If you like strength training for lean muscle mass then this article is for you. I will list 5 awesome programs that will help you achieve your fitness goals. You can pick from several different types of programs including, functional strength programs, as well as hybrid programs that build strength, muscle mass, and cardiovascular endurance. No matter your specific goals, I’m sure you’ll find a workout plan to push your fitness to the next level. Keep reading for more.
As a coach of many years, I can confidently tell you that most athletes really want to achieve a small handful of goals. After all, who doesn’t want to be lean and strong, with a pleasing physique? I’ve also found that a lot of people also want well rounded fitness.
You can be strong, and maintain a high level of fitness at the same time. Check out this article where I detail my 25 pound weight loss journey, dropping significant body fat. As a side effect of this body composition improvement, my endurance went through the roof.
I also think it’s important to point out that just because you might have a similar goal, compared to other athletes, that doesn’t mean you like to train like everyone else. It’s for that reason that I’ve listed a wide variety of strength and muscle building programs in this article. Here’s a list of the 5 programs.
5 Best Strength Training For Lean Muscle Programs
- The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program (Most popular training program)
- 9 Week Functional Fitness Strength Program (Strength biased program with short intense WODs)
- 8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Training Plan (Best program for strength and endurance)
- 10 Week Functional Power Building Program (Best program for strength and anaerobic power)
- 12 Week Advanced Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program (For advanced lifters)
In the next section I will briefly review each resistance training program. I’ll show you a portion of the programming, and discuss the specific goals for each lean muscle workout plan. I encourage you to follow the links to each plan for important details like, PDF downloads and nutrition calculators. Now, on to my most popular hybrid bodybuilding and strength program.
8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program
The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program is actually 24 weeks in total if you follow all three parts. This is by far my most popular program for building lean muscle mass as well as conditioning. This program is four days per week, with a heavy emphasis on compound strength training exercises.
Each session starts with two compound exercises, working opposing muscle groups. Of note, these aren’t super sets. These are done with normal rest intervals, working up to fairly heavy loads on each lift. The idea is to allow your muscle fibers to rest, while working other specific muscle groups.
You can also see that I’ve included accessory lifts like biceps curl, and triceps extension. These exercises target common weak areas for folks that spend a lot of time working on big, barbell exercises. They also help build muscle mass in upper body areas like the shoulders and arms.
If you read this article on pull ups substitutes you can see that single-joint exercises work individual muscles harder than multi-joint movements. The trade off is that you’re concentrating your effort on less overall muscle mass.
After the lifting is finished, you’ll transition to a WOD. These workouts are designed to be short and intense. This is the best way to promote muscle growth, without over training. Research confirms that the type of metabolic stress that these workouts create is key for for building muscle tissue, and lean body mass.
Like many of my popular programs, I’ve created a premium version of the program that provides the same type of detail I would provide to my one on one athletes. You’ll have things like percentages, rest intervals, and pacing advice for the WOD. You can check out the premium version of this program below.
Now that we’ve covered my most popular program for building equal parts muscle mass, strength, and fitness, we can move to my most popular strength biased workout program.
9 Week Functional Fitness Strength Program
I’m not going to lie, the 9 Week Functional Fitness Strength Program is quite challenging. If you want to build strength you have to lift heavy weight. I designed this program to accompany a very popular 5×5 training program by StrongLifts. As such, you’ll have to follow the link on the program homepage to download their spreadsheet.
It’s a great resource that calculates all the weights for you. The program you see below is all the work you will do around the primary lifts from the spreadsheet. You can see that you’ll find a mix of lower reps for the strength movements, and higher reps for the WODs.
I’ve found that you’ll spend about 45 minutes on the primary lifts. This is mainly due to the amount of rest you’ll need to attack each set. After you’ve finished your primary lifts, I recommend a 5-10 minute break before starting the WOD.
Just like the previous program, the work in the WOD is designed to complement the strength lifts. This is actually one of the biggest challenges with this type of exercise program. You have to strike a fine line between training hard enough to promote an increase in fitness, but no so hard that you aren’t ready for the next lifting session.
