The 5×5 muscle building workout program is a classic. Learn the 3 main variations of this program and choose the right one for you.

The 5 sets of 5 reps program is one of the classic muscle building workout programs. It was popularized by the legendary strength coach Bill Starr in the 1970s, but still enjoys popularity in many gyms around the world.

You may think that a program as simple as 5×5 needs no explanation. That is true to a certain extent, as I could tell you to do 5×5 and you would immediately know what to do. However, the program can be (and has been) interpreted in a variety of ways. So let’s take a look at the three main variations of the 5×5 muscle building workout program.

1. Straight sets
This is the classic interpretation of the program. Simply pick an exercise and a weight and stick with it for 5 sets, attempting to complete 5 reps each set. If you end up choosing too heavy of a weight to complete all 5 sets of 5 reps, then stick with that weight when you do the exercise next time. For example: 225×5, 225×5, 225×5, 225×4, 225×3. You are to use the same weight until you can complete 5 sets of 5 reps, and only then increase the weight.

2. Work Up
This variation allows you start with a lighter weight and work up over the 5 sets to your 5 rep maximum for the day. This means that the 5th set is your heaviest. Here is how this might look: 135×5, 185×5, 225×5, 275×5, 315×5.
The next week you would come back and try to increase the weight on every set, but pay particular attention to increasing the weight on the 5th and final set.

3. Work Up and Down
This variation is similar to the previous, except that you work up in weight more quickly so that your heaviest set is your 3rd set. Once you hit your heavy third set, you decrease the weight for the 4th and 5th sets. For example: 185×5, 225×5, 275×5, 245×5, 225×5.
The next week you would try to increase the weight on every set, but especially on sets 3, 4, and 5.

The 5×5 program is one of those classic muscle building workout programs that will never go out of style. There are endless variations of this program and each will have its own specific effects on strength and hypertrophy.

Always remember that any training program will only work for a short period of time, and 5×5 is no exception. For long-term, consistent results you need to know the science behind how to change your program over time and how to combine it with a complementary nutrition and recovery program to enhance your strength and muscle mass.

Find more muscle building workout programs and get a FREE report on muscle building called "The 13 Reasons You Suck at Gaining Muscle."

By Tony Schwartz Published: 7/16/2008

How To Gain Muscle Mass The Correct Way | Build Muscle Tone

People who enter the world of bodybuilding have always asked how to go about building mass. People new to body building get stuck up in all sorts of myths.

Proper Steps to a Bodybuilding Workout

The Steps in a Bodybuilding Workout: Having just decided that you want to build your muscles mass and find the right bodybuilding books, and workout program…

Workout Routines To Tone Your Body

Blogging About The Truth To Gain Weight & Build Muscle Mass! Exposing Bodybuilding & Supplement Industry Lies & News. 

How Long Will it Take Me To Build Muscle?

The timespan involved in building muscle will depend on certain issues. The real question should be, how long will it take you as an individual to build muscle mass. Working out your own body type is the first place to start. 

Technorati Tags: building muscle mass workouts, building muscle tips, workout schedule for building muscle

Not long ago I received an email from a frustrated individual who couldn’t understand why he wasn’t making any progress. In short, he wanted to know why he wasn’t building any muscle – even though he was working out four to five times a week.

When I asked him where he got the idea that he need to workout that often, he replied that most the websites he’d been to all listed a whole range of exercises, and that he needed to work out that often in-order to make sure he was using at least half of them.

Now call me simple, but don’t dare call me stupid. The whole point of working out in the first place is to build muscle – and lots of it. How anyone can figure that you need to make sure you are doing every exercise every invented to make worthwhile gains is beside me.

If you want to know the K.I.S.S. method to building muscle faster than you ever thought possible, with the least amount of exercises, then keep reading because you are in for a pleasant surprise.

Here’s the deal: Building muscle is more to do with intensity of effort, rather than the amount of effort. If you are working as hard as you should be to build muscle, than you don’t need to perform very many exercises at all. That is of course if you are performing the best exercises for building muscle in the first place.

So what are the best exercises for building muscle? Well they might not be the ones you think they are. Forget all the pumping exercises like dumbbell flyes, concentration curls, lateral raises and the like, and start thinking barbell squats, bench presses, and barbell rows. The plain fact is that a hard set of barbell squats will do more to indirectly increase the size of your biceps, than all the concentration curls you could do until now and the end of time.

Now get this – because not one in ten guys lifting weights today does. You are trying to build muscle, and to build muscle you need build strength, and to build strength you need to work up to using some impressive poundage in the basic exercises. Nothing else will do.

