The first step in this process, from bodybuilding perspective, is the inflammatory response in your muscles. This is what signals your muscle tissue to repair, strengthen, and grow.
When you sit in an ice bath, or take excessive NSAIDs, this blunts your inflammatory response. In effect, you’re telling your body that everything is ok, and you don’t need any repair or growth in your muscle tissue. This isn’t my opinion either. You can read about it in my recovery article here.
Ice baths should be used as a short term recovery method for competitions. It’s not a viable tool for everyday use. If you are the type of person that likes cold showers, and ice baths for general well being and wake-fullness, then I highly recommend separating them for your workouts by 6 or more hours. The longer the separation the better.
Obviously, I’m not a doctor, and this isn’t medical advice. Check out the links to the research above, and form your own opinion.
In my research I’ve only come across two methods that actually help you recover and build muscle mass. The first is wearing compression tights. Research, and my experience, show that it drastically reduces muscle soreness. You can read about that here.
The second method is easy cardiovascular exercise after the workout. Sit on an exercise bike, assault bike, rower, or simply go for a walk for 10 minutes after your workout. This should be done at very, very low effort, around 60 watts of output. This promotes circulation, and jump starts the recovery process, without incurring any additional damage to repair.
Apart from these two methods, you need to make sure you’re sleeping enough, and drinking an adequate amount of fluids. Don’t go crazy here. Just be a normal adult. This has been a long article so let’s wrap this up.
Final Thoughts
I highly recommend that you try to find one or two programs that seem appealing to you. Follow their links, and read a little more information. For most of my athletes I recommend starting with lower volume programming, and then moving on to a more difficult program.
Don’t think that you’ll automatically make more progress just because you’re doing more work. You need to do the right amount of work, and then recover afterwards. Ideally you should only do the bare minimum to make progress. As you gain experience, you’ll have to increase programming challenges to continue making improvements.
You won’t achieve your best results by jumping into a 6 day per week split, with no way to increase difficulty from there. If you have any comments or questions put them in the comments section below. Now get out there and get training.
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