In this post:
- How much can you feasibly build over time?
- Workout splits
- Off Season length
All right, lets talk sexy ass curves. By that I mean muscle. That fibril tissue under layers of skin and fat moving your skeleton around which creates those sexy humps and bad assery don’t f*** with me look.
Yep. That’s me ;D. Off season bod, 22-24% BF per dexa scan. I feel strong and sexy fo sho! Although, posing and camera angles certainly help the figure a bit too… jus sayin…
Anyhoo, back to the muscle talk. When a person comes to me and wants to achieve the bod of a bikini, figure or physique woman, they have to understand what it takes to build that muscle. Time is your friend my friend, with the exception of a newbie lifter. Newbie lifters will gain muscle at a faster rate than a more seasoned gym rat.
1) How much can you feasibly build over time?
First, let’s talk how much can you feasibly gain…. IF proper nutrition is in place and IF you have a good program going on, THEN…..
According to Lyle McDonald the following is a chart showing how much muscle you could potentially gain. For women, cut the muscle gains number in half..
The following is Alna Aragon‘s take on much you can gain per month which essentially comes out to be the same as above. Again, cut in half for women…
Aside from gender, age and genetics will play a role in muscle gains too. Younger men and women will usually build faster and easier than their older counterparts. The newbie gym rat and the lucky genetically elite will also build muscle much faster and easier then others such as myself.
Now that you have an idea of how much muscle a person can gain over time, lets talk about splits…
2) Workout splits
Before moving on, keep in mind this very general rule of thumb for rep ranges.
- 1-5 reps = Strength
- 6-12 = Hypertrophy (size)
- 12+ = Endurance
As stated above, the newbies and genetically elite will gain muscle just thinking about it and can get away with a bro split most of the time. The bro split is usually a method where you lift each muscle group one time per week leaving ample time for each muscle group to recover.
1x per week bro split
This is a typical split where you lift each muscle group once per week. This is great for newbies and can be put into a 3, 4 or 5 day split. Each day is worked in the same rep range. Here is one example:
- Day 1: Back 6-12 reps
- Day 2: Chest 6-12 reps
- Day 3: Rest
- Day 4: Legs and abs 6-12 reps
- Day 5: Biceps and triceps 6-12 reps
- Day 6: Shoulders 6-12 reps
- Day 7: Rest
OR
- Day 1: Back and biceps
- Day 2: Rest
- Day 3: Chest, shoulders and triceps
- Day 4: Rest
- Day 5: Legs and abs
- Day 6: Rest
- Day 7: Rest
Now, if you are not a newbie nor genetically elite (or are genetically elite), the following volumes has been shown to be superior to the bro split:
muscle groups 2x per week
This is a split where you work muscle groups twice per week in differing rep ranges. Great for beginners with good form and intermediate lifters (of course, with good form). A typical example is a push/pull split:
Push movements: chest, shoulders, triceps
Pull movements: back, biceps
- Day 1: Pull-Back and biceps- reps 10-15
- Day 2: Push-Chest, shoulders and triceps- reps 6-8
- Day 3: Legs and abs- reps 10-15
- Day 4: Pull- Back and biceps- 6-8
- Day 5: Push- Chest, shoulders and triceps- 10-15
- Day 6: Legs and abs- 6-8
- Day 7: Rest
Bikini girl rep ranges may look like this to put more emphasis on building the lower half utilizing more endurance rep ranges for the upper body but you still need upper body muscle for symmetry! Adjust your program accordingly.
- Day 1: Pull-Back and biceps- reps 15-20
- Day 2: Push-Chest, shoulders and triceps- reps 20-30
- Day 3: Legs and abs- reps 15-20
- Day 4: Pull- Back and biceps- 20-30
- Day 5: Push- Chest, shoulders and triceps- 15-20
- Day 6: Legs and abs- 6-8
- Day 7: Rest
muscle groups 3x per week
This is a great split for intermediate/ experienced lifters and those that need to bring up a lagging muscle group. Say you need to build your shoulders but your legs are daBomb.com (this is my scenario). I would work shoulders 3x per week in differing rep ranges while bringing another muscle group down to 1x per week such as legs or chest. If I compete in bikini, I want to continue lifting legs multiple times per week so I would lift legs in higher rep ranges like 15-20 and 20-30.
Another example: Say you need to build shoulders while your back, biceps, chest and legs are in a good place and your triceps are all extra big…
- Day 1: Push-Chest, shoulders, abs- reps 3-5
- Day 2: Pull-Back and biceps- reps 15-20
- Day 3: Legs and abs- reps 6-8
- Day 4: Push- Chest, shoulders and triceps- 8-12
- Day 5: Pull- Back and biceps-high rep 6-8
- Day 6: Legs, shoulders- 15-20
- Day 7: Rest
What ever program you are working, pay attention to symmetry over time. See 4 Smart Ways to Balance Your Bikini Bod. You have no idea how many gals I see only lift legs and booty and not lifting upper body for fear of getting giant upper bodies, (see Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess) or guys that lift only upper body… for riz…. not good, really, not good.
3) Off season length
The off season… a commonly underestimated time frame only because sometimes it can be too short!
By off season, I am talking about the time frame a person is eating good nutrition at maintenance or more calories and lifting like a beast while keeping cardio to a minimum to maximize muscle gains and ensure that in their next contest prep their body will respond and lose fat when adding cardio and decreasing calories.
If you need to put on some size to obtain that natural pro figure or pro physique status, you need a good long off season. If you are an assisted athlete taking anabolics, you have more lee way with off season time frames as well as contest prep length. For the natural athlete, you need to make every effort to muscle hack your way to major beast status and then hold onto that muscle when cutting cals to get shredded.
Your official muscle building off season starts when you have reversed up to maintenance calories…. not immediately after your competition.
If you compete every spring and fall, you have no time to make real gainz. The only time between seasons you are leaving yourself is time to regain lost muscle from your previous cut phase and regain some sort of physiological balance before you hit cal cutting mode again.
Say you compete in the May. Your cut phase was February- May. You sort of reversed June/July, then started a cut phase in July/August for September/ October shows.
Competing two seasons per year (spring /fall) = no growth time
…not to mention some crazy stuff with your hormones. See also: 3 Reasons for Diet Plateaus (3 reasons why its so hard to get and stay lean)
If you compete one season per year every year, you only leave yourself about 3-4 months of good muscle building time. After you have cut for about 3-4 months, then reverse for 3 months regaining lost muscle in that reverse time frame, you don’t have a lot of time to really build before you are cutting again.
Competing one season per year = 3-4 months muscle growth time
Competing every 2 or more years is ideal for the natural athlete that is really after making great gainz before hitting the stage. This gives you plenty of time to regain balance and lost muscle and to really put on size. Make sure to adapt your program to your level of experience in the gym to keep putting on that muscle.
Competing every 2+ years = 12-16+ months of growth time
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