If you think I’m kidding about the need to increase the weight you lift in the basic exercises, than think again. Almost all the muscle you’ll ever build comes down to progressively lifting heavier and heavier weights in the basic movements. Basic exercises work more than one or two muscle groups, and because of that fact they tend to stimulate a great deal more muscle growth as a result.

So don’t get hung up on isolation movements. Especially if you haven’t built up a foundation first. Focus on the basis exercises listed below instead:

1. Barbell Squats
2. Deadlifts
3. Barbell Rows
4. Chin ups
5. Parallel Dips
6. Bench Presses
7. Shoulder Presses

These are the exercises that will build your physique faster than you ever thought possible – and here’s why. Squats will stimulate growth throughout your entire body – and you probably won’t grow at all without them. Rows and presses will build your upper body fast, and do more indirectly for your arms than all the triceps extensions and concentration curls in the world.

You simply have to forget about making your workouts easier with pumping exercises so that you can workout more often without being sent to the emergency ward. Instead, focus on working out LESS, but making your workouts HARDER with basic movements, and heavier and heavier poundage. You won’t be disappointed.

By: Mike Buckinson

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Mike’s fitness and bodybuilding blog is full of tips and techniques that anyone can use to build muscle fast. Best part is – he gives away more muscle building tips for free in his Huge Gains Fast email newsletter.

Muscle Building Exercises Sculpt Body Without Supplements

Many bodybuilders firmly believe they can add muscles and tone to their bodies without the need for illegal substances.

Workout Schedule for Beginners

The key to the weight lifting schedule above is the actual exercises you choose for each workout. You must choose compound weightlifting exercises that work every major muscle group throughout your workout. … How to tell what kind of muscle building supplement is the best? Since there are so many brands of supplement that you can choose from for improving your workout, it is not easy to choose the right one for building your muscle. 

The Best Way To Build Chest Muscles

Tags: best chest exercise, best chest workout, build muscle, building chest muscles, chest building routine, chest training, home chest exercise, muscle gain secret review.

How To Build Bigger Biceps Muscles Fast | Build Muscle Tone

The ultimate muscle makers for biceps include all rowing exercises for your back and definitely under hand pull-ups. If you simply have to do more sets for you biceps then try standing barbell curls. … So that’s all folks, our short guide to building bigger biceps fast. Check you are following those guidelines and you may just boost your bicep size and build muscle mass quicker than you expected. 

Technorati Tags: best muscle building exercises

If you want a workout to build maximum muscle mass in the least amount of time, you have to include most if not all of these key exercises for the best results.

If you’re interested in fast ways to build muscle and gain weight in record time, naturally you should ask yourself: "What are the best muscle mass building exercises to accomplish this?" The answer is simple, but because the market is flooded with so much garbage all you hear or read about is either the latest supplement or "advanced" exercises. If real, solid, steel-like muscles are what you want then anytime you are introduced to a "new" or "advanced" way of performing an exercise, you’ll do yourself a world of good by throwing it out the window.

Too many times do I see curious skinny gym members look over at the "gym buff" doing some funky exercise upside down on an exercise ball with one leg up flailing a pair of light dumbbells around thinking that if they learned how to perform that exercise they can look like him. Forget about it. Whether it works for him or not is irrelevant, the bottom line is that this type of exercise or anything like it will NOT work for hardgainers.

If an exercise is "new" I can almost guarantee it is far less effective then the simple, basic muscle mass building exercises. Why? Because all of the best exercises for maximum muscle growth have already been accounted for years ago. They have and always will be the number one exercises for the single purpose of how to gain muscle weight fast. Nothing compares and they will never be bested.

Basic or compound exercises allow you to lift more weight, and the heavier weight you can lift, the bigger you will be. With that in mind, what are compound exercises and which are the best for maximum muscle mass? Compound lifts, or multi-joint lifts, are weightlifting exercises that force you to use more then one muscle group, preferably 3 or more.

For example, the bench press is a compound lift because although the primary muscle used is the chest muscle, your shoulders and triceps are also helping to lift the weight. Tricep pushdowns, however, are what’s called an isolation or single-joint exercise. Since this exercise just isolates a single muscle, your triceps, it doesn’t stimulate nearly as much muscle growth as a compound lift would. Though there are many different compound exercises, you must focus only on those that stimulate the most amount of muscle and allow you to lift the heaviest amount of weight.

