This is the best muscle building program for those that don’t mind constant soreness, and gut busting effort. I normally don’t try and scare athletes away from programs, but I highly recommend looking this program over with a realistic eye. You’ll be lifting heavy weights, for a lot of reps. In order to help you build the maximum amount of muscle, I’ll be providing a nifty nutrition calculator and some research based recovery techniques that will help you with your ultimate goal of scaring children when you walk by. Keep reading for more.
If you don’t already know, I write a lot of fitness programs, most of which are for functional fitness athletes. This program is a little different. I wrote it for serious bodybuilders who want something a little different than traditional style programs you might find in a magazine.
In my experience, they lack the intensity needed to really drive muscle growth. Moreover, they often have too much volume in accessory movements which don’t really translate into tangible results. Sure, they might work for new lifters, but they aren’t likely to work for someone who’s passed their beginner gains. Here’s a quick overview of the program.
11 Week High Intensity Muscle Building Program Overview
- Athletes should have a minimum of one year of hard training in the gym before trying this
- It’s designed to be done in most commercial facilities, no super specialized equipment needed
- Each session should take a little over an hour
- Each session includes a high rep muscle building finisher
- This muscle building program is designed as a 5 day split routine with 2 rest days per week
- There’s an even mix of free weights, and machine work
As I alluded to earlier, this program is designed differently than other traditional programs. In the next section, I’m going to cover some of these key differences, as well as why they’re so important to drive muscular growth. If you like this program but want to build functional fitness as well, then I recommend checking out my most popular functional bodybuilding hybrid program.
The 3 Mechanisms of Building Muscle
While research is ever evolving, aiming to give a clear picture of the mechanisms of hypertrophy, it’s pretty clear that there are three primary drivers of muscle gain. In no particular order they are: mechanical tension, muscle damage, and metabolic stress.
Most popular muscle building programs only cover one or two of these mechanisms. This limits their effectiveness for more advanced bodybuilders. As you get closer to your genetic potential, you need to take advantage of every training and recovery method you can, to continue getting bigger and stronger. I’ll quickly review these primary mechanisms and explain how the this 11 Week High Intensity Muscle building training program takes advantage of them.
Mechanical Tension
Mechanical tension is the easiest mechanism to understand. Your muscles fibers/nerves can accurately measure the amount of tension that they experience. While you must experience some mechanical tension in the form of heavy weights, you don’t need to lift your rep max all day. That’s impossible, and wouldn’t work very well.
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One of the biggest drivers of hypertrophy is muscle damage. This is caused when the cells in your muscle fibers are damaged as a result of lifting weights. This is one of the main reasons you experience soreness in major muscle groups that are worked hard. Naturally, these damaged cells signal to your body to repair them.
The most under appreciated driver of muscle growth is metabolic stress. This is the biggest difference between this program and those other programs. I’ve included specific programming, that will help your body build up metabolic stress and their by-products. These by-products also signal your body to build more muscle tissue, to mitigate metabolic stress in the future. Now, let’s get to the specifics of this program.
11 Week High Intensity Muscle Building Program for Hardcore Bodybuilders
This program is a total of 11 weeks in length. It will be released in two parts. The first part will be 5 weeks in length, and comprise a full cycle, and deload. As I alluded to earlier, this program is 5 days per week, with 2 rest days. I don’t specify which days you should work out, as it’s your responsibility to fit the program into your schedule.
For the vast majority of movement, I don’t specify a certain rest period. For these sets I recommend resting 2-3 minutes between sets. You can also rest about that time before starting your warm up sets for the next movement. When warming up for heavy compound exercises, I recommend following this protocol (1×10 at 30%, 1×8 at 40%, 1×5 at 60%, 1×3 at 70%). You can then start your first work set.
After we cover the programming, I’ll go over some research based recovery tips. I’ll also provide some nutrition advice, and my handy nutrition calculator, which will calculate your macros, and overall caloric needs based on your height, weight, and body composition.
If you want to try my most popular functional bodybuilding hybrid program then check it out below.
11 Week High Intensity Muscle Building Program: Week 1
This is the first week of the workout plan. You can see it’s a mix of compound movements (squats, deadlifts, and presses) and isolation exercises (curls, calf raises, leg extensions, core exercises). The majority of the program has you working opposite muscle groups each day, however, these aren’t to be done as a superset.
For session one (upper body focus), you’ll start your workout routine with incline bench press, finishing all sets before moving onto the dumbbell row. You’ll continue working your way down until you get to the finisher in red. These finishers are very hard. Don’t underestimate light weight!
You can also see that each body part is worked at least twice per week. If you haven’t been working this hard in the gym recently that’s ok. I recommend lowering some of the weights, or dropping one or two sets per session. I’d rather you start a little too easy, then bury yourself in a recovery whole on day one. It’s not about doing this program perfectly. It’s about increasing the amount of work you can do over all 11 weeks.
11 Week High Intensity Muscle Building Program: Week 2
In the second week of this program you can see how I’ve built in progressive overload. Let’s take training session 11 for example. Last week I had you work to a weight that left 2 reps left in the tank, at the end of each set. This week you’ll work to 1 rep left in the tank. Make sure to follow these instructions. You’ll quickly regret taking all these sets to failure!
