This article originally appeared at http://functional-strength.blogspot.com/2010/03/blue-collar-training-for-mass-and.html.
In the first part of this series, I talked about eating to gain mass. In this part, I’ll lay out a training template to use in putting together a quality mass building routine and discuss some factors outside of the gym that play a role in training progress.
Getting stronger with an exception...
Because we’re really talking about getting bigger in this series, we need to address the correlation between strength and size. If your diet is dialed in, you need to get stronger to gain more lean mass but with a caveat. You need to get stronger within a certain rep range. Training for a maximum single is more nervous system related, but training with an emphasis on maximum mass is more closely related to time under tension and of course a surplus of calories.
When I say time under tension, I’m not talking about super slow training or counting rep speeds or any of that stuff. I’m talking about a general repetition range. There’s a reason that after decades of bodybuilding the majority of bodybuilders train in a higher rep range than most powerlifters. This is because training in medium and higher rep ranges is generally a superior way to build mass. Something in the neighborhood of 9–20 reps per working set seems to be ideal. The legs even tend to respond to higher rep ranges. Just ask Tom Platz. Now again, we’re talking about using as much weight as you can handle in that rep range. This isn’t an excuse to train “light.” We’re talking about moving weights as large as you can for that rep range.
This doesn’t exclude lower rep ranges. Five reps have often been touted as the single best rep range because it gives you a bit of both worlds—a good carryover to your one rep max and mass gain. So we will include some 5–8 rep range stuff as well.
Kirk Karwoski had a love for sets of five, and he was sort of strong, so it's probably ok to do sets of five for mass building, too.
Volume
The next issue to tackle is training volume. I’ve never been an advocate of high volume training. It has never produced mass or strength gains for me like low volume training has. I completely believe in the adage “you can train hard or you can train for a long time, but you can’t do both.” Focusing on a select few movements per session and working hard on those has been very productive for me and the people I’ve trained and helped over the years. Low volume and high volume differs for everyone. A guy who is used to doing 20 working sets in a general training session may say that eight working sets in a session is low volume. The guy who has been doing three working sets may say that six sets is high volume. You also have to factor in your level of strength. If you’re squatting 500 lbs for 13 reps, your recovery between sets will probably be longer as will the time you need between training sessions.
Exercise selection plays a part in this as well. Generally speaking, it takes longer to recover from a barbell movement than a dumbbell movement and longer to recover from a dumbbell movement than a machine movement. So with that in mind, you can lay out your volume related to the movements you choose in your program.
Barbell movements: When working to failure, work up to one top set all out, sometimes using an intensity technique. When working shy of failure, do two top sets leaving a couple of reps in the tank (a couple means two by the way).
Dumbbell movements: When working to failure, work up to one top set all out using an intensity technique (rest/pause, strip sets). When working shy of failure, do 2–3 top sets leaving a couple of reps in the tank.
Machine movements: When working to failure, do 2–3 top sets to failure with added intensity techniques occasionally. When working shy of failure, do 4–5 sets leaving a couple of reps in the tank and limiting rest between sets.
Body weight movements (dips, chins, push-ups, and lunges): Pick a desired number of total reps and shoot for that in as few sets as possible.
Dips (chains optional) are an awesome exercise for building mass.
This isn’t rocket science. This is what I believe works well for most people. This should also allow you to cycle in some intensity to your routine so that you aren’t training balls out so much that you grind your bones into dust inside of three weeks. That isn’t productive training. Also, during a pure mass building phase, don’t be afraid of machine work. Machines are great for intensity techniques, and training to failure is safe on them so the injury factor is generally low (granted the machine is built soundly; don’t use any machine that hurts in a bad way obviously). They’re also generally joint friendly, and giving the joints a break is never a bad thing.
Frequency
For mass training, there’s a balance between growth stimulation and recovery. How many times should you be in the gym? I believe for the most part you can accomplish all you need to accomplish with three training sessions a week. I think you can even do it with two, but that’s a hard sell.
A great way to rotate everything in and maximize recovery is to do all of your upper body pushing and pulling in one day and all of your lower body work on the other day. Spread that across four workouts but lift three times a week. So you would train the upper body twice in one week and the lower body once. In the next week, you would train the lower body twice and the upper body once.
Week 1:
- Upper body A
- Lower body A
- Upper body B
Week 2
- Lower body B
- Upper body A
- Lower body A
As you can see, you’ll have to set up two upper body sessions and two lower body sessions. The key here will be to manage those properly so that you can train hard during certain periods and then back off a bit during others. If you want to program in a deload week, that’s fine. However, for mass gaining, I like to string it out a bit longer. I go for something in the 6–8 week range and then see how I’m feeling. If my joints are achy and I don’t want to go to the gym, I’ll generally take a whole week off. Then, I restart everything without any intensity techniques added in and train shy of failure for the first week or two.
Another option is to train five times over a two-week period. You can use the same rotation of workouts. However, train three times for one week and two times for the next week. This puts recovery at a premium and works really well. You can also stagger your cardio work. (You didn’t think you’d stop all cardio just because you’re training for mass, did you?) Do two cardio sessions the week that you train three times, and do cardio three times in the week that you train twice.
It should look like this:
Week 1:
- Upper body A
- Lower body A
- Upper body B
Week 2:
- Lower body B
- Upper body A
Week 3:
- Lower body A
- Upper body B
- Lower body B
Week 4
- Upper body A
- Lower body A