No one goes to the gym because they’re worried about getting too big or strong. If you want to have trouble fitting through doors, you need to check out my top 3 best bodybuilding programs to maximize muscle and strength. Each of these programs are built differently to maximize the amount of muscle you can gain. If you work hard, and pay attention to recovery, then you can significantly change your physique and drastically increase your strength levels. Keep reading to find your next program.
If you’ve seen any of my other programs, you’ll know that I’ve written quite a few free functional fitness programs throughout the years. I’ve got programs for competitive athletes, every day gym goers, and endurance athletes who don’t want to be weak and slow.
However, many people don’t know that some of my best programs are actually pure bodybuilding and strength programs. There’s a reason for that. If you look at any research about building muscle or functional fitness you’ll come to one inescapable conclusion. Building muscle mass is a key requirement for any athlete.
It’s one of the biggest factors that impacts your overall strength levels. As we know, stronger athletes are always more useful athletes. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to go to the CrossFit Games, or win a local bodybuilding contest.
You are likely to perform better with more muscle mass, and strength. If you want to see just how much muscle mass and strength you can build, check out this research based calculator. It’s based off of some great research on elite level natural bodybuilders.
To truly understand what makes a bodybuilding program effective, we need to cover some of the basics that are often overlooked in cookie-cutter programs. Let’s put our research glasses and lab coats on. It’s time to get a little nerdy!
What Makes a Bodybuilding Program Work?
Your best bodybuilding program is the one that allows you to use the most recoverable exercise volume, in a specific intensity range. Moreover, the best workout routine must incorporate progressive overload, and have periods of recovery built into the weekly progression.
As a coach who’s helped hundreds, if not thousands of athletes, there are some common mistakes that athletes make when trying to gain muscle mass. They’ll often pick a program that has too much volume for their experience level, and quickly burn out. A few hard days of work doesn’t make a big impact in the long run.
Similarly, many athletes might find a program that’s almost exclusively built around isolation movements, which will not build as much muscle mass as a program designed with the right amount of compound exercises. Simpletons argue whether isolation or compound movements are better. Smart athletes and coaches know that each has their own place in a good bodybuilding program. For best results you need a mix of both.
Now we’re going to cover the three methods in which bodybuilding programs actually cause you to build muscle and strength . After that, we’ll get into my top 3 best bodybuilding programs.
The 3 Mechanisms of Building Muscle
Research is ever evolving, aiming to give us a clearer picture of the mechanisms of hypertrophy. Currently, it’s pretty clear that there are three primary drivers of muscle gain. In no particular order they are: mechanical tension, muscle damage, and metabolic stress.
Most popular muscle building workout programs only cover one or two of these mechanisms. This limits their effectiveness. As you get closer to your genetic potential, you need to take advantage of every training and recovery method you can, to continue building bigger muscles. I’ll quickly review these primary mechanisms, and explain how they will drive us to towards a specific program to meet your specific goals. First, we’ll talk about mechanical tension.
Mechanical Tension
Mechanical tension is the easiest mechanism to understand. Your muscles fibers and nerves can accurately measure the amount of tension that they experience. This tension is created when you use your muscles to exert force against a weight.
While you must experience some mechanical tension in the form of heavy weights, you don’t need to lift your rep max all day. That’s impossible, and wouldn’t work very well. Most research indicates that you need to lift between 60-80% of your 1RM for optimal muscle gains.
For athletes that are used to lifting 90% plus weights, it can be off putting lifting light weight to gain muscle mass. As you’ll see, the other two factors strongly account for why this works. Notice I’m not telling you that you can build a lot of muscle mass by avoiding heavy weight! Now let’s talk about muscle damage.
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Muscle Damage
One of the biggest drivers of hypertrophy is muscle damage. This is caused when the cells in your muscle fibers are damaged as a result of weight training. This is one of the main reasons you experience soreness in major muscle groups that are worked hard.
Naturally, these damaged cells signal to your body to repair them. This signaling is actually called inflammation. You’ll see later on that interrupting the inflammation process limits muscle growth.
