Looking in magazines and through the internet, one can easily find literally thousands upon thousands of workouts to accomplish almost any goal. Some are good, some are significantly less so. In reality, if you lack at least a basic understanding of the fundamental principles behind resistance training and physiology, your chance of success is very limited.

Now to be perfectly honest, I myself have and will continue to use programs designed by other people to great effect. Why would I, a so-called expert, follow someone else’s program? Simple, I don’t believe in re-inventing the wheel, and let’s face it, I’m always learning. However, because of my background and education, I’m quite capable of modifying workouts by selecting different movements and/or load variables for example, to suit my body and requirements. If you choose to follow someone else’s program, and there is nothing wrong with doing so, you must be able to recognize how to modify the program to suit you.

Even the most well-designed program will eventually fail to give you results in time if left unchanged, so be willing to modify or abandon the plan if it isn’t working. That being said, in order to make adjustments to any training program you must understand the essentials for program design.

If you take a good, hard look at the various muscle-building/mass-building programs out there, you’ll notice most sound training plans tend to be based on a few proven ideas or concepts. For example:

• Stick to basic compound movements. Such as squats, deadlifts, overhead presses and bench press.
• Progression through various means and methods, such as load (weight used), intensity and frequency.
• Challenge you to lift loads heavy enough to illicit an adaptive response.
• Recognize the importance of the nervous system (CNS) in muscle building.
• Utilize the equation Force = Mass x Acceleration (F=MA). Basically – lift heavy, lift fast.
• Provide enough strategic variation in exercise selection to minimize stagnation.
• Control fatigue for best results. Remember the old adage “Stimulate don’t annihilate!”

This might all sound complex, but it doesn’t have to be executed as such. A workout I’ve used with tremendous success is based around the standby 5 sets of 5 reps or 5 X 5 volume protocol. Without getting into the neuroscience surrounding myo-fibrous activation, it seems muscle responds to the timed stimulus achieved with this 5 X 5 parameter. Essentially it’s tough to go wrong when planning your volume and intensity when adhering to 5 X 5.

So, a simple but brutally effective workout utilizing the 5 X 5 approach might look something like this:

• Warm-up (I prefer active mobility bodyweight exercises)
• Squats
• Chest Press
• Bent-Over Rows with an overhand grip
• Military Press

You should likely try to perform a variation on the above lifts every second workout front:

• Front Squats
• Flat Dumbbell Presses
• Bent-Over Rows with an overhand grip
• Seated Dumbbell Press

Challenge yourself with increasing loads every week and something this simple should yield MASSive results!

Next week we’ll look at some principles surrounding fat loss and why most people just don’t get it!  Hint: Just say NO to Cardio!!