Putting on more muscle goes beyond showing up at the gym and sweating it out against anything that looks heavy. The old cliché “work hard, work smart” holds true on the gym floor. You’ve got to have a well-thought-out routine that sufficiently addresses your primary goals.
But the million-dollar question is;
How on earth can you actually come up with a routine that works for you? Are there any tried-and-tested strategies that you can build on?
This article will explore key things to think about when devising your own workout routine, and some standard strategies or approaches you can build on. We’ll start with a look at the key factors you should consider before choosing any muscle-building workout routine, then proceed to some classic workout routines you can use as inspiration for something that suits your needs.
What To Keep in Mind Before Choosing Your Workout Routine
How Much of Your Time Can You Commit?
Nothing crushes your motivation like getting yourself on a high-intensity, 6-days-a-week routine only to find out that you barely have any time for it. It’s always prudent to be realistic and honest with yourself. Choose something that fits in with other important personal factors like work and lifestyle in general. It’s better to be on a 3-days-a-week routine you can easily stick to in the long run, than a high intensity 7-day routine you can hardly maintain. Remember, consistence is key to getting any measure of success.
Fitness Levels and Experience
Your initial fitness levels affect your choice of a workout routine in the sense that some routines are better suited for a starter while others are great for the intermediate or advanced lifter. For instance, Total body workout routines are usually great for starters as they provide a better stimulus for generalized initial strength gains, which serve a good foundation for more targeted routines. Additionally, the wider variety of exercises in these types of routines provide an opportunity for starters to quickly get familiar with not only the exercises but different gym equipment. However, this doesn’t mean that beginners can only start with total body routines. Other factors need to be brought into context to figure out the most appropriate routine for an individual. Fret not if you’re wondering what these routines actually look like. We’ll take an in-depth look at each one of them in the next section.
What’s Your Primary Goal
The fact is that we don’t really hold the same aspirations and reasons for hitting the gym. Any great workout routine should reflect your primary goals.
Are you simply looking to build more muscle (hypertrophy training), enhance strength, increase endurance, or just maintain general health?
It’s important to be honest with yourself and have clear answers to these basic questions because they can have a direct influence on the choice of your workout routine. For instance, hypertrophy works well with the use of some forms of workout routines than others. For instance, Split workout routines (which we’ll discuss shortly), have been shown to be an optimal method for hypertrophy training while Total body routines are better for maximal strength development. Again, we’ll take a look at this in the next sections.
Having looked at the basics to consider, let’s dive into some basic workout routine approaches you can build from:
Full-body Workout Routines
As the name suggests, Full-body workout routines aim at hitting all major muscle groups in a single training session. Each workout day is followed by at least 48 hours of rest before another session, and the cycle continues. The reason is that muscles ideally need 48-72 hours of rest for optimal recovery, which is a key component of muscle growth. They typically involve one exercise for each muscle group at relatively lower loads. This makes them ideal for beginners, as they can be a great way to get familiar with a variety of exercises without overstressing involved muscle groups.
For starters, exercise loads/intensities are kept low in order to master proper exercise form and trigger initial adaptations within the nervous system. In fact, changes begin with adaptations in the nervous system’s capacity rather than muscles in themselves. In the initial stages, consistent loading at moderate intensities forces the nervous system to improve its capacity to recruit muscle fibers.
But what exactly is a low exercise intensity/load?
Well, there is not one-size-fits-all load for everyone, individuals are different. However, you can draw some inspiration from helpful standard recommendations from global authorities.
For starters with the goal of enhancing general health in mind, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends loads which can be lifted between 8-12 repetitions with good exercise form for each exercise. This is called the 8-12 Repetition Maximum range, and can be used as a starting basis for anyone who’s never had any experience with weight training.
However, it’s important to note that this is not written in stone. It’s possible to start with higher loads based on a variety of individual factors. In fact, Full-body workout routines aren’t just for beginners. They are a staple approach for powerlifters who are looking to optimize collective muscle strength gains.
