The GetBodybuilding Training System
Posted on July 14, 2010 by Gaz - 
Before we start i just wanna say that I’m not a bodybuilder. I train for muscle and strength, and though I’ve built up a body I’m happy with I’m by no means a bodybuilder. Improvement in my physique is really only a side effect of my other goals – and a bloody nice side effect it is, too! I think most people who lift weights, despite whatever they SAY they’re training for, wouldn’t say no to an extra 20lbs of muscle in all the right places. I’m no exception to this. I want big arms too!
This is one of the reasons why a lot of the content on GetLifting.info is geared towards strength and overall mass rather than the bodybuilding side of things – the programs and articles are based on movement planes, mechanics such as push/pull, a distinction is made between Maximum/Dynamic/Repeated effort training, and very rarely do i advocate direct arm work. That’s the way i train, and have always trained, and it just plain works.
So i was a little bit stumped when i got a bunch of requests to upload a bodybuilding program to the site. Bear in mind that this article is my own take on the whole bodybuilding training style so you won’t find 30-40 sets a session, whole days dedicated to arms, or useless crap like cheat reps or 21’s. This program is a bodybuilding program but it’s definitely not what you’d call “traditional”. I also wrote this with the natural trainee in mind, which is actually a major reason a lot of aspiring bodybuilders fail to gain on the programs of the champs.
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The Program
The program, then, is a triple periodized program (frequency, intensity/training load, and volume) with only one goal – get absolutely massive. Everything else is secondary. We’re going for maximum microtrauma, maximum fibre stimulation, and maximum growth. If it moves and can’t outrun you, you’d better catch it and eat it because you’re gonna need every last calorie to even have a chance at repairing your muscle tissue.
There are four workouts in this program that cover all the major muscle groups and hit them hard. The workouts are broken up into mechanic (push/pull) and whether its an upper or lower body session. Training like this is great because it’s a lot harder to overtrain and easier to balance your training to avoid shoulder or lower back injuries.
Sadly, in most bodybuilding programs there’s usually an emphasis on the anterior muscles (pressing muscles such as shoulders, chest, triceps often get worked far too much). This isn’t a good thing, and either causes a pulling forward of the shoulders (Neanderthal syndrome) or rotator cuff injuries. Hamstring injuries, interestingly enough, are caused by over-strong quads because of (bing!) too much anterior leg training.
Lets look at those workouts more closely.
I have listed lots of common exercises and in most cases they’ll be good for everybody, but its impossible to list everything especially with the vast amount of machines available today. If you have another alternative that fits in with the exercises in any particular list by all means do that one. As a rule of thumb though, make sure your workouts are primarily free-weights rather than machines. Some machine work is great, too much machine work is going to get you an injury.
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Workout A – Lower Body (Push)
Lower body pushing trains the quads to the utmost limit. Honestly, you won’t be able to walk by the end of this. Choose one exercise out of each list to give you a total of six exercises – three compound and three isolation/machine (or thereabouts):
1. Bilateral Squat Variation – Squats, Front Squats or Zercher Squats.
2. Unilateral Squat Variation – Bulgarian Squats, Split Squats, Lunges, or Step Ups.
3. Compound Machine Exercise – Leg Press, Unilateral Leg Press, or Hack Squat Machine.
4. Explosive Exercise (Bodyweight) – Jump Squats, Box Jumps, or Jump Lunges.
5. Leg Extension Variation – Leg Extensions or Unilateral Leg Extensions.
6. Calves Isolation – Standing Calve Raises or Seated Calve Raises.
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Workout B – Upper Body (Pull)
Upper body pulling works the back, traps, and biceps. This is probably my favourite thing to train, anybody can build a big chest but a truly impressive back will do more for overall strength, health, and performance than most people realise. Choose one exercise out of each list to give you a total of six exercises for this session:
