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 By: Ryan Patrick
You have this construction project that requires you to tear down a wall in your home and build an addition on. Will you be better off throwing several thousand small hammers at it or taking a few really big hammers and doing some damage? It's going to take thousands of $4.99 hammers from Home Depot to do any real damage to a wall. But if you take a couple heavy-duty sledge hammers (or a wrecking ball) you'll be able to demolish the wall rather quickly. Imagine your body as the house, and the wall as the muscles you want to exercise and grow. You can use small, isolated exercises in large doses to create a growth stimulus. Or, you can slug some heavy iron with a handful of compound exercises and get the same (or better) results.
  Click Image To Enlarge.You Can Slug Some Heavy Iron With A Handful Of Compound Exercises And Get The Same (Or Better) Results. Compound exercises utilize multiple joints with free weights. This means maximal muscle recruitment, high nervous system activation, and more of a stimulus for growth. I'm a big fan of the less is more approach - but not less is easier. Consider me somewhat of an exercise hack. I'm not concerned about isolating a muscle, I'm just going in and stimulating as much muscle as possible! Muscle gets harder and harder to come by as we push the threshold, so take what you can get!
If I had to pick 6 exercises to hit every muscle, what would I do? I encourage you to shift your mindset in this case. Thinking in muscle groups will lead you to choose the wrong choices pretty quickly. If you look at 6 basic movements, you'll see we can hit everything we need to hit to build mass. Here are the basic movements:
A great bodybuilder will always have phenomenal back development. But if we take a minute to look at typical programs in the amateur ranks we'll see a "back day" that includes both horizontal and vertical pulls.
 Click Image To Enlarge.A Great Bodybuilder Will Always Have Phenomenal Back Development.
As an additional perk, additional pulling volume can help clear up some nagging shoulder issues. For really bad shoulders I'd stick with more horizontal pulls such as rows. Moving the arms overhead can aggravate many shoulder injuries.
 Click Image To Enlarge.Vertical Pushes Will Help Shoulder Development As Well As The Traps.
A squat for example can be done very hip dominant (low bar, feet wide, hips far back) or very quad dominant (bar high, feet shoulder width). In general, there are two ways to approach hip dominant movement: bent leg and straight leg.
The straight leg (bent 10-15°) options place an emphasis on the hamstring muscle belly such as the Romanian deadlift. With hip movement that involves little knee bend you'll be able to put the hamstring on a greater stretch. Stretching under load results in a more forceful contraction of the muscle.
  Click Image To Enlarge.Romanian Deadlift.
Exercising your arms will surely result in bigger arms, to an extent. But you will never see a 150 lb guy walking around with 22" guns. Think back to the demolition analogy. You bring the heavy hitters to play and you'll facilitate muscle growth all over. More over, these heavy hitters are responsible for a hormonal milieu favorable for muscle growth.
The basic understanding is that going heavy with exercises from these six categories, you'll have a number of heavy pushes and pulls each week that will help build arm mass. The traps should get plenty of work with the pulling variations and the overhead presses. If you look at extremely strong squatters (such as powerlifters) they never have small calves. Admittedly, this isn't most of the people out there so calves may benefit from some extra direct work.
 Click Image To Enlarge.You'll Have A Number Of Heavy Pushes And Pulls Each Week That Will Help Build Arm Mass. As another point of interest, if the compound movements take a toll on the joints or you need more direct emphasis then a change in exercise selection would be wise. For instance, some guys are very deltoid dominant bench pressers. That is, they feel it mostly in their delts and by the looks of their development you see relatively overdeveloped shoulders compared to chest. A flat bench fly serves as a good horizontal push exercise. It's the same primary movement with an emphasis on the prime mover. If the opposite were true, a close-grip bench press would fit the bill.
If you chose to use these six categories every day take caution. Using large amounts of muscle in the upper body and then switching to a lower body exercise can create a cardiovascular demand as the peripheral blood is circulated from extremity to extremity. Over time, you'll adapt to this, but supersetting exercises is quite an experience. A racing heart isn't going to "eat" your muscle away, and may actually help to preserve a more ideal body composition when overfeeding for size. To kick some serious mass there are two options (as I see it) for putting these basic movements together.
The concept of the pump and intensity techniques such as drop sets and supersets leaves us feeling underworked in a full body routine.
You don't need to go crazy with the number of movements, 3-5 exercises is plenty for each session. I'd limit the total number of sets to about 20-25 as well.
In an upper-lower split such as this we're doing 7 total sets for horizontal pushing/pulling and vertical push/pulling, or 28 total sets of upper body for the week. The lower body will also have a total of 28 sets (equally divided between hip and quad dominant). Each workout by itself might not appear like much, but true attention should be paid to the tempos listed. If you've ever really followed a 2-1-2 or 3-0-1 tempo you'll know the impact of the workout changes dramatically from what you expect to experience.
Most exercises, most of the time, are a 1-0-1 tempo. This is one-second lowering, no pause, and one second to lift the weight. A 3-1-1 tempo is three lowering, 1 pause, and 1 to lift. This will reduce the amount of weight you can use. The PRO is the fact that you get an increased time under tension (TUT) for the muscle under load. The standard way guys increase TUT is to increase reps. Not in this case.
 Click Image To Enlarge.You Get An Increased Time Under Tension For The Muscle Under Load. Consider this: a set of 6 at 3-1-1 is the same TUT as a set of 15 with a 1-0-1 tempo. Even if you can use relatively less for the set of six with a slow tempo, it should still be more than you can use at a normal tempo for 15 reps. So a controlled tempo should emphasize a deliberate and controlled lowering of the weight. A fast tempo is your average pace since the reps are higher and the TUT is sufficient. Related Mass Gain Programs Articles:
Choosing the compound movements that hit the most muscle is still the basis of most muscle-building programs no matter how many days per week you are training. With selection from these six categories it's possible to get a total body workout.
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1. Horizontal Pushes And Pulls:
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