Here’s a sample 3 week workout that’ll add some pounds and save you some serious time in the gym.
Now, the program should be pretty straight forward and all my regular principles apply:
- If the goal is 10 reps, then find a weight that you think you’d fail at 10 reps with. If you fall short, great, at least you went until failure. If you go over, make sure you fail, then grab a heavier weight for the next set.
- Rest periods are 45 seconds, no longer! Make sure you watch the clock – which I do – or bring a stop watch to the gym with you. Time can go a lot faster than you think when you’re out of breathe, so make sure you only take 45 seconds as a rest period.
- I would rather you lift too heavy than too light. I’ve grabbed weights before that I thought would get me to around 8 or 9 but I failed at 4. I just dropped the weight down a bit for the next set.
So, here are a few principles to follow for this sample, 3 week program.
There won’t be any concentration exercises, only compound exercises. That is, we’ll only be focusing on the big muscle groups with exercises that work more than one muscle at a time. Because you’ll be lifting heavy weights, your arms will get a workout. Don’t worry about it too much, it’s just 3 weeks, after the 3 solid weeks of lifting heavy, you can go back to concentration exercises, but I guarantee, your biceps will get a workout on chin-ups.
I’m not going to write down abs, just because I want to keep this article short. But at the end of each workout, do 3 abs exercises – preferably weighted ones – 3x each, with all of them being super-sets (back to back to back, rest, repeat).
The sets will go as follows, for every exercise:
set 1 set 2 set 3
10 reps – rest 45 seconds– 10 reps – no rest – lift til failure (15 + reps)
For the last set, drop the weight in half right after the 2nd set, and lift right away until you fail (drop set). You should pump out 15 reps or more.
All 3 weeks will be the same as the first week so I won’t write it out 3x. If you have any questions, ask me in the comments section.
Week 1
A. Seated dumbbell press
B. Barbell bench press
C. Wide grip pull-ups – do pull downs if you can’t do a chin-up
D. Bent over barbell rows
E. Deadlift
F. Squats
abs
Week 2
A. Leg press
B. Sumo deadlifts
C. Reverse grip chin-ups
D. Incline bench press
E. Standing barbell shoulder press
abs
Week 3
A. Bench press
B. Seated shoulder press
C. Wide grip pull-ups
D. Bent over T-bar rows
E. Deadlift
F. Front squats
abs
If you have any questions please ask. Programs can be hard to read especially in this format.
If you have any questions about the workouts just let me know as well and I’ll try and get a video up.
Good luck!