1. Pullup Variation – Chinups or Pullups.
2. Rowing Variation – Bent Over Rows, Dumbell Rows, T-Bar Rows, Prone Rows, or Inverted Rows.
3. Pulldown Variation – Pulldowns, Wide Grip Pulldowns, Close Grip Pulldowns, or Single Arm Pulldowns.
4. Lat Isolation – Straight Arm Pulldowns, Straight Arm Pullovers, or Pullover Machine.
5. Traps Isolation – Dumbell Shrugs, Barbell Shrugs, Hise Shrugs, or Kelso Shrugs.
6. Biceps Isolation – Barbell Curls, Dumbell Hammer Curls, Preacher Curls, or Cable Curls.
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Workout C – Lower Body (Pull)
Lower body pulling makes use of the whole posterior chain – glutes, hamstrings, hips, and often places a huge amount of isometric tension on pretty much every muscle in the upper back too, so this session is amazing for growth. As before, pick a single exercise out of each list to give you a total of six exercises:
1. Deadlift Variation – Deadlifts, Sumo Deadlifts, Rack Pulls, Romanian Deadlifts, or Farmer’s Deadlifts.
2. Good Morning Variation – Good Mornings, Zercher Good Mornings, or Seated Good Mornings.
3. General Posterior Chain – Glute Ham Raises or Cable Pullthroughs.
4. Lower Back – Hyperextensions, Single Leg Hyperextensions, or Reverse Hyperextensions.
5. Hamstring Isolation – Leg Curls or Unilateral Leg Curls.
6. Calves Isolation – Standing Calve Raises or Seated Calve Raises.
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Workout D – Upper Body (Push)
I expect you were wondering where all the chest work was? Well look no further! Not only will you be doing chest work here, but shoulders and triceps too. Once again, pick a single exercise out of each list:
1. Barbell Bench Press Variation – Bench Press, Incline Bench Press, Decline Bench Press, Floor Press, or Dead Press.
2. Compound Shoulder Exercise – Military Press, Seated Shoulder Press, Dips, Arnold Press, or Corner Press.
3. Dumbell Bench Press Variation – Dumbell Bench, Incline Dumbell Bench, Decline Dumbell Bench or Dumbell Floor Press.
4. Shoulder Isolation – Lateral Raises or Rear Delt Flys.
5. Chest Isolation – Flat Flys, Cable Flys, or Pec Deck.
6. Triceps Isolation – Cable Pushdowns, Skullcrushers, or Overhead Triceps Extensions.
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Rep Ranges
You’ll be using a few different rep ranges to keep things interesting and fresh not only to make the program exciting, but to keep progress coming thick and fast and to avoid over-training for as long as possible. That’s what periodization is about – variation = results. Each rep range is slightly different not only in terms of sets and reps, but in how you should perform them too.
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5 x 5 – Five sets of five is a great overall strength and mass builder because it combines fairly heavy weights with a lot of volume, and is an absolute killer to boot. The first set should be a warmup, followed by four sets all at the same weight (about your 6-7 rep maximum). Rest intervals shouldn’t be too long, but not too short or you’ll have trouble completing that last set. 60 to 90 seconds is about right. An extra higher rep warmup set beforehand is also a good idea.
4 x 10 – If you thought three sets of ten was bad enough, four sets isn’t going to be much fun for you. I find that most people don’t really push hard enough when they do the classic 3×10 rep range, so another set seemed a pretty good idea. These sets should be done with as little rest as possible, so only take 30-60 seconds between each set.
3 x 5+5+5 – These sets are possibly the most brutal in the entire program because they’re really three sets rolled into one. Pick a weight you can do for about 10 reps and do 5 reps with it, then immediately drop the weight a little and do 5 more, and finally repeat this process and do 5 final reps at a slightly lighter weight again. This is a combination of the dropset and rest pause techniques, and trust me – you’ll probably only need to do two sets before you want to go home.
1-3 x 15-20 – These sets are used for isolation exercises only. Do them with a controlled tempo, slightly slower than usual, and with a slight pause at the top or bottom of the rep (whichever one provides the greatest resistance or challenge). The purpose of these sets is to bring the muscle to a point of near failure without crossing over that threshold until the very last set – and even then only for advanced trainees.
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Training Split
The training split used in this program is a bit unorthodox to progressively overload training frequency. A lot of programs periodize intensity and volume, and make use of different rep ranges, so why not change the frequency as-well?