This program is completely free, however, if you want an all in one option with the lift percentages, and daily WOD in one resource, then you can check out the premium version below. I’ve also taken the liberty of tweaking a few of the programing details to make the premium version more effective, and time efficient.
8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Program
The 8 Week Hybrid Strength and Endurance Program, is rapidly becoming one of my more popular programs. Many athletes enjoy training for lean muscle, strength, and endurance activities. Old school coaches used to think that aerobic activity killed muscle and strength gains, but recent research has proven that to be a myth.
You can lift and build cardiovascular endurance, you just need to be smart with your programming. Don’t worry, I’ve taken care of that for you. Check out a sample week below.
This program is designed as a 6 day per week program. Just like with many of my other programs, you can add in some extra rest days as you need. It’s much more important to work consistently than to work hard, inconsistently.
It’s also important to separate the pure cardio sessions from the lifting sessions (especially lower body sessions) by at least 3-4 hours. Research confirms that the closer these disparate types of fitness activities are performed to each other, the more interference they create. That doesn’t mean you won’t make progress with both, it just means you’ll make slower overall fitness changes.
While this program builds a lot of strength, and aerobic capacity, it’s less focused on anaerobic power. If you like sprinting and power related fitness activities, then you’ll really like the next program.
10 Week Functional Power Building Program
The 10 Week Functional Power Building Program was designed for folks that need to increase strength and power quickly. It’s a five day per week program that’s heavily percentage based, for free weight movements. I always recommend this for athletes as a great off season program to build strength and anaerobic fitness. Here’s a sample week below.
Each session is built around one primary lift. You then move on to a secondary muscle building movement that lasts for around 40 seconds per set. This is key for anaerobic power development, as your aerobic energy system starts to take over past that time point.
Moreover you can see that most of the WODs are on the shorter end of the spectrum. This also builds anaerobic endurance. Lastly, each session finishes with some accessory movements that use light weights to compliment the primary lifts. This is one of my favorite programs for athletes, as you can build strength and anaerobic power very quickly.
If you’ve taken a look at all of these programs and thought they just aren’t challenging enough, then you’ll love / hate the next program. Be warned, it isn’t for the faint of heart. Before we get there, don’t forget to join the email list below.
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12 Week Advanced Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program
This 12 Week Advanced Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program is actually an amalgamation of one of my most popular pure bodybuilding programs, and some accessory WODs I created for folks who want the best of both worlds. Check out a sample day of the premium version below.
You can see that there is a lot of lifting volume in each session. This is for a specific reason. Most research confirms that you need around 40-60 hard reps per muscle group, per session, for optimal increases in lean mass. This means that you’ll likely end up with 5-10 sets per session, depending on rep range.
Similarly, most intermediate and advanced lifters can tolerate around 20 sets per muscle group each week. These two metrics yield a program that looks like this. Because this plan is so challenging, I only recommend completing a program like this once or twice per year. The rest of your training should look more like some of the lower volume offerings above.
If you want the free version just follow the links above, however, if you like having each day’s program laid out in an efficient format, you’ll like the premium version below better. I’ve also included much more information in the coaches notes as you can see from the sample above.
You’ve got a lot of different ways to build muscle and strength between these programs. We’ll finish this article with some good general advice to help you make significant improvement in your strength training for lean muscle.
Final Thoughts
I think it’s best to find one or two programs that look good to you, and then investigate further by following the links to their page. You’ll find a lot more info on things like protein intake, and other nutrition advice. You’ll also see more of the programming for each plan. I want to highlight that you can adjust each program to suit your schedule.
I write these programs, and I certainly modify them to create a better personal fitness routine. You aren’t killing your muscle gains if you substitute an exercise, or add in an extra rest day. Your consistency in training, nutrition, and recovery, are the key factors when strength training for lean muscle mass. Now get out there and get to the gym!
This program is not affiliated with any other company or entity including CrossFit Inc. The program is entirely owned by Tier Three Tactical and we recommend that you exercise under the supervision of a professional coach. It’s also recommended that you seek medical clearance from a licensed medical doctor before starting any fitness program.
