4 Weeks to Massive Muscle

Gain up to 10 pounds of muscle in the next four weeks with this mass-gain training program.

Jim Stoppani, Ph.D. and Joe Wuebben

Building mass may not always be easy, but it’s pretty simple: Lift hard (and with high volume) and eat a lot. On the training side, we offer the following month-long program. These four weeks of mass-gaining are full of straight-forward exercises done predominantly in straight set fashion, with minor influences of intensity techniques (drop sets). These workouts will typically involve lots of rest and heavy to moderate weight. The key to this program is that you’ll only be training each bodypart one day per week during the four weeks, so you’ll need to get after it like gangbusters each time out. You should anticipate a few days of soreness following each workout, due to the high volume (total number of sets) involved—this is why we designed the split with three full rest days, as follows:

Day 1: Legs, Abs
Day 2: Chest, Triceps
Day 3: Rest
Day 4: Shoulders, Traps
Day 5: Back, Biceps
Day 6: Rest
Day 7: Rest

Day 1: Legs + Abs

Leg day is heavy in the squat category to hit the entire leg musculature sufficiently (quads, hamstrings, glutes). You’ll start off with front squats and leg extensions, blasting the front quads. Then, you’ll move to standard squats, followed by leg curls. And though you’ll already feel thrashed from two other squat moves, you’ll then go to the Smith machine squat, (where you don’t have to worry so much about balance), placing your feet slightly out in front of you, and you’ll finish off with lunges.

The amount of weight on each squat set will naturally decrease; in other words, you’ll be strongest on your first exercise (front squats), but will likely have to go lighter on regular squats than you normally do (assuming you typically do squats first in your leg workout), seeing is that it will be your third exercise. That said, we suggest you switch the order of squats each week—in week 2, for example, do regular squats first, and in week 3, start off with Smith machine squats. This will ensure a well-balanced leg protocol through the course of four weeks.

Exercise	Sets ^	Reps
Legs
Barbell Front Squat	4	6-10
Leg Extension	2	12*
Barbell Squat	4	6-10
Lying Leg Curl	2	12*
Smith Machine Squat	4	6-10
Barbell Lunge	4	12
Standing Calve Raise	4	12, 12, 20, 20
Seated Calve Raise	4	12, 12, 20, 20
Abs
Kneeling Cable Crunch	4	20

^Doesn’t include warm-up sets

*After your last set or two, immediately reduce the weight by 20%-30% and continue performing reps until you reach failure once again (drop set).

Day 2: Chest + Triceps

You’ll train chest and triceps the day after legs. After hitting the meat of the chest with flat-bench barbell presses, you’ll immediately attack the pecs from the same angle with dumbbells. And similar to how you alternated between squat variations for legs, each time you train chest, perform a different angle (flat-bench in week 1, incline in week 2, decline in week 3 and flat-bench again in week 4) first in the rotation, starting with the barbell version, then following that up with dumbbells. You’ll end chest day with an isolation move (cable flye) to finish things off with an incredible pump before moving on to triceps. Your triceps training will involve bread-and-butter exercises performed in the traditional hypertrophy rep range (8-12) to pack maximum mass onto the upper arms.

Exercise	Sets ^	Reps
Chest
Barbell Bench Press	4	6-10
Dumbbell Bench Press	2	12*
Barbell Incline Press	4	6-10
Dumbbell Incline Press	2	12*
Smith Machine Decline Press	4	6-10
Dumbbell Decline Press	2	12
Flat-Bench Cable Flye	4	12*
Triceps
Lying Triceps Extension	4	8-12
Weighted Bench Dip	4	8-12
Cable Pressdown	4	8-12*

*After your last set or two, immediately reduce the weight by 20%-30% and continue performing reps until you reach failure once again (drop set).

Day 4: Shoulders + Traps

Day 4 has you hitting shoulders and traps, beginning with a compound exercise, the behind-the-neck overhead press. If you have pre-existing shoulders issues, by all means do the standard version (in front of the head). But if you’re able to do this move, it’s great for adding size to the delts. After three other compound moves (dumbbell presses and Smith machine and dumbbell upright rows), you’ll finish with the leaning lateral raise, which allows for more emphasis to be placed on the delts as opposed to the supraspinatus muscles, and the reverse pec deck, which targets the rear delts.

You’ll train your traps with two versions (barbell and dumbbell) of good ole fashioned shrugs, six sets total using relatively heavy weight. Then, you’ll finish with abs—double crunches, which hit both the upper and lower abs. 

Exercise	Sets ^	Reps
Shoulders
Barbell Overhead Press   (behind the neck)	4	6-10
Dumbbell Bench Press	2	12
Smith Machine Upright Row	4	6-10*
Dumbbell Upright Row	2	12
Leaning Lateral Raise	4	6-10*
Reverse Pec Deck	4	12
Traps
Barbell Shrug	4	12
Dumbbell Shrug	2	12*
Abs
Double Crunch	4	20

^Doesn’t include warm-up sets

*After your last set or two, immediately reduce the weight by 20%-30% and continue performing reps until you reach failure once again (drop set).

Day 5: Back + Biceps

You’ll begin back day with the deadlift, which is as much a leg exercise as it is a back exercise; that said, for back and overall body mass, the deadlift is tough to beat. You’ll follow that with the dumbbell version before moving to bent-over and dumbbell rows, targeting the upper and lower lats, respectively. T-bar rows and lat pulldowns will finish off the volumous 20-set back workout. For biceps, nothing fancy—traditional barbell curls, preachers and hammer curls will hit both biceps heads with heavy weight to promote size.

Exercise	Sets^	Reps
Back
Barbell Deadlift	4	6-10
Dumbbell Deadlift	2	12
Barbell Bent-Over Row	4	6-10*
One-Arm Dumbbell Row	2	12 (each arm)
T-Bar Row	4	6-10
Lat Pulldown	4	6-10*
Biceps
Barbell Curl	4	6-10
Barbell Preacher Curl	4	8-12*
Hammer Curl	4	6-10

^Doesn’t include warm-up sets

*After your last set or two, immediately reduce the weight by 20%-30% and continue performing reps until you reach failure once again (drop set).