Each workout has about 18-20 sets and this stays the same throughout the twelve week program, which is split up into four blocks of three weeks called “microcycles”. The rep range will change every week to reduce intensity and increase frequency throughout each microcycle, while keeping the volume per session roughly the same. This will result in a greater volume per week, culminating in the third week before backing off volume and frequency again when the next microcycle starts. With each successive microcycle the overall training load will increase.
Phew. I can talk a lot of crap when i want to, but hopefully that made some sense. If it didn’t, don’t worry. I’ll show you instead. Each workout is in brackets next to the day you should perform it. You’ll train twice in the first week, three times in the second week, and four times in the third week. By the end of the program each workout is repeated nine times.
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Microcycle 1 :
Week 1 – Monday (A) / Thursday (B)
Week 2 – Monday (C) / Wednesday (D) / Friday (A)
Week 3 – Monday (B) / Tuesday (C) / Thursday (D) / Friday (A)
Microcycle 2:
Week 4 – Monday (B) / Thursday (C)
Week 5 – Monday (D) / Wednesday (A) / Friday (B)
Week 6 – Monday (C) / Tuesday (D) / Thursday (A) / Friday (B)
Microcycle 3:
Week 7 – Monday (C) / Thursday (D)
Week 8 – Monday (A) / Wednesday (B) / Friday (C)
Week 9 – Monday (D) / Tuesday (A) / Thursday (B) / Friday (C)
Microcycle 4:
Week 10 – Monday (D) / Thursday (A)
Week 11 – Monday (B) / Wednesday (C) / Friday (D)
Week 12 – Monday (A) / Tuesday (B) / Thursday (C) / Friday (D)
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All other days should be taken as rest, which by the way are non-negotiable. If you want to do cardio do it after your weights sessions or reduce your rest intervals and get your heart and breathing up that way. The key to any program is rest and recovery and this is especially true for building muscle. Enjoy your days off and watch yourself grow! At the end of the twelve weeks take a full seven days off as complete rest.
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Periodization
As if that crazy looking training split wasn’t enough, there’s a few other things we need to talk about before you can get started. Namely (my favourite topic, apparently) periodization. If you haven’t read the articles on periodization on this site (and i suggest you do) it’s basically the planned variation/overload of one or more training variables. In this case, since we’ve already discussed frequency, these variables are volume/rep range and intensity/load.
I’ve split it up into the main compound exercises (1-3) and the machine or isolation exercises (4-6) because each should be treated differently.
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Volume/Rep Range (Exercises 1-3):
First Week of Microcycle = 5 x 5
Second Week of Microcycle = 4 x 10
Third Week of Microcycle = 3 x 5+5+5
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Volume/Rep Range (Exercises 4-6):
First Week of Microcycle = 1 x 15-20
Second Week of Microcycle = 2 x 15-20
Third Week of Microcycle = 3 x 15-20
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Intensity/Load (Exercises 1-3):
Microcycle 1 = Reduce usual training loads by 5%
Microcycle 2 = Increase training loads by 5% (Back to normal!)
Microcycle 3 = Increase training loads by 5% (Overall 5% increase)
Microcycle 4 = Increase training loads by 5% (Overall 10% increase)
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Intensity/Load (Exercises 4-6):
No periodization = Use a load each set which will cause near muscular failure by the end of that set. Always achieve the required number of reps.
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As you can see (hopefully), volume and rep range will change every week but those changes will repeat with each microcycle. This is variation and will make sure your training doesn’t stagnate. Training load however will stay the same week to week within any given microcycle, but will increase a set amount when you begin a new microcycle. This is overload and will make sure your muscles have reason to grow.
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GetBodybuilding
This was a pretty intense article, never mind the program itself! I know that was a hell of a lot of information to take in and parts of it are spread out all over the place, so to help you figure out what your program should look like i’ve attached a complete first microcycle (without training loads) to help out a bit. It’s in rich text format and should be readable by most word processing software. You can download it by clicking the following link:
GetBodybuilding Sample Microcycle
Other than that, the only thing left to do is get started. Set up your program, eat like a horse with a fear of saturates, and start growing! This is a great program, and not only will it yield impressive results but it’s a lot of fun too!
As always, if you have any questions on this or want to tell me about the results you’ve achieved by using it, i’d love to hear from you. Drop me an email!
Train hard!
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