What Does It Take to Build Muscle?

When you really boil muscle-building down to its essence, it only involves three main concepts:

• Eat enough protein (~1 gram per pound of bodyweight)
• Consume sufficient calories
• Perform mostly compound exercises with good form employing the principles of progressive overload

Do those three things consistently for a long time, and you will build a lot of muscle and strength.

Now, we don’t have to tell you (but we will anyway), that if you plan to not only survive the next eight weeks of training, but dominate your workouts, you’re going to have to eat.

Not only that, but you’re likely going to have to eat a great deal more than you’re used to, especially if you’re looking to pack on some serious mass.

Consuming enough calories, protein, and carbohydrates is paramount to building muscle and successfully recovering from one workout to the next.

To help you figure out how many calories you need to build muscle, check out this easy-to-follow guide to calculating TDEE (total daily energy expenditure).

 

Training Tips

Make Every Set Count

Building muscle and strength doesn’t come from half-assing your workouts. They come consistency, dedication, and grit.

As such, there are no “easy” sets in this hypertrophy workout plan. You should be pushing every set for as many quality reps as possible, stopping that set when your form starts to break down or when you feel that you might fail on the next rep.

When you start maximizing every single rep of every single set is when you will really start to see your gains in size and strength excel.

Check Your Ego

Trying to outlift every other bro in the gym is a one-way ticket to looking like a grade-A doofus and getting yourself injured.

Your only competition is yourself. You are seeking to build a better body this week than last week. To do that, you need to keep your ego in check and lift an appropriate amount of weight for the given rep range.

If you cannot control the weight through its entire range of motion (up and down), it’s too heavy. Dial it down and start over.

Lifting with proper form results in greater muscle stimulation (and ultimately a better workout) while also reducing the risk of injury.

Sleep!

Getting adequate sleep (7-9 hours per night) is essential to building muscle and strength.

During sleep is when our bodies do the vast majority of repair, recovery, and growth following our intense workouts. Not only does insufficient sleep limit the amount of muscle growth that can occur, but it also undercuts your recovery ability, which directly impairs your performance in the next day’s workout.

As important as nutrition is to get the results you want over the next eight weeks, sleep is just as (and possibly more) important.

A Word on Volume vs Intensity

One of the biggest debates in the past few years centers on which facet of lifting is more important for hypertrophy:

• volume (the amount of work you do), or
• intensity (how heavy you lift relative to failure or your 1-RM).

What most people don’t realize is that both are needed in your hypertrophy workout plan if you want to build muscle and strength as quickly as possible. It’s not an either-or proposition.

You can also look at it like this:

 

By that we mean that if you choose to dial up the intensity, you’ll have to decrease the volume and vice versa.

You can either train hard for a short amount of time or train lighter for longer, but you can’t do both at the same time.

As such, we’ve created this program to hit all the prime muscle-building ranges, and included plenty of volume to help grow even the most stubborn muscle groups.

Hardcore Hypertrophy High Volume Training Program Overview

You’ll be training six days per week following a push / pull / legs split, where a typical week of training consists of:

• Monday: Push A
• Tuesday: Pull A
• Wednesday: Legs A
• Thursday: Push B
• Friday: Pull B
• Saturday: Legs B
• Sunday: OFF

You could also insert your rest day after your first PPL rotation, such that your training week looks this way:

• Monday: Push A
• Tuesday: Pull A
• Wednesday: Legs A
• Thursday: OFF
• Friday: Push B
• Saturday: Pull B
• Sunday: Legs B
  
  
• Monday: OFF
• Tuesday: Push A
• Wednesday: Pull A
• Thursday: Legs A
• Friday: OFF
• Etc, etc. etc.

For those who crave consistency in their training and like to hit the same workout each day of, this schedule may not be the best fit as it’s constantly rotating.

However, for those that may not be able to handle six consecutive days of training the extra rest day in between workouts three and four provides a much-needed day of recovery.

Now, what if you can’t train six days per week?

Can you still follow the program?

ABSOLUTELY!

It will just take you longer than 8 weeks to complete this particular program, but that’s ok.

Whether you can only train three or four days per week is not an issue. Simply insert the workouts on the days of the week you can train and keep moving through the schedule as we laid out above.

