4 Day Progressive Overload Split

This routine is primarily designed for those who have at least a year of training experience. My main goal is to gain muscle and I have seen fantastic gains from using this routine which is a little more strength based. It’s good to change things up and working in this routine for 10-12 weeks could help you increase your strength in the big lifts as well as increasing muscle size. You can then use your new found strength gains to push more weight in your normal bodybuilding routines and keep packing on the muscle! Try and stick with the same big compound exercises for at least 6 weeks focusing on progressive overload, i.e lifting slightly more each week. Then if you want to change it up use the alternative exercises for the next 6 weeks. For example flat BB bench press for 6 weeks and then Incline BB bench for the next 6 weeks. I like to pyramid my sets so for example I’ll do 6 reps at 20kg, 4 reps at 25kg, and then 2 reps at 30kg. I do at least 2 sets of the 2 reps and then drop the weight back for a final set of 4-6 reps. It helps to gauge how strong you are feeling each week and if you can add weight to last weeks lifts which you should be aiming to do. In terms of rest times I have been extending it compared to my usual muscle building routines. For the big compound exercises I rest for around 2 minutes, you can squeeze it down on the exercises with slightly higher reps to 1-1.5 minutes of rest. You can check out my Workout Log to see my progress with this routine and to get more of an idea on the sets / reps that I use.