Aug 03, 2024

Best Workout Plan for Gaining Muscle

The best workout plan for gaining muscle is a consistent plan that provides a balanced stimulus for all muscle groups in the body. I know, I know. This sounds like an obvious answer, right? But the primary challenge with gaining muscle is that many people latch onto training gimmicks and fun exercises instead of being consistent.

Everyone is so concerned about the flashy movements and content they see online. This isn’t the approach you should take, though. To build muscle, you need a consistent plan, followed by patience and discipline with your routine.

Not many people are patient with their gains in the gym. This might be why so many articles about gaining muscle online exist! However, if you can be patient and trust the process of a program, you’ll begin to build more muscle than ever.

In this article, you will be given the best workout plan for gaining muscle. If you struggle to have patience and trust, though, you need to understand the “why” behind the program. There is a difference between knowing the program and understanding the program. That’s the goal of this article. The goal is to equip you with the knowledge and understanding of this workout plan for gaining muscle. Once you understand this program, you will have the discipline and patience to push through and gain the most muscle you possibly can!

More people should be interested in gaining muscle. There are so many benefits to having more muscle tissue in your body composition. Increasing muscle mass can improve your strength, increase your resting metabolic rate, and prevent injury. Below, we will discuss all of this and much more.

Understanding the Basics of Muscle Growth

To build the best workout plan for gaining muscle, we need to understand the sciences of muscular hypertrophy, progressive overload, and rest for recovery. Knowing about muscle growth is one thing, but understanding the science behind muscle growth is pivotal for being successful in building both your muscular size and muscular strength.

Muscle growth, also known as “hypertrophy,” is a complex process involving microscopic damage to the muscle tissue that is repaired into larger muscle tissue. You see when you engage in resistance training, it creates tiny tears in your muscle fibres. As your body repairs these microtears during the recovery phase, it makes the muscle tissue larger, making the muscles thicker and stronger. But if you want the muscle tissue to grow as much as possible, you need to ensure proper nutrition and rest to support this repair and growth process. These two topics of nutrition and rest will be discussed in depth in later sections of this article.

This muscle-growing process can only be sustained through the principle of progressive overload. Progressive overload is the foundation of muscle development. It involves continually challenging your muscles by gradually increasing the resistance or intensity of your workouts over time. This can be achieved by lifting heavier weights, increasing the number of reps, or adjusting other variables in your training to make your workout much more fatiguing. Many lifters will participate in resistance training and hope for muscular growth. However, if you do not challenge yourself, your workouts will not create enough muscular damage to repair into larger muscle tissue. You will essentially plateau in growth and maintain your current level of hypertrophy.

But even with the most impressive workout, the muscle will not repair and grow if you do not have rest to give the body time to grow. Muscle recovery is often underestimated but is paramount for growth. After intense exercise, your muscles need time to repair and adapt. This is when actual muscle growth occurs. Overtraining or insufficient recovery time can hinder progress and lead to fatigue, injury, or burnout. Adequate sleep, proper nutrition, and incorporating rest days into your training regimen are crucial for effective recovery.

Designing an Effective Workout Plan

To design an effective workout plan for building muscle, you need to:

Determine training frequency
Choose the right exercises
Incorporate compound exercises
Promote proper form and technique

Determine Training Frequency

To gain the most muscle possible, you need to consider training at least three days a week. While some sources suggest a duration of 2-3 days of lifting, performing only two workouts a week might not provide a sufficient stimulus for muscular hypertrophy. Lifting three days a week means you are using almost half the week to train.

If you plan to train only three days a week, I would recommend that every day you train, take a rest day afterward. That way you alternate between a rest day and a training day. Consistency and frequency are key factors in achieving meaningful results.

Choosing the Right Exercises

Selecting appropriate exercises is paramount for muscle development. A well-developed program should prioritize three types of movements – pushing, pulling, and leg movements. These types of movements are crucial because they provide a ton of balanced muscular recruitment that can aid in gaining more muscle. Movements that relate to pushing, pulling, and leg movements are like the bench, deadlift, and squat. These are three big exercises that many people will want to incorporate into their program to build more muscular size.

These three exercises are also known as compound exercises. Compound movements engage multiple joints, which in return recruit multiple muscle groups simultaneously. This helps to enhance metabolic demands, which can help exhaust you much more than purely using isolation exercises. Exhaustion and fatigue are key factors in muscular hypertrophy. Once compound movements have been utilized, incorporating isolation exercises strategically can target specific areas of growth to aid your efforts in gaining more muscle.

Incorporate Compound and Isolation Exercises

Emphasizing compound exercises in your routine is essential for achieving more muscle mass. These exercises involve multiple joints and muscle groups, leading to increased metabolic stress—a key factor in promoting muscular hypertrophy. Your whole workout shouldn’t primarily focus on compound movements, though. You need to balance your program using both compound and isolation exercises for the best results possible.

Compound movements should take priority. However, about half of your exercises should be isolation exercises to promote muscle growth in specific muscle groups. An example of this would be:

Bench Press
Incline Press
Seated Military Press
Pec Deck Fly
Cable Front Raises
Skull Crushers

In this example, the first three exercises are compound exercises that will focus on the pressing motion. These exercises will grow the chest, arms, and shoulders. Afterward, the last three exercises are isolation exercises that will promote growth in the chest, the arms, and the shoulders separately.

Compound exercises help overload the muscle as you are doing a stronger movement with multiple joints. Isolation exercises help direct your focus into intentionally developing single muscle groups at a time, preferably muscle groups that were fatigued from earlier compound movements.

Promote Proper Form and Technique

Having proper form and technique is important with any muscle-building endeavor. For instance, performing squats with incorrect form can compromise muscle recruitment and hinder growth. If you have bad form with your squat, you might be challenging the wrong muscle groups and could alter your outcome. An example of this would be having bad posture when you squat, challenging your lower back, hips, and core muscles more than your legs.

Prioritizing sound techniques to ensure the proper recruitment of muscle is important. Remember, quality execution is the foundation for maximizing the benefits of your workout routine.

Structuring Your Workouts

One of the main factors when structuring your workout is the number of days you train. The more days you train, the more you can focus on all muscle groups and getting them as big as possible. Here are some examples of splits and how they should work per day of the week.

3 Day Split
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Full Body	Rest Day	Full Body	Rest Day	Full Body	Rest Day	Rest Day

4 Day Split
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Legs	Chest	Rest Day	Back	Shoulders and Arms	Rest Day	Rest Day

5 Day Split
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Back	Chest	Legs	Shoulders	Arms	Rest Day	Rest Day

6 Day Split
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Push	Pull	Legs	Push	Pull	Legs	Rest Day

No matter the structure of the workout plan, the goal is to train the working muscle to exhaustion. This can be done using a blend of intensity and volume. Intensity could be the amount of weight on the bar, and volume has to do with the amount of reps performed. For growing muscle and hypertrophy, many people consider a high-volume program to exhaust the muscle enough to trigger growth.

Although there is an urge for high-rep work during a muscle-building program, there is no specific amount of sets and reps to be done in a training program. You do, though, need to be considerate of how much work you are doing with each muscle group. For example, if you are working your biceps for 60 reps within a workout, you need to make sure you are doing 60 reps of triceps at some point during the week. You want to establish a balance between all muscle groups. This balance has to do with opposing muscle groups. Another example would be if you do 100 quadricep-based exercises, you would want to do 100 hamstring-based exercises so you have a balance between muscle groups.

To make sure you’re building the most muscle possible, you need to train towards fatigue. To train for fatigue, there are other ways to do this besides high-volume training. If you’re trying to provide a new type of exhausting stimulus into your program, you should try:

Drop Sets: Performing an exercise until failure, then immediately reducing the weight and continuing the working set. This technique is used to extend the intensity of a workout and induce further muscle fatigue through high-volume exercise.

Supersets: Pairing two exercises back-to-back with minimal or no rest in between. This method enhances workout efficiency, increases intensity, and targets different muscle groups in the same workout.

Tempo Sets: Tempo sets are also associated with the term “time under tension”. Controlling the speed of each repetition during an exercise. The tempo is typically expressed as a series of numbers, indicating the time spent in each phase of the movement. An example of this could be 5-2-5 for a squat, meaning 5 seconds down, 2 seconds pause, and 5 seconds up.

Below is our 4-day split that should be performed over 8 weeks:

Week 1-4, Day 1

Exercise	Sets	x	Reps	Rest (sec)	Notes
Squats	2	x	8	180	Week 1 use 73% of your one-rep max. Add weight each week to lift with max effort on week 4
Walking Barbell Lunges	5	x	12	90	12 total reps
Tempo Dumbbell RDLs 5-0-2	3	x	10	60	5 seconds down, 0 seconds up, 2 second squeeze of the glutes at lockout
Seated Leg Curls	2	x	20	60
Leg Extensions	3	x	20,20,AMP	60	Last set to FAILURE

Week 1-4, Day 2

Exercise	Sets	x	Reps	Rest (sec)	Notes
Bench Press	2	x	8	180	Week 1 use 73% of your one-rep max. Add weight each week to lift with max effort on week 4
30 Incline Dumbbell Bench Press	5	x	12	90
Eccentric Dips	3	x	10	60	Go down slow each rep for 5 seconds
Cable Tricep Pushdowns	3	x	15	60	Use any attachment
Machine Chest Flies	3	x	20,20,AMP	60	Last set to FAILURE

Week 1-4, Day 3

Exercise	Sets	x	Reps	Rest (sec)	Notes
Deadlifts	2	x	8	180	Week 1 use 73% of your one-rep max. Add weight each week to lift with max effort on week 4
Bent Rows	5	x	12	90
Tempo Cobra Lat Pulldown 0-2-5	3	x	10	60	Pull the weight down, 2 second squeeze at the bottom, 5 seconds back up
Straight Arm Cable Lat Pulldown	3	x	20	60	Use a straight bar attachment
Dumbbell Shrugs	3	x	20,20,AMP	60	Last set to FAILURE

Week 1-4, Day 4

Exercise	Sets	x	Reps	Rest (sec)	Notes
Standing Barbell Overhead Press	2	x	8	180	Week 1 use 73% of your one-rep max. Add weight each week to lift with max effort on week 4
Cable Upright Rows	5	x	12	90	Use a straight bar for this movement
Dumbbell Hammer Curls	2	x	10	60
Eccentric Chin Ups	3	x	AMP	60	Do as many reps as you can until you can’t do anymore
Dumbbell Spider Curls + Cable Face Pulls (SUPERSET)	5	x	20	60	Do these exercises back to back with NO rest. After each superset, you can rest for as little time as possible.

Week 5-8, Day 1

Exercise	Sets	x	Reps	Rest (sec)	Notes
Squats	2	x	6	180	Week 5 use 78% of your one-rep max. Add weight each week to lift with max effort on week 8
Barbell Step Ups	5	x	12	90	12 total reps
Tempo Barbell RDLs 5-0-2	3	x	10	60	5 seconds down, 0 seconds up, 2 second squeeze of the glutes at lockout
Seated Leg Curls	2	x	15	60
Leg Press - DROPSET	3	x	20, DROP, DROP	30	Start off with 20 reps at max effort. Then drop the weight 60% and go to failure for the second set. Drop the weight another 60% and go to failure for the third set.

Week 5-8, Day 2

Exercise	Sets	x	Reps	Rest (sec)	Notes
Bench Press	2	x	6	180	Week 5 use 78% of your one-rep max. Add weight each week to lift with max effort on week 8
30 Incline Dumbbell Chest Flies	5	x	12	90
Dips	3	x	10	60	Use dip machine to add assisted weight if needed
Cable Tricep Pushdowns	3	x	12	60	Use any attachment
Chest Press Machine - DROPSET	3	x	20, DROP, DROP	30	Start off with 20 reps at max effort. Then drop the weight 60% and go to failure for the second set. Drop the weight another 60% and go to failure for the third set.

Week 5-8, Day 3

Exercise	Sets	x	Reps	Rest (sec)	Notes
Deadlifts	2	x	6	180	Week 5 use 78% of your one-rep max. Add weight each week to lift with max effort on week 8
Dumbbell Pullovers	5	x	12	90
Tempo Cable Lat Pulldowns 0-2-5	3	x	10	60	Pull the weight down, 2 second squeeze at the bottom, 5 seconds back up
Barbell Shrugs	3	x	20	60
Chest Supported Machine Row - DROPSET	3	x	20, DROP, DROP	30	Start off with 20 reps at max effort. Then drop the weight 60% and go to failure for the second set. Drop the weight another 60% and go to failure for the third set.

Week 5-8, Day 4

Exercise	Sets	x	Reps	Rest (sec)	Notes
Standing Barbell Overhead Press	2	x	6	180	Week 5 use 78% of your one-rep max. Add weight each week to lift with max effort on week 8
Dumbbell Lateral Raises	6	x	12	90
Cable Lat Pulldown with Narrow Neutral Grip Attachment	2	x	10	60
Eccentric Cable Bicep Curls with Straight Bar Attachment	5	x	6	60	Go down slow each rep for 5 seconds
Preacher Bicep Curl - DROPSET	3	x	20, DROP, DROP	30	Start off with 20 reps at max effort. Then drop the weight 60% and go to failure for the second set. Drop the weight another 60% and go to failure for the third set.

Progressive Overload and Tracking Progress

To build more muscle, you need to track your progress of progressively overloading the working muscle. As mentioned earlier, progressive overload is the foundation of building muscle. Making sure to overload your muscles more and more each week is pivotal for sustainable muscle growth. The only way to know if you are overloading your muscles is to track your progress and challenge yourself each week within a program.

Progressive Overload

The key concept that helps build muscle is progressive overload. This concept is a principle that states we must challenge ourselves by doing more than we normally do. This means we need to lift more and more weight each week, even if it’s a minor increase in weight. This principle of progressive overload can also be accomplished by doing more volume as well. Either way, the idea is that you need to increase the intensity of each workout you are going to perform. One way to severely overload the muscle, though, is through the use of compound exercises.

Compound exercises engage multiple muscle groups simultaneously. Compound movements are inherently stronger than isolation movements. This means compound movements allow us to lift heavier weights, providing the necessary stimulus for muscle overload. Doing these compound exercises usually means our strength gets better. As our foundational strength grows, so does our potential for lifting heavier weights in isolation movements. This then leads us to greater overall muscle development as we can start to leverage compound and isolation movements fully for better muscular development.

Tracking Progress

Having a well-structured program is imperative for consistent growth. Even if your program isn’t as elaborate as others, the mere presence of a plan sets the stage for regularity and adaptation. In this plan, though, it’s important to track your progress to make sure you are challenging your body every week.

Consistency is the cornerstone of progress, and a well-thought-out program provides a framework for that consistency. Regular tracking of your workouts and intensity allows you to identify trends, make informed adjustments, and ensure that your training remains purposeful. It’s not only about having the best plan; it’s also about having a plan that you can adhere to week after week, allowing your body to adapt and thrive on a steady and predictable stimulus.

Nutrition and Muscle Building

When building muscle, it’s important to consider a balanced diet of protein-rich consumption, carbohydrates and fat for exercise, and hydration for muscle repair. Without a proper approach to nutrition, your ambitions to build more muscle mass could be compromised and limited tremendously.

A Balanced Diet for Muscle Growth

Achieving optimal muscle growth requires more than just a well-designed training program. Without the right nutrition, even the most effective workout routines may fall short of delivering the desired results. To facilitate muscle tissue growth and aid in post-exercise recovery, a diet rich in protein is essential. While protein can be found in various foods, it is crucial to focus on high-profile protein sources that provide the necessary nutrients for recovery. Choosing meat over beans, for example, is preferable due to its higher protein content and more comprehensive protein profile. When considering protein powder, selecting products that offer a diverse range of amino acids is key as they provide a better opportunity for muscle growth and development when present in a diet.

Consuming Sufficient Protein for Muscle Repair and Growth

It’s important to meet the body’s protein requirements for effective muscle repair and growth. The goal is to aim for between 0.6 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight to ensure adequate recovery and growth of muscle tissue. This could be tough to do, so you must consider all types of protein sources in your diet. Incorporating foods such as eggs, meat, and protein powder into your diet can guarantee that the necessary amino acids are readily available in your diet for muscle development. By maintaining a protein-rich diet, you provide your body with the building blocks required for optimal recovery and growth.

Incorporating Carbohydrates and Healthy Fat in Your Diet

While protein is crucial for recovery, it is not the primary source of fuel for high-intensity exercises and weightlifting. Carbohydrates play a pivotal role in providing the energy required to lift heavy weights and perform intense workouts. When formulating a muscle-building plan, it is important to include an adequate amount of carbohydrates to support the demands of intense physical activity. Fats also provide the energy needed for exercise, but primarily for exercise with a lower intensity. Fats also assist with micronutrient consumption, such as with specific vitamins in your diet that help you sustain normal daily functions.

The Role of Hydration in Muscle Repair

Hydration is often overlooked within the topic of muscle recovery and performance. Insufficient water intake can hinder the body’s ability to recover after intense workouts and compromise overall performance. Hydration plays a critical role in nutrient transport, temperature regulation, and joint lubrication. To support muscle recovery and enhance performance, it is crucial to maintain consistent and adequate hydration throughout the day. Incorporate proper hydration practices into your routine to optimize muscle function, reduce the risk of injuries, and ensure peak physical performance during workouts.

Recovery and Rest

Pushing your body without adequate rest can impede the muscle-building process. Incorporating rest days into your training regimen is essential to prevent overtraining and allow specific muscle groups to recover. Implementing a training split, such as alternating between chest and leg days, ensures that targeted muscle groups get the necessary time to recuperate between sessions. While it might seem counterintuitive, rest days are integral to sustained muscle growth, preventing fatigue, and reducing the risk of injury. Below we will talk about how to use rest and recovery to maximize your workouts for the best chance to gain the most muscle possible.

Reducing Muscle Soreness

Muscle soreness is a natural byproduct of intense exercise. Incorporating techniques such as foam rolling, stretching, and active recovery can help alleviate muscle tension and soreness. The idea is that when you perform movement, you are getting blood flow to the areas where you are creating movement. So if you are foam rolling your hamstrings, you are allowing blood to gravitate in the hamstrings to help provide repair and recovery from exercise. Alternating between hot and cold interventions can also enhance blood circulation and reduce inflammation. These strategies, when combined, create a holistic approach to recovery, ensuring muscles are ready for upcoming workouts.

Active Recovery Exercise

Active recovery, as mentioned above, involves engaging in low-intensity exercises on rest days to promote blood flow to areas of soreness. This helps in facilitating repair and recovery. Light aerobic activities, such as walking or cycling, encourage movement without placing additional stress on recovering muscles. Incorporating these types of activities, in addition to light stretching routines, can improve recovery, repair, flexibility, and alleviate muscle stiffness.

Sleep for Muscle Repair and Growth

Quality sleep is a cornerstone of effective muscle repair and growth. The goal is for individuals to get 7-8 hours of sleep each night, as this is when the body undergoes critical recovery processes. During sleep, the release of growth hormone peaks, aiding in the repair of microtrauma caused by exercise. Adequate sleep also regulates cortisol levels, reducing stress and promoting an optimal hormonal environment for muscle growth. Establishing a consistent sleep routine is crucial for maximizing the benefits of sleep in the context of muscle recovery for gaining more muscle mass.

Conclusion

The importance of adhering to a well-designed workout plan for gaining muscle cannot be overstated. For the best workout plan for gaining muscle, there is a massive need for consistency and dedication in following a structured program. Along with consistency, you need to be patient with this program, trusting that it will help you reach your goals of increasing muscular density.

The best way to build this trust is through understanding this workout program, not just knowing this program exists. Understanding this workout program and the sciences behind it will help you have the patience and trust that you will get the outcome you strive for.

But before beginning, it is recommended to consult with a fitness professional for proper guidance, as well as make sure you seek medical clearance before starting any workout program.

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