Muscle Building Workout
I have now written extensively on the Chorlton Personal Training blog about how to structure training programmes designed for muscle building. This is the big picture. The overall outlook on how a training week or a month of training or even a year will look. However, as important as the big picture is, as a personal trainer, I also need to consider the finer detail of how to structure an individual workout.
So todays' article on the Chorlton Personal Training blog will tackle exactly that... the anatomy of a muscle building workout!
Now of course, the structure of of your muscle building workout could vary enormously, depending on factors such as:
- How much time you have for your workout
- What equipment is in your gym
- How many years you have been training
- Whether you are following a whole body workout plan or a body part split routine
- Do you have any injuries that rule out certain exercises
- How many days per week you are training
This is to name just a few of the possible factors that could influence how you structure your muscle building workouts. So of course, everything that follows in this article is going to be dependant on a number of assumptions. If you are looking to receive a truly personalised and effective muscle building plan, then contact me on the Chorlton Personal Training Contact form, and I will be more than happy to work with you to make sure you start getting some great results.
For now, lets make the assumption that you are following a full body routine three days per week and are in your first year of training and working out in the gym.
In this situation, the following Muscle Building Workout might well be a great fit for you.
As you are using full body workouts, you need to create balance within each session. The above example session utilises the following template to ensure balance:
- Vertical Push (eg. Overhead Press)
- Vertical Pull (eg. Pull Up)
- Horizontal Push (eg. Bench Press)
- Horizontal Pull (eg. Bent Over Row)
- Knee Dominant Lower Body Exercise (eg. Squat)
- Hip Dominant Lower Body Exercise (eg. Hyperextension)
Of course, there is potential to change up some of the exercises whilst still adhering to the same template. For example, you might decide to perform Hip Thrusts instead of Hyperextensions as your Hip Dominant Lower Body Exercise. Or you might prefer to perform Bench Pulls instead of Bent Over Row for your Horizontal Pulling Exercise.
You may change the exercises as you see fit. But if you are performing full body workouts three times per week, then you will not go too far wrong if you make sure to adhere to the above template.
You will have noticed in the example full body training session above, the bench press and bent over row exercises have been listed as exercise 2a) and exercise 2b) respectively. This is because these two exercises are to be paired up so that in between each set of bench press, a set of bent over rows are performed. Similarly, in between each set of pull ups a set of overhead presses are performed. This is done because the exercises that are paired with each other are working opposing muscle groups. This is a time efficient way of training, since you are able to recover from one exercise whilst you are working hard on the other exercise.
Arnold Schwarzenegger made this style of training popular by pairing chest and back exercises together in the same workout. Give it a try, you may just find your productivity in the gym goes through the roof!
Happy lifting folks.
Source: Muscle Building Workout