The gym's manual

The current program I’m following is specifically designed to maximize strength & muscle gain. It consists of 5 days of training:

1. Upper: chest & back focus.

2. Legs: whole

3. Rest

4. Upper: arms focus

5. Legs: whole

6. Arms & neck

7. Rest

Every day consists of compound movements in the beginning, followed by progressively more isolation work as I get worn-down (shoulder work at the end of every upper day also, in case you’re wondering). On legs, right now I’m training calves & tibialis first, and I’m doing no big compounds (squat & deadlift variations), since I have a solid base already and I just want to polish the details. But, for a beginner, compounds first, on legs too.

Also, on each exercise, we go for the heaviest set right after the first, warm-up set. Heavy, proper form, for 4-8 reps to all-out failure on the top set (set 2). Then, two more sets after the top-one, going for 8-ish reps with decent effort, but not to the death.

Then, on any day, but particularly on the rest days (days off from weights), we may add cardio in any form we like, ideally getting three 30-min sessions a week.

Diet: anything, works for both cut & bulk. Always push harder, gain strength, make progress. After all, who would want to be shredded, but weak?

Now, why does this maximize strength & muscle gain? Basically, because, since we’re performing the heaviest set right after the warm up, we can lift the heaviest for the most reps, & then push for good volume with lighter, but still difficult weights, in the other sets. Also, since we’re going from compound to isolation (most effort to least effort), we can push super hard on all exercises. And that’s precisely what builds muscle: mechanical tension (training heavy to failure) and metabolic stress (increasing workload/volume).

This, coupled with two rest days a week, and good cardio for maximizing nutrient delivery and endurance, and we’re all set to make paramount progress. Plus, by having a good frequency of training (at least 2x a week for each muscle), we make sure to be training enough, and that we actually don’t have to get crazy volume each time we train, since we spread it on two sessions a week.

Try it.