I fully expect that you’ll have to modify this program from time to time. I do the same thing when following a program. You need to make sure that you’re not taking the lazy way out, but there are days when you’re too sore to work a certain muscle group again. You can either reduce the difficulty, or add a rest day. Do what you think is best in these situations.
You should also note that I’ve mixed up the rep ranges. Most recent research confirms that you can gain equal amounts of muscle at almost any rep range. Obviously, a lower rep range means you need more weight to build muscle. These types of heavy compound exercises, are mixed with movements that only use body weight. This variety is the best way to build muscle.
11 Week High Intensity Muscle Building Program: Week 3
In week three, I’ve lowered some of the reps. Don’t think of this as a break, think of it as a chance to go heavier. You still need to follow my instructions on leaving a certain number of reps in the tank. However, you’ll notice that a few exercises will be taken to failure, on the final sets. Remember, we need that mechanical tension.
It should also be clear that the exercise selection has remained largely the same, even if the reps, and number of sets do change. Your body needs several weeks to gain the most benefit from these movements to see real results. In the next cycle, we’ll rotate some of these movements and training methods to promote muscle hypertrophy.
I also want to point out that some elements will remain the same. Let’s look at a lower body focused day, session 14. If you look at the hamstring curl, I’m asking you to go to failure on each set. This is the same as the week prior. I expect that you will make every effort to beat last week by a rep or two across all three sets. You can also choose a heavier weight than the week prior. It’s up to you, just make sure you’re working hard.
11 Week High Intensity Muscle Building Program: Week 4
This is the heaviest week of the first cycle. It’s also the week prior to our deload. Continue with our theme of gradually adding weight, or load. In this week, I’ve actually added an extra set on many of the primary movements. You have the option of repeating the same weight, or trying to add weight, if you’re able. Make sure you’re using good form. Don’t just add weight to grind out crappy reps!
Some of you may be asking why I’ve included hill sprints on the final session of each week. There are several reasons. First, sprinting is a valuable athletic skill. Who wants to be strong and muscular and unable to run fast? Secondly, it’s a great metabolism booster to keep your body burning calories on your rest days. Lastly, you can find just as much fitness outside as you can in the gym!
11 Week High Intensity Muscle Building Program: Week 5
This week is comparatively easy. I’ve dropped about one third of the total workout volume. This doesn’t mean that you can’t lift heavy weights, it just means that you don’t have to push yourself to the ragged limit. Remember, you don’t actually get better from lifting weights. You get better after you recover from lifting. Don’t make this week any harder, because last week was super difficult. It’s all part of the program.
On the pieces where you’re going for max reps, you can back down just a little bit. If you did 12 chin ups last week, you can do 10 or so this week. Ideally, you shouldn’t be as sore this week, and you should be raring to get to the next cycle. Now let’s talk about some of my best tools for building muscle mass.
If you like this kind of program but want to try my most advanced strength program, then check this out.
Nutrition Tools for Muscle Growth
Nutrition doesn’t have to be complicated, but you do need to understand the basics of nutrition to achieve the best results. The best way to do this is to read my Ultimate Nutrition Guide, and then download my nutrition calculator.
This will cover the basics of nutrition, and also give you a great diet plan to shoot for in terms of calories and macros. The important thing is to make sure you’re eating enough carbs, protein and fats. If you want some great resources for cooking high protein meals, check out the meals section in my 12 Week Weight Loss Program. Next we’ll talk about some great recovery tips.
Recovery Tips for Building Lean Muscle
Recovery is definitely a misunderstood topic. Just mentioning the word brings up images of cryo baths, and weird spa treatments. The research is pretty clear, while there may be some mental benefit to those things, they aren’t directly helping your recovery.
Read this article were I review some scientific studies on the topic. Your best bets are fairly simple. Make sure you’re sleeping enough, and eating adequately. Very easy cardio, like cycling or walking, can help you recover, as it increases circulation without incurring more damage to repair.
There is also some indication that wearing compression tights helps you both when you’re working out, and afterwards. Check out this article where I review the research on compression tights for building muscle and strength.
Lastly, one of the most useful inter set recovery methods I recommend is hyperventilation breathing. Read this article where I talk about the benefits of HV breathing. It’s very simple. You just breath deeply for 20-25 breaths 30 seconds before your set, and you should be able to complete up to 35% more reps. It sounds like nonsense, but it works.
Final Thoughts
This program is legitimately hard. It’s not for beginners. However, if you think you can manage the volume, you should find a lot of success. There’s nothing magical about the program, I’ve just applied a little creativity, that I’ve stolen from my functional fitness background, to make it more challenging and effective.
If you have any questions put them in the comments section below, and I’ll get you an answer. If you’ve come this far then you should continue on with part two of the 11 Week Hight Intensity Bodybuilding Program. Now get out there and get training!
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This program is awesome thanks for putting together. Do you know when you plan on releasing part 2?
Should be coming out this coming weekend
Am I an idiot, or is there no download link? Most likely the first.
Didn’t do a PDF for this one. Most folks seem to be screenshoting the week they’re working on.