Now that I have switched over to my bulking cycle (focused on adding muscle mass and eating a surplus of calories to help aid this process) I have switched up my workouts a little bit to accommodate this aspect of my training.
First off, I am now working out in the 4-6 repetitions per set range to focus on lifting heavy (WITH PERFECT FORM) and adding strength/muscle mass. My actual type of workouts has not changed much, however, but I continue to switch up one workout per body part every now and then to keep my workouts from getting stale and try to prevent plateaus (I mentioned this is a previous post).
Mondays: Chest
- Incline dumbbell press
- Incline barbell bench press
- Flat barbell bench press
- Flat dumbbell bench press
Tuesdays: Back
- Lat pulldown (palms facing away – sometimes use machine if pulldown station is unavailable)
- Bent over barbell row
- Lat pulldown (palms toward you – AKA Chinup)
- Cable row
- Cable pullover
Wednesday: Abs and Shoulders
- Hyperextension plank to reverse crunch with feet on slide pads
- Military/Arnold press (whichever I feel like on that day)
- Dumbbell shrugs
- First two shoulder exercises are supersets
- Reverse cable fly (rear delta)
- Dumbbell lateral delt raise
- Rear and lateral delt moves are supersets
- Barbell shrug
Thursday: Legs
- Quad leg extensions on the machine
- Hamstring curls on the machine
- These first two are supersets
- Calf raises (one calf at a time on the smith machine)
- Dumbbell weighted deep walking lunge
- Seated calf raises are sometimes mixed in if I have time
Friday: Arms
- All the following Tricep/Bicep exercises are supersets with one Tricep and one Bicep exercise per superset
- Preacher curl on the machine
- Close grip bench press
- Superset as noted above
- Tricep skull crusher (upper arms fixed perpendicular to floor)
- Bicep hammer curls
- Supersets again
- Tricep pushdown (rope or “triangle bar”)
- EZ bar bicep curls
- Supersets
- Body weight dips on dip station
- Either reverse grip bicep curls or wide grip barbell curls
As you can see, most of my exercises are similar to my past workout on my cutting diet, but my repetition range has significantly changed and I have added some more “chest involved” exercises on Arms day in order to hit my chest again because I feel like a little chest stimulation at the end of the week is warranted given that my chest was only hit on Monday outside of that. All my other body parts are hit in SOME capacity on my other days (i.e. biceps are also hit on back day, triceps on chest day, shoulders are hit on multiple days). Also, I am seeking a little more chest development so I try to squeeze in a few more chest sets during the week.
I still take the weekends off (unless I had to skip a day in the week – usually due to my wife working and me watching the child). I remain on the same couple of supplements I posted about way back in my supplements post (just creatine, BCAAs and protein powders). I am still doing minimal cardio (I count my supersets as a low grade HIIT and are thus my “cardio”).
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