These signals to repair your body also cause your body to build stronger muscle fibers. Said in simple terms, your body realizes that your muscle tissues aren’t strong enough for what they’re being asked to do. They must increase in size. While larger muscle size isn’t the only factor in increasing tissue durability, it is an important one. Next we’ll cover the last mechanism, metabolic stress.
Metabolic Stress
The most under appreciated driver of muscle growth is metabolic stress. This is the biggest difference between these programs and cookie cutter programs. I’ve included specific programming, that will help your body build up metabolic stress and their by-products. These by-products signal your body to build more muscle tissue to mitigate metabolic stress in the future.
Notice, I’m not telling you that metabolic by-products are the only factors that build muscle mass. If that were true, then runners would have huge muscles! Now, let’s get to my 3 best bodybuilding programs.
My Top 3 Best Bodybuilding Programs to Maximize Muscle and Strength
As I mentioned earlier, each of my 3 best bodybuilding programs is ideal for different athletes. All of the programs will build muscle mass and strength, but each one does so in different ways. Make sure you check the overview section for each of my best bodybuilding programs, so you can determine which one fits your needs the best. Remember the hardest program isn’t always best, and can be counter productive at times!
The first program we’re going to talk about is one of my best bodybuilding programs. It’s 12 weeks in length, and very challenging for intermediate and advanced bodybuilders. Here it is.
The 12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program
The 12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program is ideal for someone who has at least 6 months of experience in the gym. This is one of my best bodybuilding programs for intermediate bodybuilders. It covers each body part at least twice per week, which research shows is ideal.
Like many of my other programs with five day training splits, most athletes will chose to do the work during the weekdays, leaving their weekends free. This isn’t the only way you can schedule this program. You can choose to do this however you like. Just make sure that you’re getting 5 sessions in per week. I find it’s best to allow you to fit the work around your schedule, rather than forcing you to arbitrarily adapt to something I wrote down.
I’ve also included a free PDF download, and a bunch of additional resources for the program on its specific page. Make sure you follow the link above so you can check out all of the details, like the acronyms I use to indicate how heavy each set should be. Each set shouldn’t be max effort!
In this training program, I’ve built each session around just a few body parts. Let’s take a look a session 3 in more detail. This session is built around the chest and upper back muscles. This is why we start with everyones favorite exercise, the bench press.
It then moves to a T bar row, with the same rep schemes. Most of these weights will fall in the 70% of 1RM range, provided you’re utilizing good form. You’ll notice that I like to front load more challenging movements first in the workout. This lets you attack them with maximum intensity. It also lets you load them heavier, which increases your strength gains.
I like to place the isolation movements towards the end of the workout. For session three that would be the biceps curls, and close grip bench press. These accessory movements are less challenging than the primary movements, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy! Next we’ll talk about my hardcore bodybuilding program. Don’t worry it’s super easy!
11 Week High Intensity Muscle Building Program for Hardcore Bodybuilders
Newer lifters might look at this program and decide that my 11 Week High Intensity Muscle Building Program, is easier than the previous program. An advanced bodybuilder know better. While there may not be as many blocks, there is much more overall program volume. Remember that the best bodybuilding workout is the one that allows you to do the most volume, and still recover adequately for your next session.
This program can be done by intermediate lifters, but it’s more appropriate for advanced lifters. If you have a year or more of experience in the gym, then you should be fine. It’s 5 days per week, with 2 rest days. The big difference between this program and the 12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program, is the inclusion of the circuit at the end of each workout. This is one of my best bodybuilding programs for advanced athletes.
You can see that I’ve used a similar template to the previous program. Each muscle group is hit 2-3 times per week, with most days featuring opposing muscle groups. I’ve found that this one of the best bodybuilding workout methods for increasing efficiency.
I could program something like a barbell back squat, and then go straight into leg press, but that has some draw backs. The biggest draw back is the reduction in weight that you can use on the second move. Both leg press and the back squat are compound lifts, that use the same muscle groups. This causes those muscle fibers to fatigue, reducing force output.
This means that you won’t be able to attack the leg press with as much weight, as you otherwise might. It’s also a huge wasted opportunity to flex on Instagram people. After all, why else would you take all that time loading up twenty, 45 pound plates?
