If you’re anything like me then you’re constantly on the lookout for the best muscle building program. While there are a variety of options, I dare say I have quite a few awesome programs for building pure muscle mass, fat loss, or improving functional fitness. In this article I’m going to cover the basics of any good muscle building program, and cover a variety of programs you can choose from, depending on your personal goals. Keep reading for more.
If you’ve read any of my other programs, then you’ll know that I generally write functional fitness programming including WODs, metcons, and more. I will include some of those programs that are aimed at building muscle mass, but I’ll also include some pure bodybuilding programs as well. There might even be some power building programs, for those that want to build strength and power, in conjunction with muscle mass.
All of these programs can be done in any normal CrossFit style gym, and the vast majority of them can be done in a normal commercial gym, or well appointed home gym. I’ve also included some resources on scaling if you don’t have access to something like a leg press, or cable machine.
These programs will be aimed at athletes that have some experience in the gym, and have safe technique on the majority of movements. They’re going to be very challenging, but they will have the right amount of volume and weight to help you progress, without overtraining (looking at you German Volume Training). Let’s talk about the the fundamentals of any good muscle building program.
The Fundamentals of the Best Muscle Building Programs
A good program is like a good book. They aren’t all the same, and there are certain varieties that you might like better than others, but they all follow similar rules. You have to use words, that are put together into sentences, that communicate the right message. This is exactly how any good program is written.
For programming, the building blocks are sets, reps, rest intervals, and compound movements. These are combined in novel ways to build a coherent training session, which creates an overall program that communicates the right message to your body. Build muscle mass! Here’s a quick overview of the keys to building muscle.
Keys to Muscle Building Programs
- Each muscle group should receive 40-60 hard reps per session
- The average intensity relative to one rep max should be 70-75% for hypertrophy
- For building strength stick to 6-10 rep range
- For building more mass stick to 6-15 rep range
- Free weights are preferred over cable machines
- Small muscle groups should be trained 3 times per week
- Specific exercise routines matter less than your consistency in and out of the gym
- Large muscle groups should be trained 2 times per week
- Rest Period (90-120sec) up to 3-5 minutes for 90% or above lifts
- Isolations movements are ok but compound movements are better
- Hard work matters!
Just because we’re talking about the 5 best muscle building programs for intermediate athletes doesn’t mean this changes for advanced trainees either. The basics are the basics. It’s just a matter of how much work you need to promote muscle growth. More isn’t always better!
We need to keep in mind the overall goal, which is increasing muscle mass. This means that our training style will be slightly different than if we were purely strength training. Sure, we’ll use the same movements and we’ll still lift some heavy weights, but we can’t limit ourselves to only lifting heavy. Each body part for your upper body and your lower body responds differently to training, and will require smart programming. Let’s start talking about the programs.
Best Muscle Building Program: Functional Hybrid
The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program, is by far my most popular program. It’s a great blend of functional fitness style programming, and traditional bodybuilding. In fact, combining these two different styles of training is one of the best way’s to put on muscle mass, due to the increased volume per muscle group. Check out a sample week of programming
This program is a four day split program, where you will alternate between an upper body day, followed by a lower body day. Each session has a WOD at the end that is designed to compliment the primary, compound exercises. For example, the main focus for the lift might be weighted pull ups, and the WOD will have kipping pull ups.
This workout routine builds on each successive week. This is called progressive overload, and it’s a key mechanism for muscle growth. All it really means is that each week you will be required to lift a little heavier, or a little more, than you did the previous week. Without progressive overload, you won’t make any significant progress.
Here’s the premium version with all the warm ups, percentages, and coaching notes.
This is only the first part of the program, with each portion lasting 8 weeks. All told you’ll have a 24 week muscle building program if you continue on to part two, and part three. Next, let’s cover a more traditional bodybuilding style program.
Traditional Bodybuilding Program
The 12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program, is my best bodybuilding program. It’s the culmination of a lot of research, and experience in the gym. I initially wrote this program for traditional bodybuilding, but I’ve also included a 20 WOD Supplement to each portion of the program, if you’re a real glutton for punishment. Here’s a sample week.
Even 1911 shooters can see that this program has a ton more lifting volume. This is by design, as total lifting volume is one of the primary drivers for building muscle mass. It’s designed as a 5 day per week split, with each session as one vertical column. I don’t specify rest time, but I normally recommend 90 – 120 sec between sets, when trying to build muscle mass.
This program has a good mix of isolation exercises, and compound movements. I like to program compound movements first. They’re the heaviest lifts, and they will take the most effort to complete with good form. I then follow that up with isolation movements, that target body parts that need more work, like arms, or shoulders.
Each major muscle group is targeted a minimum of twice per week. Small muscle groups can go up to three times per week. You need this kind of volume for serious muscle gain. Next, let’s talk about a program for those that want to build muscle and lift heavy weights.
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Functional Power Building Program
The 10 Week Functional Power Building Program, is my best muscle building program combining heavy lifting, and muscle mass. This program is for strength athletes who want to build muscle as well. As you’ll see, you can’t really gain significant muscle mass without gaining in strength too.
You certainly don’t have to be the strongest person in the gym, but you do need to increase your strength if you’re ever going to be able to handle the kind of weights that force your muscle fibers to grow. Here’s a sample week.
This program is designed for five days of work. You don’t have to do this straight through, as I recommend that you take a break when you need it. Just make sure that you get through the 5 sessions in a week. The first portion of each day, is percentage based work that’s designed to increase your overall strength, or power. The dark color blocks are accessory movements that help to build muscle mass in the targeted body part.
