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Program for Maximum Hypertrophy

Beginners
#1

Hello all,

quickly to introduce myself: I am currently living in South Africa.

87kg
BF 14%
1.79cm

In the last 2 years I have never been consistent with my training and kept changing things. Now I am at a point where I am looking for a good long-term program to focus on hypertrophy and definition. I don’t care about how much weight I can move or how strong I get. I am really just for the defined look.

Can someone help me with suggesting a good program for my aims. Up til now I have mainly been doing a 4day routine with around 10-12 sets per big muscle.

My split used to look something like this:

Chest/Biceps
Quads
OFF
Back/Hamstrings
Shoulders/Triceps

I don’t mind changing to something completely different as long as its the most efficient way to hypertrophy.

Thank you so much for your help

#2

[quote]saiman wrote:
Hello all,

quickly to introduce myself: I am currently living in South Africa.

87kg
BF 14%
1.79cm

In the last 2 years I have never been consistent with my training and kept changing things. Now I am at a point where I am looking for a good long-term program to focus on hypertrophy and definition. I don’t care about how much weight I can move or how strong I get. I am really just for the defined look.

Can someone help me with suggesting a good program for my aims. Up til now I have mainly been doing a 4day routine with around 10-12 sets per big muscle.

My split used to look something like this:

Chest/Biceps
Quads
OFF
Back/Hamstrings
Shoulders/Triceps

I don’t mind changing to something completely different as long as its the most efficient way to hypertrophy.

Thank you so much for your help[/quote]

Wow, I’ve never spoken to someone less than 2cm tall before :wink:

Welcome!

Few pointers:

Hypertrophy without focussing on strength is like trying to make a balloon bigger when it’s already fully blown up…it just won’t get bigger. You need to add more substance/material…and this is done via strength progression.

Don’t get too caught up in the strength vs size thing, there is not a great deal of difference. Bodybuilding training can focus on lower loads as low as 70% 1RM, but with enough volume, they can do higher loads too.

Main thing to change is diet/cardio. If you want to get leaner, you’ll have to alter diet until you’re losing fat weekly. If your diet gets very low in calories, (e.g. lower than 2000 cals/day), you’ll have to focus more on cardio to burn the last bits of fat. If you’re at around 15% bodyfat, you’re only looking to diet for about 2 months on a decent program and this should get you into the single digits figures.

When you shift gears (looking to put on muscle), simply increase calories until bodyweight starts to increase each month (and strength gains will come smoother). Cardio needn’t be done as much on this phase.

Just focus on one goal at a time (don’t get caught up in trying to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time)…and don’t spend too long obsessing over your Abs otherwise “Professor X” will eat you :wink:

#3

If you’re not looking to put on a massive amount of muscle mass, and want a decent program that will help to keep you lean (burns quite a lot of energy); you need to do a routine that trains large muscle groups relatively often (like an upper/lower split).

Here’s a pretty standard upper/lower split that’s pretty popular:

Day 1: Lower body
Day 2: Upper body (horizontal push and pull)
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Lower body
Day 5: Off
Day 6: Upper body (vertical push and pull)
Day 7: Off

Bear in mind that most “hypertrophy” programs have more volume per muscle group and are trained less frequently. You can’t have the best of both worlds; you need to decide what your goals are - to get really big (which requires getting smooth/not “defined”), or is it just a “beach body” in which case a simple upper/lower split, without “overeating” much, would suffice?

#4

^I like this advice. Howve u been doin man?

#5

Here’s a maximum mass program for you

#6

[quote]bking wrote:
^I like this advice. Howve u been doin man?[/quote]

Cheers! I’m good thanks…in the middle of building my gym (wooden structure), can’t wait till it’s done! Will be doing one good cut before I go on my next long term bulk. This time, I’m going to keep up the cardio while bulking to make my gains lean (will be able to bulk for longer this way, and I believe that cardio complements muscle gains/alters hormone profile for the better).

How about yourself?

#7

I think most of the important points have been covered here, but I figured I’d add a couple of quick points. As was mentioned, there isn’t a massive difference between size and strength. In my opinion the only people that really need to focus on isolation exercises are body builders that are going to be getting on stage. If you’re not planning to step on stage, then your body is going to get bigger and stronger and look great just doing the core strength exercises (ie: bench press, squat, deadlift, overhead press, pull-ups, dips, etc). 10 sets per muscle group is good, no need to go overboard with it.

The split that “its_just_me” recommended is a good split for your goals. One thing I’ll point out is that getting “defined” is mainly about your diet. There isn’t any exercise that magically sculpts your muscles. You just need to remove all around body fat by controlling the diet.

#8

[quote]its_just_me wrote:

[quote]bking wrote:
^I like this advice. Howve u been doin man?[/quote]

Cheers! I’m good thanks…in the middle of building my gym (wooden structure), can’t wait till it’s done! Will be doing one good cut before I go on my next long term bulk. This time, I’m going to keep up the cardio while bulking to make my gains lean (will be able to bulk for longer this way, and I believe that cardio complements muscle gains/alters hormone profile for the better).

How about yourself?[/quote]

Yea im thinkin bout doing some hill sprints. Ive been ok just really busy lately. I finally was able to put up 300 pretty easily on the bench press the other day so all my lifts r going up. Ive actually dropped a few pounds since im so active now. I want to hit 400 in the next couple years or so but im gaining muscle pretty well. Id be happy wih hitting 400 at the 4.5 year training mark.
Oh and good luck with the gym. I can tell you now its so much better training at home.

#9

That’s good going!

Yeah, I still workout at home (brothers garage) - used to workout in a gazebo! lol That was fun, those were the days where working out meant getting soaking wet when it rained, or having to get the kettle out when it was frosty :slight_smile:

#10

^LMAO. Dang ur more man than I am training in the rain lol. I bet thats cold rain too lol…

O and sorry OP about hijacking ur thread. If I were u the best way to do a recomp IMHO is to cycle calories and carbs. So on those intense (relatively speaking) days bump the calories up along with the carbs and on the off/less intense days lower calories and carbs. Or u could do a standard bulk and cutting cycles which is what ive always done. Either way will get u where u want to be. Which way will get u there faster? Its up for debate but i like bulking and cutting.

I would also focus on some sort of full body or upper/lower or even push/pull training in order to burn more calories through compound movements IF u want u want to go the recomp route. Id also keep rest periods to a minimum IF u want to go the recomp route as well. Something that would accomplish just that would be an EDT workout focusing on compound movements.

Just my .02 cents but ive only been training for a lil while so take it for what its worth.