As 2021 comes around, there’s no better of a time to build muscle mass and get in shape.

This workout is a 3 day split routine for mass building. If you want to get the most out of this workout, you will need to make better nutritional choices. If you do, you’ll build muscle, get stronger, and most importantly, get healthier.

Workout Goal

The goal of this workout is to improve your conditioning and put some meat on those bones. You should plan on running this routine for at least 12 weeks — if you are progressing, there’s no reason to stop. If you aren’t progressing, have you tried a deload lately?

Tackling our conditioning while we lift will improve our work output capacity. That means bigger lifts, ability to do more reps, and no more getting flop sweat after slugging up a flight of stairs.

Diet and Nutrition Tips

Honestly, the diet and nutrition choices you make will determine how much muscle you will build — lifting weights is only part of the equation.

That being said, a slow bulk for this routine is recommended. If you’re wanting to build the most muscle possible, you’ll need to eat a surplus of calories. It’s up to you to make sure they aren’t candy bars and soda.

Eating a few hundred extra calories a day of nutritious foods or a protein shake allows your body to build more muscle. If you are burning all of the fuel you provide your body, how is it going to build muscle?

It’s easier to cut bodyfat after a slow bulk than it is trying to build muscle and strength on a calorie deficit. It’s possible, but you will benefit the most if you are in a calorie surplus.

Log Your Food

I’ve lost a lot of weight, gained a lot of weight, and built a fair amount of muscle and strength. Logging your food is imperative to achieving your fitness goals.

If you log your workouts and log your food intake, you have a running log of what’s working and what isn’t. It’s the difference between making progress and thinking that you’re doing something wrong (because you are).

I would recommend using MyFitnessPal. It’s the easiest that I’ve used. Pen and paper is great, but you can scan an item or search their database for what you’re eating. It helps remove human error or erroneous google searches.

Slow Bulk

Once you have dialed in on the calories it takes to maintain your weight, it’s time to add calories to your diet.

Now is the time to add 300 to 500 calories per day to that diet. The more calories you eat per day will equate to weight gain — this is not a fat loss workout.

You will gain weight and if you eat reasonable foods, it will be a fair amount of muscle and just a little bit of fat.

Learn to Cook

I can’t stress how important it is to know how to cook for yourself. If you can’t directly control what goes into your mouth, how can you expect to see better than average progress?

It’s not hard to cook — if you want me to post some articles on cooking, just let me know.

If you “can’t possibly eat more” per day, here are a few nutritious choices you can add to most meals to get some extra calories in.

• Butter
• Cream cheese
• Sour cream
• Whole milk
• Heavy cream
• Cheese on everything
• Protein shakes
• Peanut butter
• Olive oil

These all add flavor and healthy fats to your diet. Nutritious fats are a great choice if you can’t get extra protein.

Note: A little bit goes a long way, so be sure to know how many calories you are adding.

Recommended Supplements

If you’re not going to eat decent, supplements will be a waste of money. It’s more important to spend that money on extra meats, veggies, and fruits than a jug of protein.

But if your diet is somewhat dialed in and you are making progress, supplements can help. A solid pre-workout can give you more energy and focus, protein can be a quick digesting post-workout drink to help with recovery, and creatine will improve your workout performance.

Pre-Workout

Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Pre-Workout is a great choice for pretty much anyone. It mixes well, tastes alright, and isn’t so stimulant-heavy that it makes you shake terribly.

Protein

My choice for protein is MTS Nutrition. I just picked up another 5 pound jug of vanilla whey and it tastes great. Every flavor of anything I’ve ever had of MTS’ creations have been amazing.

This is in my opinion the best tasting protein on the market. Period.

Great blend with no secrets, no amino spiking, and it is some of the best in the industry.

So far I’ve had Red Velvet, Cookies and Cream, and Key Lime, Vanilla, Chocolate, Cookies and Cream, Peanut Butter Cookies and Cream, Birthday Cake, and Ice Cream Sandwich. All are A+.

BCAA

MTS Nutrition Machine Fuel

Like I said, Marc Lobliner has his sweetening on point with these supplements. I’ve used mixed berry and grape and I love them both.

Creatine

Optimum Nutrition Micronized Creatine

A tried and true supplement, creatine helps with performance and recovery. I highly recommend this for maximal progress. Check out my review of ON’s Creatine.

Cardio and Conditioning Schedule

Conditioning is one of the most important things you can work on to improve your lifts, endurance, and stamina. Improving conditioning also improves life outside of the gym.

This particular routine focuses a bit on conditioning, core strength, and mobility.

Once you start lifting relatively heavier weights, you’re going to start breaking form because of muscle weaknesses. As your body gets gassed out, your lack of conditioning, muscle endurance, and mobility all become an issue.

Warming Up

For your pre-workout warm up, start by walking for 3 minutes and follow-up with a 30 second balls-to-the-walls high intensity sprint. Finish off with 90 seconds of walking.

This “shock” is going to prime your body to train hard and helps get your core body temperature up. There’s no need to spend 30 minutes on cardio. Save your energy for the weights you are about to destroy.

Post Workout Conditioning

You don’t have to slog along on the treadmill for 30 minutes after your workout to benefit from heart-healthy cardio and active recovery.

Once you’re finished lifting, jump onto a machine and perform a high-intensity interval workout. Check out the link if you don’t know what a HIIT workout is, but below is a simple 15-minute routine that would work well.

HIIT Workout:

• 5 minutes brisk walking
• 30 seconds jogging
• 30 seconds walking
• 30 seconds sprinting
• 30 seconds walking
• 45 seconds sprinting
• 1 minute walking
• 1 minute jogging
• 1 minute walking
• 30 seconds full sprinting
• 1.5 minutes walking slowly tapering down to finish

Warming up is important to prime your body to lift some heavy weight. You don’t need to spend half an hour on a treadmill and stretching to get warmed up.

If your conditioning is poor, don’t get stuck on the numbers. If you need to add longer resting periods or you can only sprint for 15 seconds, that’s fine. The goal here is to push yourself and improve.

3 Day Muscle Mass Workout

A sample workout schedule will look something like this:

• Monday – Chest and Triceps
• Tuesday – Off
• Wednesday – Back and Biceps
• Thursday – Off
• Friday – Legs and Shoulders
• Saturday – Off
• Sunday – Off

Workout Tips

ALAP – This stands for as long as possible.

Progressive Overload – Every time you step foot into the gym I want you to try to add 5 pounds to the bar or another rep to the exercise. The only way to get bigger and stronger is if you progressively add more resistance — doing the same weight will not help at all.

Get Enough Recovery – This routine is a 3 day routine because you need to recover between days to really see any progress. You can beat down your body every day in the gym but if you do not recover properly, you are just spinning your wheels.

Growth happens in the kitchen and while you sleep.

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