The best workout plan for building muscle involves a consistent exercise program that works all the muscles in your body evenly. Sounds simple, right? But the real challenge is that many people get distracted by trendy workouts and flashy online content instead of sticking to a steady routine.
All the flashy stuff on the internet can make people anxious and confused about what to do. But that’s not the best approach. To build muscle, you need patience, focus, and a regular plan.
Most people at the gym want quick results. That’s why there are so many articles about muscle building online! But if you can stick to a plan and be patient, you’ll see better results over time.
In this post, we’ll share the best exercise schedule for building muscle. But it’s important to understand why this plan works. Just knowing what to do isn’t enough; you need to understand it too. That’s the goal of this article: to give you the knowledge and understanding you need to stick with this muscle-building program. Once you get it, you’ll have the patience and discipline to keep going and build as much muscle as possible!
More people should aim to build muscle. Having more muscle can boost your metabolism, make you stronger, and help prevent injuries. We’ll talk about all these benefits and more below.
Understanding the Basics of Muscle Growth
To create the best exercise program for muscle growth, we need to understand a few key things: progressive overload, rest for recovery, and muscle hypertrophy. Knowing about muscle growth is one thing, but really understanding how it works is key to building muscle and strength effectively.
Muscle growth, or hypertrophy, happens through a process where your muscles get tiny tears from resistance exercise. During the healing process, your body repairs these tears by adding more muscle tissue, which makes your muscles thicker and stronger. To help this process, you need to ensure you get enough rest and proper nutrition. We’ll talk more about rest and nutrition later in this article.
The idea of progressive overload is crucial for ongoing muscle growth. This means gradually increasing the resistance or intensity of your workouts to keep challenging your muscles. You can do this by lifting heavier weights, doing more reps, or changing other aspects of your training. If you don’t push yourself, your muscles won’t get the stimulus they need to grow, and you’ll hit a plateau.
Rest is just as important as the workouts themselves. Your muscles need time to recover and grow after a tough workout. Without enough rest, you risk fatigue, injury, or burnout. That’s why it’s essential to get enough sleep, eat well, and include rest days in your training schedule for proper recovery.
In summary, understanding progressive overload, ensuring proper rest, and focusing on muscle hypertrophy are key to an effective muscle-building program. We’ll dive deeper into the importance of rest and nutrition in the next sections.
Designing an Effective Workout Plan
You must: in order to create a muscle-building exercise program that works.
- Determine training frequency
- Choose the right exercises
- Incorporate compound exercises
- Promote proper form and technique
Determine Training Frequency
If you want to build the most muscle, you should aim to work out at least three days a week. Some sources suggest lifting weights two to three times a week, but two days might not be enough to really boost muscle growth. By working out three days a week, you’re training for more than half the week.
If you’re planning to train three days a week, I recommend taking a rest day after each workout. This way, you alternate between workout days and rest days. Keeping a regular and consistent schedule is key to seeing great results.
Choosing the Right Exercises
Choosing the right exercises is crucial for building muscle. You should focus on three main types of movements: leg exercises, pushing exercises, and pulling exercises. These exercises help activate all your muscles in a balanced way, which is key for muscle growth. Examples of these are squats (for legs), bench presses (for pushing), and deadlifts (for pulling). Including these big exercises in your routine can really boost muscle growth.
These exercises are also known as compound movements because they involve multiple joints and muscle groups at once. This increases your metabolic demand, making you tired faster compared to just doing isolation exercises. Fatigue is a big factor in muscle growth. After doing compound movements, adding isolation exercises can help target specific areas for even more muscle growth.
Incorporate Compound and Isolation Exercises
If you want to gain more muscle mass, compound exercises are a must. These exercises work multiple joints and muscle groups, increasing metabolic stress, which is key for muscle growth. However, your entire workout shouldn’t focus only on compound movements. For the best results, balance your routine with both compound and isolation exercises.
Make compound movements a priority. Then, include isolation exercises to target specific muscle groups. Ideally, isolation exercises should make up about half of your workout. For example:
- Bench Press
- Incline Press
- Seated Military Press
- Pec Deck Fly
- Cable Front Raises
- Skull Crushers
In this example, the first three compound exercises focus on pressing motions. These will help you build your shoulders, arms, and chest. The last three exercises are isolation drills that target these areas individually.
Compound exercises involve multiple joints and help stretch and strengthen your muscles. Isolation exercises let you focus on one muscle group at a time, ideally the ones that were worked hard during the compound movements.
Promote Proper Form and Technique
Using the right form and technique is essential for building muscle. For example, if you squat with poor form, you might not target the right muscles, which can hinder your progress. Squatting incorrectly can put more strain on your hips, core, and lower back instead of your legs.
To get the best results from your workouts, focus on proper technique. Remember, good execution is key to maximizing the benefits of your exercise routine.
Structuring Your Workouts
When planning your workout routine, one of the most important things to consider is how many days you train. The more training days you have, the better you can focus on building up all your muscle groups to their fullest potential. Here are some examples of workout splits and what to do each 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 |
The goal is to work your muscles to the point of exhaustion, no matter what type of exercise routine you follow. You can do this by combining the number of repetitions (volume) and the weight you lift (intensity). Many people believe that doing lots of reps will help their muscles grow by pushing them to their limits.
There isn’t a specific number of sets and reps you need to do in a workout program, but high-rep work is usually important for building muscle. It’s essential to balance the amount of training each muscle group gets. For example, if you do 60 reps for your biceps in one session, make sure to do 60 reps for your triceps sometime during the week. This balance should apply to all muscle groups. So, if you do 100 exercises for your quadriceps, you should also do 100 for your hamstrings to keep things even.
To maximize muscle growth, you need to train until you’re really tired. There are various ways to do this besides just doing lots of reps. Here are some methods to add a new challenge to your workouts:
- Drop Sets: Keep lifting until you can’t anymore, then quickly reduce the weight and keep going. This way, you do a lot of reps at high intensity, pushing your muscles further.
- Supersets: Combine two exercises with little to no rest in between. This makes your workouts more efficient and intense, targeting different muscle groups in one session.
- Tempo Sets: Control the speed of your movements to increase the time your muscles are under tension. For example, take 5 seconds to lower into a squat, pause for 2 seconds, then take 5 seconds to stand up.
Below is our 4-day split routine, meant to be followed over eight 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 keep track of how you’re gradually pushing your muscles harder. Progressive overload, which means slowly increasing the weight or reps, is crucial for muscle growth. Consistently challenging your muscles every week is the key to getting stronger over time. The only way to know if you’re pushing yourself enough is to monitor your progress and set new challenges for yourself each week.
Also Read: 6 Easy Post Workout Stretches
Progressive Overload
The basic idea behind building muscle is to gradually push yourself harder. This means you need to lift a little more weight each week or do more reps. The goal is for each workout to be more challenging than the last. One great way to do this is by using compound exercises, which work multiple muscle groups at once.
Compound exercises are naturally more powerful than isolation exercises because they let you lift heavier weights. This heavier lifting provides the stimulus your muscles need to grow. As you get stronger with these compound movements, you’ll also be able to lift more in isolation exercises, leading to overall better muscle growth.
Tracking Progress
A well-organized program is key to steady progress. Having a plan, even a simple one, helps you stay consistent and flexible. To make sure you’re challenging yourself each week, it’s important to track your progress.
Consistency is the foundation of progress, and a good program provides the structure you need. By keeping a regular log of your workouts and intensity, you can see patterns, make smart changes, and keep your training effective. Following a plan week after week is just as important as having the best plan. This consistency helps your body adapt and grow stronger.
Nutrition and Muscle Building
When trying to build muscle, it’s important to have a balanced diet that includes plenty of protein, fats, and carbs, along with enough water to help with muscle recovery. Without the right diet, your muscle-building goals could be at risk.
A Balanced Diet for Muscle Growth
To build muscle effectively, you need more than just a good workout plan; you also need a healthy diet. Even the best exercise routine won’t give you the results you want if you’re not eating right. A high-protein diet is essential for muscle growth and recovery after workouts. While many foods contain protein, it’s important to focus on high-quality sources that provide the necessary nutrients for recovery. For example, meat is better than beans because it has more protein and a more complete protein profile. When choosing protein powder, look for products with a variety of amino acids, as they are crucial for muscle growth and development.
Consuming Sufficient Protein for Muscle Repair and Growth
To support muscle growth and repair, it’s important to meet your body’s protein needs. Aim for 0.6 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight for the best results. This might seem challenging, so make sure to include various protein sources in your diet. Eating foods like meat, eggs, and protein powder ensures you get all the amino acids needed for muscle building. By having a high-protein diet, you give your body the building blocks it needs for optimal recovery and growth.
Incorporating Carbohydrates and Healthy Fat in Your Diet
While protein is crucial for muscle recovery, it’s not the main source of energy for weightlifting and high-intensity workouts. Carbohydrates are essential for providing the energy needed to lift heavy weights and work out hard. Any muscle-building plan should include enough carbs to support intense physical activity. Fats also provide energy, mainly for lighter exercise, and help you absorb important micronutrients, like vitamins, that support your daily activities.
The Role of Hydration in Muscle Repair
Hydration is often overlooked when talking about muscle recovery and performance. Not drinking enough water can slow down your recovery and reduce your overall performance. Proper hydration is crucial for transporting nutrients, regulating body temperature, and lubricating joints. Staying hydrated helps with muscle repair and keeps you performing well throughout the day. Make sure you drink enough water during your workouts to maximize muscle function, reduce the risk of injury, and maintain top physical performance.
Recovery and Rest
Pushing yourself too hard without enough rest can actually stop your muscles from growing. It’s important to include rest days in your training plan to avoid overtraining and allow your muscles to heal. Using a training split, like alternating between leg and chest days, ensures each muscle group gets the recovery time it needs. Rest days are essential for muscle growth, preventing fatigue, and reducing the risk of injury, even if it seems counterintuitive. In the next sections, we’ll look at how to use rest and recovery effectively to get the most out of your workouts and build more muscle.
Reducing Muscle Soreness
After intense exercise, it’s common to feel muscle soreness. To ease this discomfort, you can try active recovery, foam rolling, and stretching. These methods help reduce tension and soreness in your muscles. Foam rolling, for example, boosts blood flow to the muscles you’re targeting, like the hamstrings, aiding in their repair and recovery after a workout. Alternating between hot and cold treatments can also help reduce inflammation and improve blood circulation. By combining these techniques, you create a thorough recovery plan that gets your muscles ready for your next workout.
Active Recovery Exercise
As mentioned before, active recovery involves doing easy exercises on your rest days to boost blood flow to injured areas. This helps speed up healing and recovery. Activities like walking and cycling are good examples of low-intensity aerobic exercises that improve mobility without putting too much stress on healing muscles. Adding gentle stretching can also increase flexibility, aid healing, and reduce muscle stiffness.
Sleep for Muscle Repair and Growth
Having a good sleep routine is really important for your muscles to grow and recover well. Aim for 7-8 hours of sleep each night because that’s when your body does important healing. When you sleep, your body releases growth hormone at its highest levels, which helps repair the tiny tears in your muscles caused by exercise. Getting enough sleep not only reduces stress and creates the right hormones for muscle growth, but it also helps keep cortisol levels in check. To make sure sleep helps your muscles heal and grow as much as possible, try to stick to a regular sleep schedule.