Muscle building is a simple process, requiring two things: a growth stimulus and adequate nutrition for muscle recovery and repair. Many trainees overcomplicate their training by trying to hit each muscle group from every angle at once. Instead, focus on simplifying your workout and progressively increasing the weights on all of your major lifts, while maintaining proper form. Use simple muscle-building workouts to gain muscle fast.
Alternating Upper- and Lower-Body Workouts
This very simple muscle-building workout has you alternate between training the upper and lower body. During a typical week, you might train your upper body on Monday and then your lower body on Tuesday. After taking a day off on Wednesday, you would repeat the first two days on Thursday and Friday. Take the weekend off and repeat the cycle. On upper-body day, following one light warm-up, do two sets of 10 to 12 repetitions of the following, dumbbell bench presses, machine chest flyes, military presses, triceps push-downs, lying triceps extensions, side dumbbell laterals, preacher curls, biceps dumbbell curls, lat pull-downs, one-arm dumbbell rows and dumbbell shrugs (see Exercise Guide in Resources). On lower-body day, do three sets of leg presses for 10 to 12 reps to start. Follow that with two sets of leg extensions, seated leg curls, lying leg curls, standing calf raises and abs machine crunches, all for 10 to 12 repetitions each. Finish the day off with three sets of traditional crunches for 15 to 20 reps. Feel free to switch exercises every two to four weeks to keep things fresh.
Full-Body Workouts
Three full-body workouts per week are all you need to make some impressive muscle gains. For example, you could train on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. If your schedule suddenly changes, just switch the days, keeping one day of rest between each and resting two full days at the end of each three-workout cycle. On Monday, do one to three sets of squats or leg presses, followed by two sets each of leg extensions and leg curls. Keep all repetitions in the hypertrophy or muscle-growth range of eight to 12 reps. Next, do two or three sets of pull-ups, followed by two sets of dumbbell pull-overs. Next do two sets of seated cable rows, followed by two sets of one-arm dumbbell rows. For the chest, do two sets of flat or incline bench presses, followed by two sets of dumbbell flyes. On Wednesday, you begin with three sets of deadlifts, keeping to the same eight-to-12-rep range. Next, do two or three sets of overhead shoulder presses, followed by two sets of dumbbell laterals. Last, do super-set arms by combining one exercise for biceps with another for the triceps. For example, do a set of close-grip bench presses, rest 60 seconds and do a set of barbell biceps curls, repeating this cycle two times. To finish, do super-set triceps kickbacks and concentration curls for two sets. On Friday, you repeat Monday's workout, but you can substitute other exercises to keep it fresh.
High-Intensity Five-Day Split
High-intensity training or HIT means using minimal sets and maximum intensity to get a great muscle-building workout in a short amount of time. You can do these workouts in 30 to 45 minutes on your lunch break or before work in the morning. Do arms, shoulders, legs, chest and back on five separate days out of the week. It does not matter which days you do them as long as you take at least one day off all formal training. For each workout, you choose one basic compound movement for each muscle group and you do one or two sets to failure, meaning that you keep going until you cannot do another controlled repetition. If you achieve the top end of the hypertrophy growth rep range, 12 reps, for example, that means you must increase your weight the next time. "The Ultimate Mass Workout" by Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman claims that the best exercises for each muscle group are squats for quadriceps, stiff-legged deadlifts for hamstrings, V-handle pull-ups or chest-supported rows for the back, upright rows for shoulders, close-grip bench presses for triceps and curl-grip pull-ups for biceps. On arms day, for example, you would do two heavy sets of close-grip bench presses for triceps, following a lighter warm-up. Finish the triceps with one or two sets of cable push-downs. For biceps, you warm up and then do two sets of curl-grip pull-ups to failure, finishing with one or two sets of concentration curls.
References
- "Optimum Anabolics"; Jeff Anderson; 2004
- "The Xtraordinary Size Surge Workout"; Jonathan Lawson; 2009
- BodyBuilding.com: Beginner's Bodybuilding Program
- "Muscle & Performance," The Best Muscle-Building Movements of All Time; Chris Logan; May 2010
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