Bulking Workout Routine: How to Maximize Muscle Growth

Whether you’re trying to build muscle, burn fat, or do both at the same time, you should be training for hypertrophy—for muscle growth. That’s why bulking, cutting, and body recomposition workouts are usually fairly similar.

Still, bulking workouts are special in three ways:

• More food means more energy and greater recovery. That means you can train harder and stimulate more muscle growth. You could train more often, do more exercises, do more sets, or push closer to failure.
• It might be worth doing more isolation exercises. Your arms and abs get plenty of stimulation from compound exercises, which is often enough to maintain their size and strength while cutting. That makes isolation exercises somewhat optional. But when you’re bulking, you have the opportunity to push it further, training them harder, bulking them up much faster.
• You can scale back cardio. It still helps to be active or do cardio, but you don’t need as much, especially if you’re pouring more energy into lifting weights or having trouble eating enough calories to gain weight.

Plus, it’s even more important to maximize muscle stimulation when you’re bulking. You’re eating enough calories to gain weight, and those extra calories can either be invested into muscle growth, stored as fat, or a mix of both. Thus, the more muscle growth you stimulate, the more of those extra calories will be invested into muscle, leaving fewer to be stored as fat.

Compare that to a cutting workout, where you have less energy, and all you need to do is maintain your muscle size. Maintaining muscle requires far less stimulation than gaining muscle, so cutting workouts can be shorter and easier.

The Best Workout Split for Bulking

3-Day Full-Body Bulking Workout

Full-body workout routines are by far the most efficient way to stimulate muscle growth. You stimulate every muscle, let them recover and grow, and then train them again. That keeps your body growing steadily all week long.

Full-body workouts also let you take advantage of supersets, where you alternate between training different muscle groups. And they let you do the biggest, best exercises 2–3 times per week.

• Monday: Full-Body Workout 1
• Tuesday: Rest
• Wednesday: Full-Body Workout 2
• Thursday: Rest
• Friday: Full-Body Workout 3
• Saturday: Rest
• Sunday: Rest Again

The downside is that it’s hard. It’s hard to do a pressing exercise, a pulling exercise, a squat, a deadlift variation, and then move on to isolation exercises. The workouts aren’t long. You can get through them in 45–90 minutes. But they’re dense and heavy and tiring, especially as you get stronger and the weights get heavier.

So here’s what I recommend: start with a full-body workout routine, milk it for as long as you can, and then switch to a 4–5 day split or a 3–4 day specialization program if the workouts start feeling too draining.

I’ll give you a full-body bulking routine in a second, including a detailed tutorial video and workout sheets. But let’s cover the other training splits first.

4-Day Bulking Workouts

When full-body routines become too difficult, you can spread the work to a fourth day. That means you need to spend an extra day training, but the workouts are easier and more refreshing. It works great for intermediate lifters.

The Upper/Lower Split is the classic 4-day bulking routine (guide here):

• Monday: Lower Body
• Tuesday: Upper Body
• Wednesday: Rest
• Thursday: Lower Body
• Friday: Upper Body
• Saturday: Rest
• Sunday: Rest

When Marco was training college, professional, and Olympic athletes, he had most of them on one of these Upper/Lower splits. Having two lower-body days per week helps athletes run faster and jump higher. It helps powerlifters get strong at squats and deadlifts. And it gives bodybuilders the covetted X-Frame physique, with broad shoulders and thick thighs.

The downside is that most guys prefer emphasizing their upper bodies, developing more of a V-taper, not an X-taper.

Most guys prefer a Bro Split (guide here):

• Monday: Chest Day
• Tuesday: Rest
• Wednesday: Back Day
• Thursday: Rest
• Friday: Leg day
• Saturday: Arm Day
• Sunday: Rest

The Bro Split gives you one Leg Day per week, which is enough to make solid progress. It also puts quite a lot of emphasis on your upper body, and especially on your arms. That makes it popular with guys chasing aesthetics.

Personally, I love emphasizing my upper body, and I love training four days per week, but I prefer training my chest and back together, giving them a better training frequency for gaining size and strength. So, I’d rather have an Upper/Lower/Upper/Arms or Full/Full/Full/Arms split. That’s what we do in our Legends Aesthetics Program.

5-Day Bulking Workouts

5-day workout routines are overkill for most people, most of the time. Mind you, when you’re bulking, you can recover and benefit from the extra stimulation. It’s the perfect time to pour more time and effort into lifting weights.

There are two situations where 5-day routines work incredibly well:

• You like doing shorter, easier workouts every day. Maybe you have a home gym, or the gym is on your way home from work. Maybe you find longer workouts too tiring. Maybe you want a quick, refreshing workout every day. This can work great for everyone at every level.
• You’re an experienced lifter going all-in on muscle growth. If you’re a beginner, this would be overkill, and you’d be flirting with injury. But maybe you’re an intermediate or advanced lifter and want to spend a few months pouring all of your effort into building muscle.

The downside is when you’re lifting weights five times per week, it doesn’t leave much time for cardio. That’s why I usually recommend lifting 3–4 days per week and doing cardio 2–4 days per week. But there’s nothing wrong with easing back on cardio for a few months. Cardio is great while bulking, but it isn’t mandatory.

The most popular 5-day bulking routine is the Bro Split:

• Monday: Chest Day
• Tuesday: Back Day
• Wednesday: Shoulder Day
• Thursday: Leg Day
• Friday: Arm Day
• Saturday: Rest
• Sunday: Rest

It’s a great routine, and if you’re smart about it, you can sneak some chest and back work into your Shoulder Day and/or Arm Day, giving you a great training frequency for your entire upper body.

You can put the rest days wherever you like, but most people like to pack their workouts into the work week and take the weekend off (or use it for cardio).

My favourite 5-day workout split is an Upper/Lower split with an extra upper-body workout:

• Monday: Upper (Bench Emphasis)
• Tuesday: Lower (Deadlift Emphasis)
• Wednesday: Upper (Overhead Press Emphasis)
• Thursday: Lower (Squat Emphasis)
• Friday: Upper (Chin-Up Emphasis)
• Saturday: Rest
• Sunday: Rest

The advantage here is that you can alternate between pushing and pulling exercises in all of your upper-body workouts, making your workouts more efficient and giving you a better training frequency. This is the 5-day split we use in our Outlift Intermediate Hypertrophy Program.

The Bulking Workout Routine

The best default bulking routine is the 3-day full-body split. It’s the most efficient way to train and has a great mix of stimulation, recovery, and growth. I made a full video walking you through the workout routine and showing you all the exercises:

I made you some free workout spreadsheets. These workout sheets let you change the exercises, swap in dumbbell and barbell variations, and record how much weight you’re lifting and how many reps you get.

They’re Google Sheets, which means you can open them up in your web browser on a computer or download the free Google Sheets app on any smartphone or tablet. You can keep the sheets forever and customize them as much as you like. No monthly fees. No catch.

In the rest of the article, I’ll walk you through the bulking workout routine, explaining how to do the workouts. The workout sheets have links to tutorial videos, and they change automatically depending on which exercises you choose from the dropdown menus. There are links to tutorial videos here, too.

The Warm-Up Routine

If you have a warm-up routine that works for you, feel free to keep doing it. We like to use a warm-up routine that encourages good posture while lifting. We call it the Core Four:

As you get better at lifting, you may not need warm-ups anymore. You can start dropping the warm-up exercises you don’t need anymore. You can also start adding new drills that address any specific issues you’re running into.

Workout 1

The first workout is a straightforward bulking workout for size, strength, and aesthetics. Every exercise here will help you pack on muscle, especially in your upper body.

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Bench Press	3–4 sets	10
One-Arm Rows	3–4 sets	AMRAP
Romanian Deadlifts	2–3 sets	10
Push-Ups	2–3 sets	AMRAP
Dumbbell Curl	2–3 sets	12
Overhead Extension	2–3 sets	AMRAP
Lateral Raises	2–3 sets	12

You can do these exercises one by one, resting 2 minutes between each set. If you want to save time, though, you can superset the exercises together:

• Superset 1: Do a set of dumbbell bench presses, rest for a minute, and then use the same dumbbells to do your one-arm rows, doing as many reps as you can with that weight. Rest another minute, then go back to your bench press.
• Superset 2: Same thing with your Romanian deadlifts and push-ups. Do your deadlifts, rest for a minute, and then drop down for a set of push-ups, doing As Many Reps As Possible (AMRAP). Rest for another minute, then back to Romanian deadlifts.
• Superset 3: You can superset your curls, extensions, and lateral raises together, making a “giant set.” Start with a set of biceps curls, aiming for around 12 reps. Then, use that same weight to do overhead triceps extensions, doing as many reps as you can. And then use a lighter weight for lateral raises.

Supersets stimulate the same amount of muscle growth as regular Straight Sets, but they cut down the length of your workout by around 30%. They also keep your heart rate high, which is pretty decent cardio (though not as good as a proper cardio workout).

Workout 2

This second workout starts with big bulking exercises, then shifts into easier exercises for your core and posture. The workout sheets let you swap those exercises for muscle-building exercises, but if you’re still relatively new to lifting, I’d keep the workouts as is.

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Goblet Squat	3–4 sets	10
Underhand Lat Pulldown	3–4 sets	10
1-Arm Overhead Press	2–3 sets	10
Cable Row	2–3 sets	10
Farmer Carry	2–3 sets	40 steps
Front Plank	2–3 sets	5–10 slow breaths
Side Plank	2–3 sets	5–10 slow breaths

Farmer carries aren’t very popular in bulking routines, but I think they should be. They’re great for strengthening your posture, traps, and grip.

You don’t need to get that close to failure on front and side planks. You absolutely can. There’s nothing wrong with going hard. But it’s also okay to think of those exercises more like drills, a stretching routine, or a cooldown. They’re there to teach you how to maintain a rigid posture under load.

Workout 3

The third workout is another pure bulking workout, similar to the first one. All of these exercises are perfect for building muscle all through your body, with extra emphasis on your arms and shoulders.

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Goblet Squat	3–4 sets	10
Underhand Lat Pulldown	3–4 sets	10
Romanian Deadlift	2–3 sets	10
Push-Ups	2–3 sets	AMRAP
Dumbbell Curl	2–3 sets	12
Overhead Extension	2–3 sets	AMRAP
Lateral Raises	2–3 sets	12

This is my favourite sequence of exercises for packing muscle onto beginners. The first four exercises are huge, and they’ll stimulate muscle growth all through your body. And then you get the three most reliable arm exercises.

Effort

Reps in Reserve: The workout sheets mark down how close to failure you should lift on which exercises. We call this Reps in Reserve (RIR). If the sheet says 3 RIR, then stop about 3 reps shy of failure. If it says 0 RIR, lift until you can’t get another rep with good technique.

You have to push yourself hard. If the weight isn’t challenging you, then it won’t stimulate muscle growth. You don’t need to train all the way to failure on every set of every exercise, but you need to get within 2–3 reps of failure (2–3 RIR).

It’s hard to know what it feels like to get 2–3 reps from failure until you have a lot of practice lifting to failure. So, I recommend taking the final sets of some exercises all the way to failure. Plus, the closer you go to failure, the more muscle growth you stimulate per set.

I wouldn’t make a habit of lifting to failure on your squat, bench press, or deadlift variations, but I recommend going to failure on the last set of exercises where it’s safer, like push-ups, rows, lat pulldowns, biceps curls, triceps extensions, and lateral raises.

Progressive Overload

Progressive overload is even more important than effort. That’s because if you keep trying to add weight to your exercises and keep fighting to get more reps than last time, your workouts will eventually get challenging enough to maximize muscle growth.

At first, your coordination will improve, allowing you to lift more weight. You’ll also get better at pushing harder and grinding through the sticking point, allowing you to get more reps. But your coordination won’t improve forever. Soon, succeeding at adding weight will mean you’ve succeeded at building muscle.

Bulking makes it way easier to progressively overload your exercises. Your body is flooded with extra energy, and it will delight in investing that energy into muscle and strength. You should be able to add weight or reps to most exercises most weeks, especially as a beginner or intermediate lifter.

If you aren’t getting stronger, check the scale. Are you eating enough food to gain at least a little bit of weight every week? If you aren’t, progressively overload your calories, too: eat a little bit more. Add another 100–200 calories to your diet. Keep weighing yourself and adjusting.

Volume

The ideal training volume for building muscle is usually somewhere in the neighbourhood of 8–22 sets per muscle per week (full explanation). Some specialization programs push the volume higher for certain muscles (like this Arm Specialization Program), but when you’re bulking up your entire body, you need to spread the volume out.

When you’re maintaining or cutting, you can graze the lower end, doing as few as 8 sets per muscle per week. While you’re bulking, you can reach higher, working up to 12, 18, or even 22 sets per muscle per week.

Your workout routine doesn’t need to be completely balanced. It’s common for guys to want to emphasize their upper bodies. Maybe you do 8 sets for your lower-body muscles and 16 for your upper-body muscles. That’s up to you.

The trick is to start your bulking program at the lower end of the range (around 8 sets) and then work up as desired (as high as 22). Don’t get caught in the trap of needlessly increasing volume, though. Keep your workouts challenging and efficient. Fight for progressive overload. If that’s going well, and if you want even more, then you can gradually add sets, one by one, week by week, to some of the exercises.

To quote the hypertrophy researcher, Dr. Eric Helms, “It doesn’t make sense to increase volume if it decreases literally anything else that could be associated with hypertrophy. So, if an increase in volume results in poorer exercise selection, being further from failure, not performing exercises in such a way that stimulates the muscles you’re intending, reduces your intentionality or focus, or reduces the loads you’re using.”

How Fast Can You Build Muscle?

There’s a myth that muscle growth only starts a few weeks after you start bulking. I suspect that’s because it takes a while for muscle growth to reach statistical significance in muscle-building studies. In my experience working with thousands of clients, we often see tremendous growth in just the first few weeks:

• 4–10 pounds gained on the scale.
• Bigger arm, chest, hip, thigh, and shoulder measurements.
• Smaller or equal waist measurement.

Growth steadies out from there, and we usually see 10–20 pounds within the first 5 months, with 1–2 inches gained in the arms and a few inches around the shoulders. If you’re curious, you can see the average results our members get.

You can control your rate of weight gain with the amount of food you eat. The larger your calorie surplus, the faster you’ll gain weight. I have a video on that above. I also wrote an article about how fast you should gain weight while bulking.

Download the Workout Program

The Full Bulking Program

This article aims should give you everything you need to start training for muscle growth. We haven’t sneakily omitted anything. Nothing is locked behind a paywall. I’ll also happily answer your questions in the comments below. This is supposed to be a free resource.

If you want even more information and personal support, including an analysis of your starting point and personal feedback as you go, then we have a full 5-month bulking program:

The workouts in our Bony to Beastly Program are similar to these ones, but they’re periodized, meaning we gradually increase the sets from week to week, and we progress the exercises and rep ranges every five weeks. Plus, you can choose your exercises from dropdown menus and track your progress using spreadsheets (if you want).

The main benefit of our bulking program is all the extra content and coaching it includes. It comes with a diet and lifestyle guide, a recipe book full of healthy and convenient bulking recipes, and sample meal plans you can get inspiration from (or follow verbatim). And as mentioned above, we’ll guide you through the program personally.

I’m glad you made it this far. Good luck!