Are you one of those people who trains or has trained with the typical Weider routine of two muscle groups per day? Don't worry, everyone has been there. But, like everything in life, things evolve and progress, so in this article, you'll learn How to create your own training plan 100% adapted to your muscle mass gain goal, based on science and the experience of professional natural bodybuilders. Read on and find out How to plan your gym routine to train and gain muscle mass without getting stuck. Let's get started!
Step by step in this article we will guide you on what you have to do to create your own routine at the gym. using as an example that one of the coaches of EmPawer Fitness is being carried out. Therefore, the steps you'll need to follow are as follows:
Step 1: Muscle group
Structure your training split taking into account the priority you want to give to each muscle group, adjust it to your availability to carry out these training sessions and structure it in such a way that the recovery time of each muscle group is respected. If you want to gain muscle mass in your upper body, you should prioritize your torso., specifically the arms and shoulders.
So now you know that when it comes to organizing the split, selecting exercises, number of sets, etc., the torso will have the greatest importance, and more specifically the arms and shoulders if those are the areas you want to focus on.
Step 2: Plan over broad periods
Planning training is best in periods of 9-10 days. I don't mean that doing your split from Monday to Sunday is wrong, just that you are missing out on the opportunity to include a higher frequency and volume of training in those muscle groups that you might be more interested in working on. As shown in the study by *Tavares and colleagues of the year 2017 Several groups were compared with different training frequencies for each muscle group. It was observed that a higher training frequency favors greater gains in muscle mass vs. a lower frequency for each muscle group.
So a possible structure in training to gain muscle mass is: PUSH-PULL-Rest-Torso-Leg-Rest-Arm-Leg-Rest
Step 3: How to create a gym routine
The selection of your exercises in each training session must be correct How are you going to ensure that this selection of exercises for each muscle group is being efficient? Performing all the movements that involve that specific muscle. If I told you about each and every movement of each muscle, it would be a whole other article. So we're going to cover the pectoral muscles and the movements that involve them, as well as the exercises the EmPawer coach has selected to work them.
The pectoral muscles are primarily worked with horizontal adduction and shoulder extension. You should select exercises that incorporate this movement pattern to target this muscle. The days you work the pectoral muscles are PUSH days and TORSO days. For the PUSH session, you'll do an incline barbell bench press, a machine press, and a cable crossover on the bench. For the TORSO session, you'll do an incline dumbbell press and a convergent machine.
Step 4: Variety of exercises
Introduce a variety of exercises for each of the muscle groups. Don't confuse this concept with the idea that you should change your training routine every 2-3 weeks., because on the contrary, the best way to progressively gain muscle mass is to maintain your routine planning at the gym in the medium to long term. What you should focus on is making sure you perform multi-joint exercises for each muscle, which will be those you perform with a barbell or dumbbells, and analytical exercises, those you will perform on pulleys and machines. Since, as shown in this study by *Gentil and colleagues in 2015, it is shown that combining them favors the gain of muscle mass than with analytical exercises alone.
So you can see it much more clearly, We move on to the back muscle group and what exercises to combine in the training split.. The back is Works on torso day and pull day. In the pull session, a barbell row is introduced as a multi-joint exercise, followed by a more analytical approach to performing a pulldown on a free-weight machine, an upper back row on a machine, and a horizontal rowing machine that works unilaterally.
Step 5: Rest times in the training routine
Apply high intensity and rest properly during your sets. You already know that to generate muscle mass A key factor is that you apply a high effort in each of your series. This has to translate into getting close to failure in a realistic way or even reaching complete failure. For this, it will be very important that To maintain this high intensity, rest properly between sets.
On the other hand, I don't know if you've heard of professional natural bodybuilders like Aj Morris, Eric Helms, Roberto Amorosi, apart from having a brutal physique, if there's one thing that characterizes them it's that apart from controlling variables like those mentioned above, they are capable of applying high intensity and really pushing themselves in each of their series.
To make it much clearer for you, when programming the intensity and rest times of my split, EmPawer trainers recommend using RIR (Repetitions in Chamber) to set intensity. between 3 and 0 and I usually rest between 2 and 4 minutes between sets. The two key points to keep in mind are: on the one hand, during the first weeks of the split, apply a slightly lower intensity and move at a RIR of 3-2, with rest periods of 2 minutes, and as the weeks go by, move towards a RIR of 2-0 and rest periods of 3 and 4 minutes.
We hope we have been able to help you plan your gym routine to gain muscle mass. We know that's been a lot of text, so we're helping you out with a key summary. on how to create a gym routine!
1.Make the structure you want, but always taking into account the priority you have at the level of muscle groups, to select one distribution or another
2. Plan ahead in 9-10 days, so you can put greater volume and frequency into those muscles you are interested in working
3. Select your exercises taking into account the movement patterns in which each muscle group works
4. Introduce a variety of exercises for each muscle, performing multi-joint exercises as well as more analytical exercises
5. Apply high intensity with rest times between 2 and 4 minutes.
We've provided the two scientific studies mentioned below. And don't forget to ask us any questions through our Instagram, in comments or booking a free appointment.