This is followed by a 10 minute rest that you shouldn’t ignore. You need to recover before you start the WOD, otherwise you won’t be able to perform with enough intensity to gain the most benefit from it. Lastly, I’ve included a secondary accessory block that is less challenging since it’s at the tail end of the session.
For this program, it’s ok to increase your rest intervals. In order to have a productive workout, you should take 3-5 minutes of rest for lifts above 80% of your 1RM. When we’re lifting at these intensities, we are aiming for max effort on each rep, and we can’t achieve that if we’re tired starting the set.
Functional Bodybuilding and Conditioning
The 6 Weeks of Muscular Growth program is a two part program that is more evenly split between building muscle mass, and increasing your WOD conditioning. This program has two compound lifts each day, and one WOD. I’ve also included one day a week of sprinting. You don’t just have to do bench presses and bicep curls all day. Sprinting is very anabolic as well as functional. You’ll also find that improving your cardiovascular system will improve the total amount of lifting you can do, and recover from.
This is one program that works well for muscular endurance, as each week increases in reps. In the premium version of the program, I adjusted the amount of reps you do each week so it’s better targeted at gaining strength. The resistance training portion of the program is still the same movements, but the specific sets, reps, and volume are adjusted.
Here is the premium version with the revised lifting protocol, coaching notes, and warm ups.
The WODs are generally a little longer in this program, with the majority of them ranging between 8-15 minutes. Occasionally you’ll have a longer session. If you find you’re going this long frequently you probably need to scale the WOD correctly. The goal for each WOD is to produce a high power output with full-body workouts.
Best Muscle Building Program for Weight Loss
My 12 Week Functional Fitness Weight Loss Program is a bodybuilding style program, that is designed to help you lose weight. Unless you’re very new to hard training, you aren’t likely to gain muscle mass while losing body fat. This program is designed to keep most intermediate lifters losing fat, while maintaining their lean muscle mass.
While there is percentage based work, each session isn’t done at max effort. The aim is to lift fairly heavy weights, without going max effort each session. You don’t gain as much as you would think from maxing out that frequently, and I’ve found that you are much more likely to become injured, in a caloric deficit.
The green blocks can be done after the WOD, or you can make them a second session for the day. I’ve found that doing two sessions a day is the best way to burn more calories, and keep your metabolism high. If you can manage that with your schedule, I definitely recommend it.
Now that we’ve covered the various programs, let’s cover a few things that I think are important for successfully completing any muscle building program.
Nutrition for Muscle Building Programs
If you truly want to build muscle mass, you need to pay attention to your nutrition. As you’re probably aware, you need to eat enough protein, carbs, and fats, to build muscle mass. I’ve made figuring out how much to eat easy. Check out this nutrition calculator.
That tool can help you track your body fat and give you a scientifically backed weight loss schedule. It will also calculate the amount of calories you burn. Most importantly, it’ll give you a good starting point for total caloric intake, and macro nutrient split.
If you want to learn the basics of nutrition, then I recommend checking out my Ultimate Nutrition Guide. I’m constantly surprised how many of my athletes don’t understand the fundamentals, and it can cause some problems when they start trying to follow wacky diets. Looking at you Keto diet!
Tips for A Better Muscle Building Workout
There are a few things that I’ve learned over the years that really improve the your chances of having a great workout. First, I recommend that you do a general warm up of walking, jogging, or some other monostructural movement for 3-5 minutes. After that you should move into your specific warm up, where you do the same movement patterns you’re going to use in your first lift. An example of this would be starting with air squats before going to the back squat.
After each session I recommend that you do a cool down. Research has shown that 10 minutes of easy cycling or walking can improve muscle mass. I’ve also found that you feel much better after the session, and much less exhausted.
Lastly, I have one tip to help reduce muscular soreness after a workout. Research has shown that wearing compression tights during, and after a hard session will reduce delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). I was initially skeptical of this, but after trying it myself, there is noticeable improvement. Now let’s talk about everyone’s favorite topic, supplements.
Muscle Building Supplements
My first rule about supplements is to not take them. In the most scientifically accurate method possible, I would guess that 90% of athletes taking supplements are receiving zero benefit from them. Eating enough real food, drinking water, and sleeping 8 hours a night will do more for your athletic performance, than any amount of money spent at supplement stores.
Having said that, there are people that can benefit from taking some basic supplements. If you’re already hitting the basics correctly, and consistently following one of these programs, then you might get a few percent benefit from supplements.
Your body needs protein to build new tissue. Muscle protein synthesis goes up immediately after each training session, and as a result, one of the best supplements you can take is whey protein, or similar. There is no downside to taking whey for most athletes, however, it shouldn’t be the your primary source of protein. It is a supplement after all!
The next most useful supplement would be creatine (Amazon Affiliate Link). It has been studied for decades and has been shown to be safe for nearly everyone. I highly recommend you talk to your medical doctor about any supplements, but none of these recommendations should give you reason for concern.
If you really want to go down the supplement rabbit hole, you can get some blood work done, and see if you’re actually deficient in common vitamins or minerals. Often times athletes can be low in iron, or other micronutrients that affect your overall performance. There’s also nothing wrong with taking a general multivitamin.
Final Thoughts
You now have everything you need to pick a great muscle building program for your individual needs. If you want to build serious muscle you need to make sure you’re doing the fundamentals, and paying attention to the details. For a little motivation, check out this calculator which will give you a very accurate estimate of your maximum potential muscle mass. If you have any questions, put them in the comments section below. Now get out there and get training!
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