The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program (Part 2)

This is the perfect program for people that love functional fitness, and also like having trouble fitting through doors. It builds off of part one, and ratchets up the intensity, and difficulty to all new levels. Keep reading to see if this muscle building program is right for you.

This program is designed to be done immediately after the 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program. Sure, you can do this as a stand alone program but I hope you’ve been lifting a lot on your current plan, because this is about 30-40% more volume than the previous program.

Muscle Building Expectations

Many people erroneously believe that you can’t build significant muscle mass with only functional fitness, and that you must do bodybuilding to do so. Well that’s simply not the case.

In this article we examined how part one of the Hybrid Program has much higher volume than a more traditional bodybuilding program. We also know that volume is one of the three key drivers of muscle growth.

Based on previous research we know that there is excellent data on the amount of muscle mass that newer and intermediate lifters can gain. Check this article out that reviewed over 200 studies on muscular hypertrophy.

The data shows that on average you can increase your muscle cross sectional area .12% per day for large muscle groups like your quads.

For smaller muscle groups, that can be trained with higher frequency, you can gain even more muscle mass, up to .2% per day for some trainees.

So lets do a little math, and figure out how much muscle mass an average male trainee could gain if they ate correctly (following our calculators recommendations) and recovered well, after all 16 weeks of this functional bodybuilding hybrid program.

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If our example athlete is an intermediate functional athlete who hasn’t done much hard lifting before he can gain a substantial amount of muscle mass. If he is 5’7, 170 pounds at 12 percent body fat he will have 150 pounds of lean tissue.

After 16 weeks of hard training and good recovery, he will increase his muscle mass by 13.4% which will put his lean mass close to 161 pounds. If we assume a slight increase in body fat of 2%, which is normal, we will see a final bodyweight of 184 lbs.

I don’t know about you, but I’d do some stuff in truck stop bathrooms for 10 pounds of muscle gain in 4 months. Well maybe not, but you get the idea.

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The Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program Part 2

I can hear some of you folks out there, especially those afflicted with ADHD, screaming to see the program already. Well, with out further ado here is the first week of part 2.

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You’ll notice that there is a lot of volume. There are four separate hypertrophy movements before the WOD, the WOD, and a finishing accessory movement.

I have not specified weights for the hypertrophy work. You need to pick weights that allow you to complete all reps with no degradation in form. Just make sure that you keep pushing yourself in the following weeks, handling the heaviest load you can with the right technique.

If you want the full program with all the coaches notes, then get it here.

It’s very important to note that I’ve included a 10 min break in between the lifting and the WOD. This break is intended to give you some time to recover before the WOD. I would also recommend having something like a half sugar gatorade (Amazon Affiliate Link) during the break, or between your lifting sets.

Each sessions is probably going to take you 80-90 minutes and there is some good research showing that electrolytes and sugar can increase sports performance on these types of long sessions. Just don’t go crazy and drink them all day!

Week two increases the volume, but maintains the same amount of sets as last week. You’ll be fairly sore this week, but you’ll find that it won’t be as bad because your body acclimatizes to this amount of volume.

You will also note that I’ve included a few techniques that non bodybuilders may not be familiar with. On Wednesday’s you’ll see supersets. This is two movements done back to back with no rest. You will have to use lighter weight but, you will get quite the pump I promise.

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You will also see drop sets on Thursday’s. This means that you will warm up to your working weight on the movement. For bench press you might be using 155 pounds for the 2×12, and you will continue to use that weight for 2×10 etc. Make sure you only take as much rest as you need. The goal here is to get through all sets with heavy weight and minimal rest.

If you follow any of our other programs, you know that week 3 is always a hard week. This will be the highest volume week. The full details of this week are available in the premium version only. Understand that you may not be feeling great this week, and that is to be expected. The deload is coming!

This is the deload, and your chance to rest and recover with much less work than last week. Make sure you are still hitting these sets with intensity, but if it’s a choice between 215lbs or 225lbs, go for 215lbs.

The Second Half of The Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program (Part 2)

Week 5 starts our next half of the 8 weeks. We have switched several of our core moves which will allow for continued adaptation. I have maintained some moves as I think most athletes will need more work on these as they target weak areas that trouble almost everyone.

You should notice that your strength and bodyweight are probably increasing, and they should be. If you aren’t gaining muscle mass then what are we even doing here?

Again we have the heaviest week, right before the deload. This week is quite a jump as we’ve added an extra set, effectively increasing volume by 20-25% depending on the day.

Week 8 is the final deload of the program, and by now I would bet that you are having trouble fitting through doors. You’ll probably also be needing a whole new wardrobe.

If you love this program, then get your copy of the premium version below.

Where to Go From Here

If you’ve stuck with me so far you’ve no doubt built a lot of muscle mass, but we are athletes after all, and we will need to make sure that this muscle mass is actually useful to us.

I would recommend that you transition to the 9 Week Strength Program. You’ll find that this is the best way to convert the muscle mass you’ve built into functional strength.

If you are in further need of programming I would check out the 72 weeks of free functional programming article. You should then jump in after the 9 week strength cycle in the overall plan, and continue on.

Final Thoughts

This program will help you build a lot of muscle and that is great because increasing muscle mass is the precursor to increasing strength which is a key factor for overall performance.

I would caution you; however, not to get stuck in this type of training if overall performance is your goal. You will need to move back towards more metabolic conditioning at some point as strength is not the only trait needed for true fitness.

If you’ve crushed this portion of the program then feel free to move on to the the 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program Part 3.

If you have any questions put them in the comments below where I can answer them the quickest.

Now get out there and start training!

Photo credit: brtsergio on Best Running / CC BY-NC-SA

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