For example, if you can only train three days per week, here’s how a sample week of training could look:

• Monday Week 1: Push A
• Tuesday Week 1: OFF
• Wednesday Week 1: Pull A
• Thursday Week 1: OFF
• Friday Week 1: Legs A
• Saturday & Sunday Week 1: OFF
• Monday Week 2: Push B
• Tuesday Week 2: OFF
• Wednesday Week 2: Pull B
• Thursday Week 2: OFF
• Friday Week 2: Legs B
• Saturday & Sunday Week 2: OFF
• Monday Week 3: Push A
• Etc.

Will you get the same results in eight weeks as someone who can train six days a week?

Likely not, but that’s ok. Building your best body ever is not a sprint. It’s a marathon.

Time, consistency, and determination are what allow you to build muscle and strength.

Now, let’s get to the workout!

Hardcore Hypertrophy Training Program

Push A

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Flat Bench Press	4	6-8
Arnold Press	3	8-10
Cable Crossover	3	10-12
Dumbbell Lateral Raise	3	10-15
Overhead Cable Extension	3	12-15
Dips	3	Max Reps

Pull A

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Pull Ups (add weight if needed)	4	6-8
T-Bar Row	3	8-10
Dumbbell Shrug	3	10-12
Face Pull	3	10-15
EZ Bar Curl	3	8-10
Rope Hammer Curl	3	12-15

Legs A

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Barbell Back Squats	4	6-8
Romanian Deadlift	3	8-10
Bulgarian Split Squat	3	10-12 / leg
Lying Leg Curl	3	10-15
Seated Calf Raises	3	8-10
Hanging Leg Raises	3	12-15

Push B

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Standing Overhead Press	4	8-10
Incline Dumbbell Bench	3	8-10
Hammer Strength Machine Press	3	10-12
Cable Lateral Raise	3	10-15
Tricep Pushdown	3	8-10
Skullcrushers	3	10-12

Pull B

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Barbell Rows	4	6-8
Lat Pulldown (1.5 reps)	3	8-10
Chest Supported Incline Row	3	10-12
Rear Delt Fly	3	10-15
Chin Ups (Biceps focus)	3	AMRAP
Incline Curl	3	10-12

Legs B

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Trap Bar Deadlift	4	6-8
Leg Press	3	8-10
Stability Ball Leg Curl	3	10-12
Walking Lunges	3	12-15 / leg
Leg Press Calf Raises	3	12-15
Cable Crunches	3	12-15

What About Supplements?

Let’s get one thing straight.

Supplements don’t build muscle and strength. They never have and they never will.

Consistency with diet, training, and sleep are what deliver results.

Now, that being said, supplements can help improve your ability to perform during your workouts (helping you bang out more reps and sets) as well as your ability to recover and grow.

We’ve dedicated ourselves to making the best supplements on the market to help you meet your performance and physique goals.

For this 8-week hypertrophy program, we suggest the following supplement stack:

Ape Sh *t Cutz

These next eight weeks are going to put your mind and body through the wringer. To help get you mentally and physically prepared for the challenges ahead, we’ve created high-energy, high-performance pre workout in Ape Sh*t Cutz.

Ape Sh *t Cutz contains a potent mix of energizers, focus boosters, and ergogenics that promote greater strength, power, and performance during your intense hypertrophy session.*

Intracell 7

Intense training demands the most of your body mentally and physically, and to support a truly effective intra workout supplement, and that’s exactly what you get with Intracell 7.

Providing a combination of rapid-digesting, performance-enhancing carbohydrates, essential amino acids, and blood flow enhancement supplements, Intracell 7 provides everything skeletal muscles need to sustain a high level of performance all workout long.

Isolit

As we said up top, consuming enough dietary protein is essential to building muscle. Unfortunately, many people struggle to meet their protein requirements each day due to either poor appetite, palate fatigue (from eating one too many chicken breasts), or not having enough time.

Protein powder provides an affordable, convenient, and delicious way to make sure you always get enough protein each day.

ISOLIT is a 100% pure whey protein isolate that mixes easily, comes in 7 unique flavors, and tastes delicious.

Shop muscle building supplements here.