Training Plans: How to Build Muscle and Strength

Fitness advice is all over the place right now. Between social media and your local gym bro, it’s easy to believe everything and nothing at once. Everyone has an opinion that is preached as fact, but the small army of real, scientifically-backed, results-driven individuals is drowned out by the perpetuating noise.

Without droning on about all the ills of today’s state of fitness advice I’ll try to shift the conversation to the positive.

Here’s a potentially surprising fact: You already know what to do.

You already know the nuts and bolts of building muscle, getting lean, and which supplements are better than others.

Need proof? I’ll prove it by asking a few questions and outlining a few things you most likely know already.

What’s a good workout program for building muscle?

Building muscle isn’t rocket science. It’s actually exercise science, but that’s neither here nor there.

Here are a few main points to follow:

1. Stick with multi-joint compound moves such as chest and shoulder presses, pullups, rows, squats, leg presses, lunges, and deadlifts. Also, throw in some simple, basic arm moves (curls, dips, and press downs), calf raises, and a few ab moves (crunches and leg lifts).
2. Train most days of the week. Do half on one day and the other half on another day. So, you may do chest, back, and shoulders on Mondays and Thursdays and arms and legs on Tuesdays and Fridays. Wednesdays and weekends can be for recreational activities and family outings.
3. Moderate volume. Two moves and four sets per exercise for bigger body parts and one move for smaller body parts is a good start. This keeps your workouts at an hour or less.
4. The rep range should be kept from eight to 12. It’s fine to go lower (four to six reps) and a little higher (15 or more) every now and then.
5. Rest one to two minutes between each exercise.
6. Increase your load once you’re comfortably performing reps in the appointed rep range. Only increase, however, by small increments.
7. Enjoy the process.

How to build more strength?

Many of the principles for gaining more muscle apply to gaining strength with a few changes. If you’re more into increasing strength and feeling overall stronger in your everyday life then here are a few things to consider:

1. Stick with the same preferences when it comes to exercise selection as you would from building muscle. With strength training, however, you’ll do more volume focused on the multi-joint moves.
2. You can still train most days of the week.
3. The volume will be similar but with some differences in distribution. For example, instead of doing four sets for bench press, you might do six or more sets. This can also apply to the bigger moves such as all presses, rows, deadlifts, and squats mainly.
4. Rep ranges will also shift to a lower number. Stick with four to six reps for most exercises. Of course, you can add in some higher rep work if desired, but you mainly want to stay in the low numbers.
5. Rest periods will also be increased for optimal recovery between sets. three to five minutes will be sufficient.
6. Increase loads only when comfortable. Your goal isn’t to tax your body to the max and go to failure on every set. Once you get used to a certain load, increase it in small increments.
7. Once again, enjoy!