Are your bodybuilder workouts structured correctly for stimulating muscle growth?  While most guys are certain that they’ve pieced together effective weight lifting workouts that will help them build muscle mass, most of the time they wind up piecing together a marathon training session that forces them to stay in the gym for 1 – 2 hours at at time.

The main focus of this article is to lay out exactly how long your bodybuilder workout should be in order to force muscle growth. My goal is to convince you that it is realistic to actually spend less time in the gym, gain more muscle mass and get you back to your everyday life as painlessly as possible.

It’s a fact that if you want to gain muscle mass you’re going to want to blast your muscles hard and heavy in the form of heavy and intense free weights workouts. With all of that out of the way, you can definitely get into the gym and bang out an effective bodybuilding in under an hour.

While the standard yawn inspiring 60 – 180 minute free weight workouts performed at a snails pace may be ok if you’ve got no life outside of the gym and a sincere desire to make the muscle building process more difficult. With out a doubt, there is a much more efficient way to force lean muscle growth!

If you believe that more is better, you may be very surprised to realize that that’s not always the case when it comes to building more muscle mass. If you really want to make the most of your time in the gym by forcing more muscle growth while simultaneously taking advantage of your natural muscle building hormonal window of opportunity, you definitely should take a different approach to structuring your muscle building workouts.

I personally like to limit my free weights workouts to under an hour of all out effort.  I find that anything much longer than an hour forces me to lose my focus and ultimately leads to a much less effective workout. I like to get in to the gym, get through my free weights workout and get back to my life outside of the gym as fast as possible.

A lot of trainers argue that 30 minutes is not enough time for a “real” bodybuilder workout, I disagree. If you are performing your muscle building workouts with the right intensity level – the exact same level that is required to stimulate muscle growth, then you won’t be able to get through any more than 20 – 60 minutes of seriously intense bodybuilding effort.

The point of the matter is that there really is no completely “ideal workout time set in stone for everybody. Some people gain muscle mass by training 1 day a week, while others need to put in more workouts than that. Basically you just need to figure out what works well for you by incorporating a systematic approach to your body building workouts. The length of your free weight workout should be a constantly moving target just like each one of the variables of your workouts.

• The Intensity of Your Workouts
• The Length of Your Workouts
• How Often You Hit The Gym
• How Long You Rest Between Sets

All of these components will adjust depending upon your goals. During certain phases of your muscle building workouts, you may be pushing over even an hour of training, while at other times only putting in a few minutes for your weightlifting workouts.

Put in the time to figure out what approach give you the best result, then get to work implementing your training approach. With some dedicated  effort and a well thought out program, you should begin to build lean muscle mass and strip away fat faster than you ever thought possible.

Arvada, Colorado USA
Nick Andrade’s Body Transformation Log – Day 44 bodybuilder workout
Objective: To Burn Fat Gain Muscle Mass And Transform My Body In 12 Weeks

Today’s bodybuilder workout hit my shoulders and traps pretty hard.  While the workout felt great while I was grinding through it, I have a feeling I’m going to be pretty sore tomorrow. My shoulders and traps have always been one of my naturally bigger body parts, but I know I can pack on some serious muscle mass in that area if I focus on targeting them with heavy weights, so that’s what I focused on during today’s workout – trying to up the training weights a bit and force my shoulders and traps to grow!

Thursday’s Bodybuilder Workout – Shoulders

Shoulder Warm-Up:
Dumbbell Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Dumbbell Press: 2 sets x 15 reps

Traps Warm-Up:
Upright Cable Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8
Work Sets: (rest interval 2 minutes)
Upright Cable Rows: 2 sets x 15 reps

I was able to get through 2 sets of 15 reps with 55 lbs dumbbells for the dumbbell press and 2 sets of 15 reps with the weight stack set to #18 for upright cable rows.  During this bodybuilder workout, my shoulders and traps were on fire! It felt great, but I can’t wait to get back to the heavier training weights and lower repetition brackets in the upcoming weeks.

As far as my bodybuilding nutrition strategy – here’s what I ate today…

• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 4 cups of green tea
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 2 cups of cooked spinach (sauteed in a pat of butter)
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 1/4 cup of walnuts
• 3 eggs fried in olive oil

That’s all I’ve got for today’s body transformation journal entry. Give this shoulders and traps bodybuilder workout a try and watch as your shoulders literally explode (especially if you don’t normally train in this rep bracket!).

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

Arvada, Colorado USA
Nick Andrade’s Body Transformation Log – Day 35 Bodybuilder Workout
Objective: To Burn Fat Gain Muscle Mass And Transform My Body In 12 Weeks

Today I felt that things went pretty well at the gym for my chest and back bodybuilder workout.  I really tried to bring the thunder again and hit it hard in order to stimulate some muscle growth. If I’m actually going to achieve my goal of building 25 lbs of muscle mass in 12 weeks, then I’m going to have to get serious and take advantage of every opportunity I have left to force my muscles to grow.

In order to really get things ramped up, I’m thinking of incorporating creatine monohydrate into my bodybuilding nutrition and supplement strategy.  I love creatine monohydrate and have always noticed some pretty good increases in my strength levels after loading. I figure that if nothing else creatine will help me blast through my bodybuilder workouts with heavier training weights and a new level of focus that always comes when i excitedly incorporate something new into my program.

In the past, whenever I’ve used creatine I’ve always just blindly followed along with the manufacturers recommendations.  This time around, I’ve decided to “do it right” and dose out my creatine monohydrate  based on the recommendations of Dr. Alfredo Franco-Obregón in his book Creatine A Practical Guide. Inside of this manual Franco-Obregón explains in detail exactly how to calculate the amount of creatine monohydrate your muscles really need (not the exaggerated quantities that the supplement companies tell you to use).

I highly recommend the book, and I’ll keep you all posted on my results as I work creatine monohydrate into my supplement strategy. If you’re interested, you can check out the Creatine Monohydrate Guide Here

My Bodybuilder Workout – Chest & Back

Warm-Up:
Incline Press: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Incline Press: 3 sets x 5 reps
Bench Press: 3 sets x 5 reps

Warm-Up:
Barbell Rows: 1 x 10, 1 x 8, 1 x 6
Work Sets: (rest interval 1.5 minutes)
Barbell Rows: 3 sets x 5 reps
Pulldowns: 3 sets x 5 reps

I was able to get through 3 sets of 5 reps with 225 lbs for incline press and 3 sets of 5 reps of bench press with 245 lbs.  For my back I was able to perform 3 sets of 5 reps of bent rows with 225 lbs and 3 sets of 5 reps of lat pulldowns with the 200 lbs.

Here’s my bodybuilding nutrition outline for today…

• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 3 cups of green tea
• 2 cups of cooked ground beef
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 2 cups of cooked spinach (sauteed in a pat of butter)
• 3 cups of beef brisket
• 1/2 cup of walnuts
• 1/2 cup of cheese
• 3 eggs fried in olive oil

That’s it for today’s journal entry. Give this bodybuilder workout a try if you want to build some strength and muscle mass in your chest and back.  I’ve been performing variations of this basic chest and back workout for over 10 years with excellent results!

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick