Muscle-Building Workouts: A Beginner's Guide!

Build muscle and strength with one of our all-time most popular workout routines! Beginners and advanced lifters can both add lean muscle mass with 20 weeks of solid training on a 5-day workout split.

Muscle-Building Workouts: A Beginner's Guide! banner

Main | Bigger Arms | Bigger Back | Bigger Chest | Bigger Legs | Bigger Shoulders | Muscular Abs

There's nothing magical about this muscle-building workout series. Every bit of it is hard work—but it's hard work that has helped millions to build a foundation of muscle and strength and to fall in love with lifting over the last 10 years.

Know which muscles you want to work, but not how to work them? You've come to the right place! This 20-week bodybuilding workout program will give you exposure to fundamentals of free-weight training. Train hard, eat to grow, and take the best muscle-building supplements, and this could be the program that changes everything.

The Best Workouts to Build Bigger Arms

Beginner-friendly arm-day workouts are often so simple and boring that they're barely worth doing. Not these! Get excited and get to the gym to start this 20-week series focused on building your biceps and triceps.

The Best Workouts to Build a Bigger Back

A bigger back is the foundation of a bigger upper body! These five back workouts will set up anyone, from a beginner to an advanced lifter, for five months or more of weekly training, plus give you back muscles that will test the limits of your t-shirt!

The Best Workouts to Build a Bigger Chest

Beginners and more advanced lifters can build a massive chest with these 5 weekly chest day workouts for size. This pec program will set you up for a full upper-body transformation.

The Best Ab Workouts to Build a Muscular Six-Pack

Want to know how to get abs? Train your core with ab workouts that will build size and definition right where you want to see it! This 20-week ab workout program is all you need.

The Best Workouts to Get Bigger Legs

Leg day is calling. Are you ready to pick up? These five brutal leg workouts can help add muscle mass to any lifter's lower body. Beginner or advanced, your new favorite lower-body workout is right here.

The Best Workouts to Get Bigger Shoulders

These five muscle-building shoulder workouts can help add size and definition to any lifter's upper body. Beginner or advanced, your new favorite delt pump is right here.

What's the Workout Schedule?

The workouts in this series can be done on any schedule that works for you. But since they follow a body-part split, where you only work one muscle group per day, some arrangements work better than others. For instance, you shouldn't train shoulders the day after chest, since they use many of the same muscles and fatigue will limit your performance. Here's the best schedule to follow:

  • Monday: Chest or shoulders (choose one)
  • Tuesday: Back and abs
  • Wednesday: Shoulders or chest (whichever you didn't do on Monday)
  • Thursday: Legs
  • Friday: Arms and abs
  • Saturday and Sunday: Rest

If you miss a workout, just move it to the next day, and make up your arms and abs on Saturday. If you find yourself consistently missing workouts, maybe a five-day split isn't for you right now. Consider a program that is 3-4 days per week and combines body parts in a full-body or upper/lower arrangement.

Here are some of the most popular ones in BodyFit: