Three-day full body workouts provide a great muscle growth and fat burning stimulus, according to "The Xtraordinary Size Surge Workout." Beginners can benefit from the low volume, number of sets, and frequent rest periods, while intermediate or advanced trainees can make progress by down-shifting. Many experienced lifters over-train, which causes muscle gains and results to be stifled over time. These workouts train your whole body every day, directly and indirectly hitting every muscle group with targeted exercises.
Monday
On the first day, you target the fully body with the barbell squat, which is known as an anabolic trigger exercise because it increases production of the potent muscle-building and fat-burning hormones testosterone and growth hormone. In addition, you train your chest and back. After two lights squats as warm-ups, with 50 and 75 percent of your working weight respectively, you do one or two sets to failure. Training to failure means stopping the set only when you can no longer do another controlled repetition. Keep all repetitions between eight and 12. Next, you do two sets each of leg extensions and lying leg curls to finish off leg training. Moving to the chest, you warm up and then do two sets of bench presses, followed by two sets of flat dumbbell flyes. For the back you do two sets of pull-ups, followed by two sets of straight-arm pull-downs. Finish off the back with two sets of bent-over rows and two sets of seated cable rows.
Wednesday
After a day of rest, deadlifts begin the second training day of the week with another mass-building and fat-burning anabolic trigger. After a thorough warm-up, you do two working sets, sticking to the eight to 12 repetition range. In addition, you will be training the shoulders, arms and calves. Proceed to the decline bench press for two sets of close-grip presses for the triceps. Follow these with two sets of either dumbbell kickbacks or rope push-downs. For biceps, you do two sets of barbell curls, followed by two sets of concentration curls. Choose either upright rows or overhead presses as your main shoulder exercise, doing two sets and then proceeding to two sets of dumbbell laterals. Finish the second day off with two or three sets of calf raises on the leg press machine, followed by two sets of standing calf raises.
Friday
The third day repeats some of Monday's workout, training the legs, chest and back, but with different exercises. Begin this workout with leg presses or barbell lunges, rather than squats, for two sets following your warm-up. Next, do two sets of stiff-legged deadlifts, followed by two sets of leg extensions and seated leg curls. Rather than bench presses, do incline bench presses for two sets to train the chest muscles. After that, you substitute incline dumbbell flyes for the flat dumbbell flyes from Monday's routine. For your back, perform a rowing exercise first and use a different one than you used on the first day, such as T-bar rows, for two sets. Follow this with one or two sets of one-arm dumbbell rows. Next, do two sets of lat-pull-downs, followed by two sets of machine pull-overs. In the Monday, Wednesday, Friday scenario, you would then rest on Saturday and Sunday and begin the three-day cycle again on Monday.
References
- "Optimum Anabolics"; Jeff Anderson; 2004
- "The Xtraordinary Size Surge Workout"; Jonathan Lawson; 2009
- Muscle & Performance; "The Best Muscle-Building Moves of All Time" Chris Logan, May 2010
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