Recent research suggests full-body workouts as the most effective way for maximal strength development in intermediate and advanced lifters. A 2021 study, published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research offers a great example. The study set out to compare Full/Total Body and another common type of workout routine, known as Split routines, in trained men. After 10 weeks of training, the researchers identified Total-body training routines as optimal for maximal strength development while the latter came out on top for stimulating individual muscle growth.
Split Workout Routines
These routines involve zeroing in on specific muscle groups, or movement patterns on specific days of the week. Their efficacy in building muscle size was demonstrated in the study quoted earlier, which showed that they are generally more effective than Total body workout routines when it comes to stimulating specific muscle groups. That said, it’s great to note that this probably doesn’t apply to starters as far as research on inexperienced individuals is concerned. Recent research efforts continue to agree with earlier studies on the observation that there are no significant differences between Total-body and Split Routines in terms of strength and muscle size gains. For instance, a 2021 study by Brad Schoenfield and colleagues concluded that the two training protocols have similar effects in starters, provided that the exercise intensities and volumes are equal.
Body-part Split Routine
This protocol typically zones in on two-three major muscle groups per session. The program is set in such a way that each major muscle group is hit at least two times a week with a rest period of at least 48 hours to allow for optimal recovery. This is not written in stone though. The protocol can be tweaked in various ways to address specific needs. For instance, a lagging muscle group can be given greater exercise volume (more training days) than the ones which are already sufficiently developed depending on the individual’s reference.
Here is how a basic Body Part Split Routine would look like:
- Day 1: Chest and Biceps
- Day 2: Back and Triceps
- Day 3: Shoulders, Abs and Legs.
- Day 4: Rest
- Day 5: Chest and Biceps.
- Day 6: Back and Triceps
- Day 7: Shoulders, Abs and Legs.
Upper/Lower Body Split Workout Routines
These protocols split workout days between upper and lower body muscle groups, followed by a rest day. They typically combine compound exercises (i.e. Bench Presses, Shoulder Presses, and Squats) which work on multiple muscle groups, and isolation exercises, which target specific areas of interest. Just like the Body part split routine, each major muscle group gets at least 2 sessions a week with at least 48 hours of recovery.
Here is how it would like:
Day 1: Upper Body.
Day 2: Lower body.
Day 3: Rest
Day 4: Upper Body.
Day 5: Lower Body.
Push, Pull Legs (PPL) Split Routine
This protocol is quite similar to the Upper/lower body routine. The main difference is that it splits upper body training into “Push” and “Pull” days based on movement patterns associated with the exercises. The Pull-day is all about exercises which mostly involve a pulling motion, such as Pull Ups and Barbell Rows.
This allows you to focus on all major muscle groups which are primarily involved in pulling movements like Back Muscles (i.e. Traps, Lats) and Biceps. The Push-day features exercises which emphasize a pushing motion, which translates to pushing muscles such as the Pecs(chest), and Triceps. These are followed by the Leg Day, which features compound workouts aimed at dealing with all key muscle groups of the lower body. However, it should be noted that this is a flexible routine, which can be tweaked based on individual needs. For instance, the Leg training can also be split between Push and Pull and pull muscles.
Like the Upper/lower body protocol, isolation moves are slotted in to zone into specific muscle groups which need more detailed work. A rest day is typically placed after the leg day to allow for ample muscle recovery before the sequence is repeated.
The advantage with a PPL routine is that it allows you to train all related muscle groups in a single session. This implies more efficiency and synergy due to overlap of the related movements.
This is how it looks like:
Day 1: Push Workouts (Presses: Bench Press, Military Press)
Day 2: Pull Workouts (Chin Ups, Barbell Rows, Pull Ups)
Day 3: Leg Workouts (Squats, Step Ups, Romanian Deadlifts, Bicycle Curls, Calf Raises)
Day 4: Rest Day.
Bottomline
Coming up with the best workout routine for your needs comes down to clearly defining your goals and crafting one that best suits your needs and circumstances. The standard protocols discussed above should serve as a general guide to an individualized routine. Feel free to talk to one of our trainers in the expert’s section above for a more individualized routine that suits your needs.
