How To Structure a Strength Workout for Muscle Gains

If you went to a gym and simply started working out on machines randomly, without any structure, you would not be seeing much muscle growth. While all workouts are beneficial to your overall fitness level, the key to getting bigger and stronger muscles is to work hard and smart. That includes understanding why your muscles get bigger and how to utilise that knowledge in practice.

That is why we wrote this article - we will discuss the science behind muscle growth and how to structure your strength workout for muscle gains. So let’s get started.

Explaining Muscle Hypertrophy

First, we should talk about muscle hypertrophy, as that is the biological process that enables your muscles to get bigger and stronger - workouts for muscle gain utilise and optimise it. In simple terms, exercise causes small tears in muscles, and as they repair, they grow bigger. Exercise also builds up byproducts like lactate to help muscles grow further. This is called muscle hypertrophy.

There are two types of hypertrophy: myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Myofibrillar hypertrophy involves enlarging the muscle's contractile components, such as muscle fibres, to enhance strength, and typically results from lifting heavy weights with low repetitions. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy increases the fluid and energy stores within muscles, leading to larger muscle size, and is achieved through moderate weights and higher repetitions.

To maximise muscle growth, it is best to combine different weight and repetition ranges. Additionally, nutrition is very important for optimising gain - eating enough protein and calories is key for muscle repair and growth. Rest and recovery are also crucial to prevent overtraining and allow your muscles to repair. These principles help you increase both muscle size and strength effectively.

So how is that applied in practice?

Frequency, Volume, and Weight

Most research indicates that muscles should be exercised at least two to three times a week to promote growth and change. Therefore, you should be aiming to work out at least twice a week, but no more than six times, to allow your muscles to repair. While daily workouts might seem beneficial, rest days are essential for muscle building.

In practice, that means you should go for a schedule that includes working out three or four times per week if you are starting out. Your rest days should be interspersed between your workouts, as too much continuous rest is not conducive to muscle gains. Try not to have more than two consecutive rest days to see the most benefits.

If you have been working out for some time, you can go for five or six workouts per week, but make sure you leave at least one rest day for your muscle fibres to repair. Regarding the number of repetitions (volume) of an exercise, there is no hard and fast rule, but going for three to four sets of eight to ten reps per exercise is a good place to start.

When it comes to the amount of weight you should be working out with, the point is to make your workouts challenging but not impossible. The point is to be able to do all the reps of a set so that the last few are difficult but manageable and you don’t think you could do another set properly. 

The Progressive Overload Principle

The job is not done after you’ve found your ideal number of sets, reps, and weights per workout. Over time, and generally more quickly at the beginning, your muscles will adapt, and you will be able to more easily do your exercises. Up to a point, you will continue getting stronger and your muscles will continue going, but then you will plateau and won’t be seeing gains.

When you feel that is happening, you need to apply the principle of progressive overload. This principle is simple - it means increasing the difficulty of your exercises over time, either by increasing the weight, reps, or intensity. You again need to find the point where your exercises are challenging but not impossible. This will allow your muscles to continue growing. All that’s left is to apply everything we talked about to a workout

How To Structure Your Strength Workout

Once you know how often you will be working out per week, you can start thinking about how you will structure your workouts. If you will be working out three times a week, all of your workouts can be full-body workouts; if you will be working out four times a week, you can divide them between lower- and upper-body workouts; and for five or more times, you can do splits where each workout is dedicated to one muscle group.

However, unless you have been working out for years and have plateaued, you don’t need to think of the splits - each workout can be a full-body workout, and you will be seeing gains. That is the principle we will apply when explaining how to structure your training. Each strength workout should include three phases:  

• Warm-up: The warm-up phase should take between five to fifteen minutes to prepare your body for the training and to prevent potential injuries. Do some cardio, like a jog on a treadmill, and some dynamic exercises for the muscle groups you will be working out - think jumping jacks, arms and hip circles, and leg swings.
• Strength training: This will be the bulk of your workout so we will discuss it in more detail below.
• Stretching: After you are done with strength training, you should do some cooldown stretches. Your muscles will be warmed up, so it will be easier to do static stretches - stretching promotes muscle recovery and can contribute to muscle gains.

Strength Training

Your strength workout should include four to six exercises in the volume we discussed above - three to four sets of eight to ten repetitions. For optimal muscle growth, a 2022 systemic review of medical literature found that 12 - 20 weekly sets for each muscle group is ideal for achieving hypertrophy.  

This fits into three to four sets per exercise even if you are working out only three times per week if you are doing full-body workouts, assuming your workout will include four to six exercises that each target different muscle groups. When it comes to the order of exercises, it is recommended you start with compound exercises.

Compound exercises are those that work out multiple muscle groups at once, such as deadlifts or bench presses. These are typically the hardest exercises, so you should do them while you are not yet exhausted. After that, you can do isolation exercises - those that target one muscle group and involve only one joint, biceps curls or dumbbell chest flyers. 

A sample strength workout of this type could be:

• Goblet squats
• Bench presses
• Planks
• Hamstring curls
• Biceps curls

You can use this workout structure, vary the exercises based on what you wish to focus on, and simply apply the progressive overload principle for (likely) years, and you should be continually getting stronger and seeing your muscles grow. 

Doing a Strong Workout for Muscle Growth at Home

Most people would think that you need to go to a gym to properly do strength workouts for muscle growth. While gyms should have what you need for a proper workout, that doesn’t mean you can’t do it at home. You just need the right gear. And you can find it at Flex Equipment.

We have all the strength equipment you need for your home gym, from multi-functional trainers to single-station machines. You can also find weights & barbells in many weights and sizes, and even recovery gear if you wish to speed up that process. All you need to do is find the product you need, place your order online, and we will ship it to your address.

And in case you have questions or need assistance, feel free to contact us - we will respond as soon as we can.