Here are the granddaddy of all compound muscle mass building exercises that you must include in your workout if you expect to build maximum muscle mass in the least amount of time:

1) Squats (quads, hamstrings, calves, and also has an effect on most of the upper body)

2) Deadlifts (hamstrings, quads, traps, lower back)

3) Bench Press (chest, triceps, and shoulders)

4) Shoulder Press or Military Press (shoulders and triceps)

5) Bent-Over Rows (back, biceps, lats)

6) Pull-Ups (back, biceps, lats)

7) Bar Dips (chest, triceps, shoulders)

If your workout programs to gain muscle don’t include any of these exercises, then don’t expect to grow very much, and don’t expect to grow at all if you are a hardgainer. Try starting your workouts out with one of these exercises first, before you do any other exercises for that same muscle. This will ensure you exert most of your energy into the most important exercises, the ones that will be most responsible for your growth. For example, if you are training your shoulders, start off with the barbell shoulder press before you do any laterals, shrugs, or any other isolation exercise.

A couple of months ago, a friend asked me why he wasn’t gaining any weight and getting any bigger. So I asked him to tell me about his workout. You can probably guess what it was. Sure enough, he was doing about five exercises for each muscle group, mostly isolation exercises. He wasn’t doing any lower body exercises whatsoever, and the only compound exercise he was doing was everybody’s favorite: the bench press.

So here is what I did: I gave him a simple but proven workout program for fast results that consisted of only compound exercises, which in fact doesn’t look too much different from the list of muscle mass building exercises above. I told him to just do a few sets of each exercise a few times a week and to focus on just adding weight to the bar every week. Did he grow? About five weeks later he e-mailed me back and told me of his improvements. He weighed 18 pounds heavier and added around 20 to 30 pounds to each of the compound exercises I told him to do.

Is this a common result? Those who are willing to work hard on just a few compound exercises can expect results like this, even hardgainers. Was it easy? No. He worked hard, just like everyone else who got results like this. No fancy supplements or advanced exercises, just hard work on the key muscle mass building exercises, lots of clean food and plenty of rest.

Now that you know the key muscle mass building exercises for maximum muscle growth in record time, I want you to use them! If you haven’t tried any of them before then you will be in for a treat. They’re tough, they’re demanding, they take sweat and grit and everything you got. They’re not the type of exercises you can do while you hung-over or on 3 hours of sleep. You have to have lots of energy, be properly warmed up, and fully concentrated if you want to get the most out of them.

But they will bring you more results then all of the other exercises put together.

Derek Manuel is the author of the best-selling How to Gain Weight and Build Muscle for Hardgainers. If you want to learn how you too can gain 20 to 30 pounds of solid muscle in as short as 8 weeks, or if you just want more quality information on how to gain weight and build muscle, please visit http://www.hardgainers-weight-tips.com.

By Derek Manuel Published: 8/20/2008

More info on building lots of muscle mass:

Muscle Gain – The Right Workout Routine for Muscle Gain

We’ve always had an interest in programs that build muscle, so when The Truth About building muscle workout program came out, we were interested. We wanted to see if it lived up to the things it promised.

Stretching Tips and Techniques for Bodybuilding

An important component of any fitness, bodybuilding, or strength training is stretching because it prevents injury and prepares the muscle groups before each workout. 

Muscle Building Successful Exercise

Most of the people go for their workouts as if they are going out for a stroll along the road to relax themselves. Your muscle building success is defined by a lot of factors inside and outside your gym.

Technorati Tags: building muscle mass workouts, good workout for building muscle mass

Please contact us at  admin@musclebuildingroutines.org

I will reply to all messages as soon as possible.

Technorati Tags: contact information

Here you will find helpful reviews and articles, and a great deal of information and resources on muscle building. This site is in the format of a ‘weblog’ so that each time we post new information, it will come to the top of the front page. This means that you can check back here frequently to see new updates to the information found here.

You can navigate through the site by using the menus on the sides of the page. Also don’t hesitate to follow the links you see in bold throughout each post to learn more about the product being spoken about.

We hope you will find the information we provide of value to you.

The Webmaster,

Musclebuildingroutines.org

Technorati Tags: about us

Your privacy is important to us. To better protect your privacy we provide this notice explaining our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used. To make this notice easy to find, we make it available on our homepage and at every point where personally identifiable information may be requested.

Our Commitment To Data Security

To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of information, we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

Our Commitment To Children’s Privacy

Protecting the privacy of the very young is especially important. For that reason, we never collect or maintain information at our website from those we actually know are under 18, and no part of our website is structured to attract anyone under 18. Under our Terms of Service, children under 18 are no allowed to access our service.

Collection of Personal Information

On visiting this site, the IP address used to access the site will be logged along with the dates and times of access. This information is purely used to analyse trends, administer the site, track user’s movement, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. Importantly, IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information.

Links to third party websites

We have included links on this site for your reference. We are not responsible for the privacy policies on these websites.

Alterations to this Privacy Statement:

The content of this statement may be altered at any time.

The Webmaster, Musclebuildingroutines.org

admin@musclebuildingroutines.org

Technorati Tags: privacy policy