The reason for this prioritization is simple: no exercises will help you build a lean, muscular, and powerful body more than these, so you want to make sure you’re working on them every week.
And you want to do them first in your workouts because they require the most physical and mental energy.
I don’t recommend changing anything in the middle of a training phase unless you have to due to injury, traveling, or some other pressing circumstance. Otherwise, stick with the same workouts for eight weeks before making exercise substitutions or rearrangements.
So that’s layer one. Let’s move on to number two: the training routine.
The Bigger Leaner Stronger Training Routines
Whereas a training phase delineates the goals and duration of a training block, a training routine delineates what you’re going to do in that time to achieve those goals.
Specifically, a training routine indicates how often you’re going to train and what you’re going to do in each workout.
In Bigger Leaner Stronger, you have three training routines to choose from:
A five-day routine
A four-day routine
A three-day routine
Each are weekly (seven-day) routines, so the most weightlifting you can do on the program is five workouts per week. Cardio isn’t explicitly included in the routines because it’s optional, and how much you do depends on how much time you have to give to it and whether you’re cutting, lean bulking, or maintaining.
As far as results go, the five-day routine is better than the four- and three-day routines, and the four-day routine is better than the three-day routine. That doesn’t mean you can’t do well with the four- or three-day routines, though, because you absolutely can.
You’ll probably notice that each of the routines emphasizes the upper body but provides enough lower-body work to ensure it doesn’t fall behind in development.
Try not to change routines during individual training phases. Ideally, you’d choose one routine and stick with it for the entire phase. That said, if you’d like to “upgrade” to the four- or five-day routine in the middle of a phase, go for it. Try not to “downgrade” unless you have to.
The Five-Day Routine
Workout 1
Push
Workout 2
Pull and Calves
Workout 3
Upper Body and Core
Workout 4
Legs
Workout 5
Upper Body and Core
If you have the time and inclination, start here in your first training phase and see how you like it. You can always try the other routines in later phases.
Most people who follow this routine train Monday through Friday and take the weekends off, but you can incorporate your off days however you’d like. The important thing is that you do each of the workouts every seven days and in the order given.
One caveat, however, is you want to include at least one day of rest between workouts 5 and 1, as doing these workouts on back-to-back days is counterproductive. Your larger upper-body muscles need more time to recover than smaller muscle groups that can survive daily beatings, like the abs or calves.
So, for example, if you need to train on the weekends due to your schedule or lifestyle, you might train Monday (push), Tuesday (pull and calves), and Wednesday (upper body and core), rest Thursday, and then train Friday (legs) and Saturday (upper body and core), and rest Sunday.
The Four-Day Routine
Workout 1
Push and Core
Workout 2
Pull and Calves
Workout 3
Upper Body and Core
Workout 4
Legs
The main difference between this and the five-day routine is two upper-body workouts are combined into one.
Again, you can do these workouts on any days of the week that you like so long as you do each once per seven days and in the order given.
The Three-Day Routine
Workout 1
Push and Core
Workout 2
Pull and Calves
Workout 3
Legs
This is your time-proven “push-pull-legs” routine.
That’s it for the training routines. Next, let’s review the third and final layer of the program: the workouts.
The Bigger Leaner Stronger Workouts
You probably don’t need a definition for it, but just for the sake of thoroughness, a workout is an individual training session.
All Bigger Leaner Stronger workouts I’m going to provide you with follow the formula you learned in chapter 21:
2 to 3 major muscle groups trained
Warm-up sets as needed
4 to 6 reps per hard set (on most exercises)
9 to 15 hard sets per workout
2 to 4 minutes of rest in between hard sets
Furthermore, as I mentioned, it’s generally a good idea to do your hardest exercises first in your workouts, followed by the second hardest and so forth, because you always have the most energy and focus in the beginning of your workouts.
Practically speaking, this means starting with your hardest compound exercises and finishing with your easier isolation exercises.
For instance, if a pull workout is going to include deadlifting (and it should), you’d want to do that before barbell or dumbbell rows or anything else. If a lower-body workout includes squats, lunges, and lying leg curls, you’d want to do them in that order.
You also want to do the exercises in a workout one at a time and complete all the hard sets for one exercise before moving on to another, like this:
Exercise 1
Hard set 1
Rest
Exercise 1
Hard set 2
Rest
Exercise 1
Hard set 3
Rest
Exercise 2
Hard set 1
Rest
And so on.
If you can’t do an exercise in a workout for whatever reason, simply choose an alternative “approved” exercise from chapter 23 to take its place, or do three more sets of an exercise already in your workout.
Now let’s get to the actual workouts.
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve created a year’s worth of Bigger Leaner Stronger workouts for you to do, but to save space (and trees), I’m going to include just the first training phase here in this chapter.