For this program I expect you to do each exercise with a 2-3 minute rest period between sets. Because you’re moving on to a different muscle group, you can keep the rest between exercises lower. You’ll waste less time in the gym, and actually burn a few more calories this way.
If you really want to be efficient, you can start your warm up sets for the opposing muscle group towards the end of your last working sets for the previous exercise. Ideally, I like to be ready to start my first working set of the next move just as I finish the last working set of the previous exercise.
At the end of each session you’ll have a circuit. This is designed to create a lot of metabolic stress. It also makes this program very hard for lifters of all experience levels. Remember, no one ever got huge doing easy workouts!
Make sure you check out the link to program, as there are some specific explanations for my acronyms that you need to understand to do this correctly. Next we’ll talk about my most popular program that combines functional fitness and bodybuilding.
The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program
The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program is my most popular program, by far. It’s designed for functional fitness athletes that want to build muscle mass and strength. This program is a three part series that lasts for a total of 24 weeks. If you can’t build muscle mass with 6 months of hard work then I don’t know what to tell you.
I’ve also created premium versions of the program with coaches notes, specific percentages, and more detailed instructions which I normally provide to my in person athletes. Check it out below.
It starts out 4 days per week, and eventually increases to 5 days per week. Don’t underestimate the program, it’s actually double the volume from most conventional bodybuilding programs. You’ll need each rest day, if you want the best results.
If you have some experience in the gym, but haven’t done functional fitness workouts before, then I would recommend trying my 5 week beginner program first. It’s a great introduction to this style of training, and will quickly increase your fitness.
This program eschews isolation exercises in favor of compound movements. Sure, there are some bicep curls, but you aren’t going to find a lot of cable or machine work here. You can also see that I’ve split the program into upper body, and lower body days. I’ve also made sure that the movements in the WOD compliment the bodybuilding style lifts.
The WODs themselves are generally shorter than my other functional fitness programs, and they are full-body workouts. They will hammer your conditioning, as well as create a lot of metabolic stress. If you can work your way through this program, then you are sure to see good results.
Next we’ll move into the most commonly neglected aspects of creating workout plans, your recovery and nutrition. As you’ll see, it isn’t complicated, and I’ve provided you with several resources that should help you maximize your gains.
Eating to Gain Muscle Mass
If I have one gripe about the fitness and bodybuilding industry, it is the lack of common sense when it comes to nutrition for muscle hypertrophy. Gaining muscle mass isn’t that hard. You need to create a reasonable caloric surplus of 300-500 calories, without neglecting any specific macro nutrient. Fad diets that completely avoid fats, carbs, or protein will not help you optimize your results!
I highly recommend reading this article, where I review the basics of nutrition for athletes. I can’t tell you how often I talk to experienced athletes who don’t understand very basic nutritional concepts. Take a look. I bet you learn something.
Next, I recommend downloading my nutrition calculator. You’ll be using the muscle gain tab. Fill out the sections in red (like body weight, age, gender, etc), and it will give you some solid recommendations for overall energy intake, and macro nutrient splits.
I don’t want you to obsess over these recommendations. As long as you’re eating fairly close to what the calculator predicts, and gaining a few pounds every 2-3 weeks, you’re headed in the right direction. You can also use MyFitnessPal to help you track your nutrition. It’s so good that researchers use it for their studies.
If you have trouble eating enough calories then you might find some benefit in consuming a high calorie protein drink. Check out this article where I review some of the top ranked protein supplements. Now let’s talk about some easy methods to increase recovery and performance in the gym.
Recovery to Gain Muscle and Strength
Recovery is not a complicated topic. You don’t need to rock tape your muscles every day, or pay hundreds of dollars for inflatable leg compression devices. You can also avoid pummeling your muscles with electric guns, unless you’re into BDSM that is. There’s limited if any evidence that these types of recovery techniques actually work.
Most of the time when you hear someone complaining about over-training, they’re actually talking about under-recovering. Failing to get 7-8 hours of sleep a night, or being chronically dehydrated will have big impacts on your performance. Food, sleep, and water, are the biggest predictors of performing well in the gym. However, there are some tricks of the trade that can improve your performance in the gym that you’re probably not aware off.
