While gaining a beer gut or love handles may be easy, putting on quality lean muscle mass can be quite challenging. Discipline, dedication and hard work are all part of the bodybuilding equation, but you need a well-designed workout plan as well. A good mass development plan challenges your body during workouts and allows for ample recovery time.
Full Body Split
The full body split is a classic workout scheme that can be highly effective for building mass. As "T-Muscle" magazine explains, the full body split minimizes the volume of work for each muscle during your workout, but makes up for it with frequency---you train every other day. In addition, performing just one or two exercises per muscle group every workout allows you to completely change your workout selection for your next session without overlapping with the same exercises.
For a full body split, perform exercises for every major muscle group. Pick just one or two exercises, or your workout will be far too long and exhausting. A typical full body split week would look like this: Monday: full body workout; Tuesday: off/cardio; Wednesday: full body workout; Thursday: off/cardio; Friday: full body workout; Saturday: off/cardio; Sunday: full body workout.
Six Day Split
The six day split is one that can help you gain mass because each workout does not burn an extreme amount of calories, and your muscles have plenty of time to recover between workouts. As fitness and nutrition expert Jim Brewster explains, this workout plan is ideal for someone with a lot of time or a bodybuilder trying to look his best for a contest.
In this program, you train one muscle group per day, dividing your workout schedule into six sessions, with one day off per week. An example could be: Monday: chest; Tuesday: back; Wednesday: quadriceps; Thursday: shoulders; Friday: arms; Saturday: abdominals and hamstrings; Sunday: off.
Push, Pull, Legs
The push, pull, legs set up is one that adheres to personal trainer Josh Henkin's bodybuilding rule that you should have the same amount of volume for pulling exercises as you do for pushing exercises. In a push, pull, legs split, you have one entire day devoted to upper body pushing, one to upper body pulling, and a third divided between lower body push and lower body pull.
Such a program allows you to work out six days per week, with the seventh day off. Because you target multiple muscle groups each day, the program is efficient for building mass, yet still provides enough recovery time between workouts to prevent overtraining.
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