To get the rest of the workouts, simply download the free bonus material that comes with this book (www.biggerleanerstronger.com/bonus) or pick up a copy of The Year One Challenge for Men (www.biggerleanerstronger.com/challenge) if you’d prefer the workouts in the form of a digital or hard-copy book.
You’ll also notice that some of the exercises are marked with asterisks, as in chapter 23. You find out why soon!
Phase 1
The Five-Day Routine
Workout 1
Push
Barbell Bench Press: Warm-up and 3 hard sets
Incline Barbell Bench Press: 3 hard sets
Dumbbell Bench Press: 3 hard sets
Triceps Pushdown: 3 hard sets
Workout 2
Pull and Calves
Barbell Deadlift: Warm-up and 3 hard sets
One-Arm Dumbbell Row: 3 hard sets
Lat Pulldown (Wide-Grip): 3 hard sets
Leg Press Calf Raise*: 3 hard sets
Workout 3
Upper Body and Core
Seated Dumbbell Press: Warm-up and 3 hard sets
Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise*: 3 hard sets
Dumbbell Rear Lateral Raise (Seated)*: 3 hard sets
Cable Crunch: 3 hard sets
Workout 4
Legs
Barbell Squat: Warm-up and 3 hard sets
Leg Press: 3 hard sets
Lying Leg Curl*: 3 hard sets
S
eated Calf Raise*: 3 hard sets
Workout 5
Upper Body and Core
Close-Grip Bench Press: Warm-up and 3 hard sets
Barbell Curl: Warm-up and 3 hard sets
Seated Triceps Press: 3 hard sets
Dumbbell Hammer Curl: 3 hard sets
Phase 1
The Four-Day Routine
Workout 1
Push and Core
Barbell Bench Press: Warm-up and 3 hard sets
Incline Barbell Bench Press: 3 hard sets
Dumbbell Bench Press: 3 hard sets
Cable Crunch: 3 hard sets
Workout 2
Pull and Calves
Barbell Deadlift: Warm-up and 3 hard sets
One-Arm Dumbbell Row: 3 hard sets
Lat Pulldown (Wide-Grip): 3 hard sets
Leg Press Calf Raise*: 3 hard sets
Workout 3
Upper Body and Core
Close-Grip Bench Press: Warm-up and 3 hard sets
Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise*: 3 hard sets
Dumbbell Rear Lateral Raise (Seated)*: 3 hard sets
Captain’s Chair Leg Raise: 3 hard sets
Workout 4
Legs
Barbell Squat: Warm-up and 3 hard sets
Leg Press: 3 hard sets
Lying Leg Curl*: 3 hard sets
Seated Calf Raise*: 3 hard sets
Phase 1
The Three-Day Routine
Workout 1
Push and Core
Barbell Bench Press: Warm-up and 3 hard sets
Incline Barbell Bench Press: 3 hard sets
Dumbbell Bench Press: 3 hard sets
Seated Triceps Press: 3 hard sets
Cable Crunch: 3 hard sets
Workout 2
Pull and Calves
Barbell Deadlift: Warm-up and 3 hard sets
One-Arm Dumbbell Row: 3 hard sets
Lat Pulldown (Wide-Grip): 3 hard sets
Barbell Curl: 3 hard sets
Leg Press Calf Raise*: 3 hard sets
Workout 3
Legs
Barbell Squat: Warm-up and 3 hard sets
Leg Press: 3 hard sets
Lying Leg Curl*: 3 hard sets
Seated Calf Raise*: 3 hard sets
The Bigger Leaner Stronger Workout Progression
In chapter 21, you learned about double progression—the system of working to increase reps with a given weight until reaching a “reps-for-sets” target, and then increasing the weight.
Many weightlifting and strength-training programs use the double progression model because it’s simple, “newbie friendly,” and effective. Many advanced weightlifters and strength athletes use it too because of how well it works.
For those reasons, we’re going to use double progression in Bigger Leaner Stronger, and here’s how to implement it:
When you get 6 reps for one hard set of most exercises, you immediately move up in weight by adding 10 pounds to the bar or moving up to dumbbells that are 5 pounds heavier (per dumbbell).
Remember the example of how this works?
Let’s say you’re squatting in the 4-to-6-rep range, and on your first (or second) hard set in the workout, you get 6 reps of 225 pounds. You then immediately add 10 pounds to the bar (not in your next workout), rest a few minutes, and get 4 or 5 reps on your next hard set.
Great! The progression has succeeded, and you now work with 235 pounds in your current and future workouts until you can squat it for one hard set of 6 reps. Then, you’d move up in weight again, and so on.
What if you only get 2 or 3 reps with the new, heavier weight before your form starts breaking down? What if the progression doesn’t succeed?
In this case, you should drop the weight back to the original, lighter load (225 pounds in our example) and work there until you can get 6 reps for two hard sets (in the same workout).
Then, you should immediately move up to the heavier weight again on your next hard set (even if that’s in your next workout) and try again.
If you do that and still can’t get at least 4 reps, go back to the lighter weight and work with it until you can do three hard sets of 6 reps (in the same workout). At this point, your progression should succeed.
Also, if you get 6 reps in your first set after moving up in weight, then you get to move up again!
And what should you do if you get 6 reps on your third and final hard set for an exercise in your workout? You should increase the weight on your first hard set of your next performance of that exercise.
You’ve probably also noticed that I’ve said I want you to work in the 4-to-6 rep range on most exercises, but not all.
The reason for this is some isolation exercises are hard to properly perform in lower-rep ranges. This is why I recommend you use the 8-to-10-rep range (70 to 75 percent of one-rep max) for all exercises in this chapter as well as chapter 23 that are marked with an asterisk.
Otherwise, you do these exercises in exactly the same way as described in this and earlier chapters. You’re simply working up to 10 reps instead of 6 before moving up in weight.
How to Train Your Core Correctly
You may be wondering what’s meant by a hard set on a core exercise like the crunch or captain’s chair leg raise.
Are you supposed to add weight or resistance to these exercises? Should anything change in terms of progression, rest, rep tempo, or the like?
Let’s clarify everything exercise by exercise.
Captain’s Chair Leg Raise
This exercise is normally unweighted, but you can add weight by holding a dumbbell in between your feet as you raise and lower them.
Here’s how I like to approach this exercise:
Start unweighted.
Take all hard sets to technical failure.
Once you can do at least 30 reps before failing, turn it into a weighted exercise by snatching a dumbbell in between your feet. Start with 10 pounds.
Once you do 30 reps with 10 pounds, go up by 5 pounds.
Continue progressing in this way.
If you reach the point where adding more weight becomes awkward, then it’s time to switch to a different exercise, like the hanging leg raise.
Hanging Leg Raise
This exercise is a harder variation of the captain’s chair leg raise, and I recommend going about it in the same way.
Lying Leg Raise
This exercise is similar to the previous two but doesn’t require any equipment.
Once you can do at least 50 reps in a single hard set before reaching technical failure, start doing weighted captain’s chair or hanging leg raises instead.
Crunch
This is a staple ab exercise that should be done unweighted and to technical failure in each hard set.
Once you can do at least 50 reps in a single hard set before reaching technical failure, start doing weighted sit-ups or cable crunches instead.
Cable Crunch
This is a weighted exercise and one of my favorites for developing the rectus abdominis (the most prominent “ab muscles”) in particular.
Many guys don’t do weighted ab work because they’re afraid it’s going to widen their waists and make them look “blocky.” This is just a myth.
Doing too much weighted work for your oblique muscles, which sit on either side of your waist, can cause this, but weighted training for your rectus abdominis won’t.
More importantly, if you want clear-cut ab definition, it’s going to require highly developed rectus abdominis muscles. And what’s the most effective way to develop a muscle? Heavy resistance training, of course.
This is why I recommend the 8-to-10-rep range for all hard sets of cable crunches and increasing the weight in 5- or 10-pound increments.
Furthermore, you should treat this exercise exactly the same as any other resistance training exercise—your goal
is to get stronger over time, you rest a couple of minutes in between sets, you use a 1-1-1 rep tempo, and so on.
Weighted Sit-Up
This weighted exercise allows you to effectively train your abdominal muscles with free weights.
As previously noted, I recommend you work up to 50 unweighted crunches before moving on to weighted sit-ups.
As with the cable crunch, work in the 8-to-10-rep range on this exercise and increase the weight in 5- or 10-pound increments.
As with the cable crunch, you should treat this exercise exactly the same as any other resistance training exercise—your goal is to get stronger over time, you rest a couple of minutes in between sets, you use a 1-1-1 rep tempo, and so on.
Also, you may see some people hold the weight behind their necks while doing this exercise. This can work with light weights but becomes uncomfortable and even dangerous with heavier weights, so keep the weight on your chest instead.
Plank
This is another effective unweighted exercise for training the back and core muscles.
Start by holding a hard set for as long as you can before reaching technical failure. Then, try to increase the amount of time you can hold the plank position by five seconds per workout.
Once you can do at least one two-minute hard set of the basic plank, you can increase the difficulty by making two small adjustments:1
Instead of positioning your elbows directly under your shoulders, extend them three to six inches in front of your shoulders.
Instead of relaxing your glutes, flex them.
Once you can do one two-minute hard set of the modified plank, start doing a more difficult exercise instead, like the cable crunch, abdominal rollout, or weighted sit-up.
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