Gym Tips to Improve Performance
I hate to use the term fitness hacks, but that is what some of these techniques are. The first method I recommend for hard lifters is hyperventilation breathing. Research shows that HV breathing can increase the amount of reps you can do during strength training, by 35%.
All you need to do is take 20-25 deep breaths prior to your set, and you’ll find that you can lift several more reps than you otherwise might. If you’re dizzy going into the set, you’ve done a little too much HV breathing. It works well for heavy compound movements, but not so well for isolation work.
Researchers aren’t 100% what causes this. It most likely changes your cellular pH balance, helping speed recovery between each set. Try it, and I bet you’ll be surprised how well it works. It has the added benefit of being completely free.
My next tip is to utilize compression tights. Research shows that wearing tights during and after hard workouts helps alleviate soreness, and increases muscle mass. I was skeptical of this at first, but I can tell you that I experience much less soreness, after a high volume day, if I wear tights for a few hours after the workout. You can also wear them during sleep if you’re fashion conscious!
My last tip to build more muscle mass, and aid in recovery, is to cool down with easy cardio after each session. Check out this article where I review some recovery methods, and you’ll see that 10 minutes of easy cardio made a big difference on muscle mass, and recovery speed.
I recommend sitting on a bike and pedaling at 60 watts, just like the researchers had their subjects do. You can also go for an easy walk if you’d like. It’s important to keep the cardio very light. This helps clear out metabolic waste products, kick starting the recovery process. Don’t try and turn this into a hard cardio session, as you’re just increasing your recovery requirement!
Avoid These Recovery Practices
There are two common recovery techniques that remain popular no matter how much research says they’re detrimental to building muscle mass. The first is abusing NSAIDs, like Ibuprofen. These pain killers actually reduce inflammation, which blunts your bodies ability to build muscle. Similarly, cold showers, and ice baths also blunt your bodies inflammation response.
I know that many people think that inflammation is a four letter word, but that simply isn’t the case. It is a necessary process that helps your body recover from damage. Your body produces inflammation, and cellular swelling to begin the recovery process. It is the first alarm signal your cells and tissues send saying they need help to recover, and rebuild.
If you blunt this response with an ice baths, or NSAIDs, then your body doesn’t know it needs to fix those tissues! While I’m not a doctor, and have no medical degrees, I can make some common sense recommendations. Those two therapies should be used for acute injuries only.
If you roll your ankle, and it’s swelling, feel free to ice it for a little while, to reduce excess swelling. I would rather you wrapped it with voodoo floss, but ice or NSAIDs would be ok here. Similarly, if you’re a CrossFit Games athlete, and you’re doing three workouts in a day, then you might benefit from an ice bath to reduce inflammation immediately.
This is a temporary trade off so they can work hard in just a few hours. It’s not a long term recovery method! It’s like using caffeine as a pick me up. It doesn’t substitute for sleep!
Final Thoughts
I’ve given you a lot to think about in this article, but I’ll leave you with a few pieces of advice. Real progress comes from long term commitment both inside the gym, and outside of the gym. If you consistently work at any decent program, you’ll increase strength and muscle mass. There’s no magical solution here.
I would rather coach an athlete that shows up and gets 90% of my program right each and every session than someone who kills it 40% of the time, and can’t be bothered otherwise. Consistency is king, not spurts of hard work!
Moreover, your dedication outside of the gym is one of the best predictors of success with your best bodybuilding program. Do you care enough to sleep adequately, and eat a nutrious diet? Or are you going to phone it in, and hope that you can over come your under-recovery? In case you were wondering, hope isn’t a plan!
Make sure to follow the links to each of my best bodybuilding programs, as I’ve included much more detail there. If you have questions that aren’t answered, feel free to put your queries in the comments section below, and I’ll get you an answer. At the very least, I’ll make up something that sounds plausible. Now get out there and get training!
If you want to learn about putting together a great fitness program then you should check out my ebook, Programming Your Fitness below.
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