Bodybuilding Workouts for Men

Tap to Read ➤ Arjun Kulkarni

Every man craves a healthy, attractive body. But which bodybuilders' workout routine will give the desired results? This post has a bodybuilding workout regime that will definitely work.

Everyone wants a great body, but aren't really sure of how to achieve it. There is a lot of confusion about how to exercise, how much to exercise, and how many repetitions are needed. By following a good workout schedule and an effective exercise program, you can have that muscular ripped body that you always wanted.

Bodybuilders Workout Routine

As a beginner, you should be looking at a workout to develop your muscles so that your body is ready for the tough stuff. You should work on only one muscle group a day. This will ensure that your muscles get enough exercise and enough rest as well. So here is a bodybuilding program based on the one-muscle-group-a-day-plan.

Monday: Chest

The chest forms one of the biggest muscle groups on your body. It is essential to warm-up your chest for these exercises. So before you start a chest workout routine, do 20-25 push-ups and stretches so that your body is adequately warmed up.

Upper Chest: For the upper chest particularly, you have incline dumbbell press and incline dumbbell flies. Both these exercises ought to be done, 4 sets each, and up to 10 reps a set.

Mid: For the mid chest, you could do bench press and pec-dec or bench press with chest flies. Chest flies are slightly more difficult than pec-dec as a lot of energy is used to balance the dumbbells. You can do these two exercises in the same format as before: 4 sets each, and 10 reps to a set.

Lower Chest: The lower chest exercises should be tried only once you are assured that you can do the upper and mid chest exercises properly. Lower chest exercises are more difficult as regular beginner workouts do not really tone them up. But if you want the perfect chest, then these exercises are quite essential.

For the perfect lower chest, declined bench press and declined bench flies can be performed. The dumbbells for these exercises may be a little lesser in weight than for normal bench press.

Tuesday: Legs

After a hard chest workout, it is advisable that you give your upper body a little break and perform a lower body workout the next day.

For legs, you can warm-up by doing free-squats and stretches, following which you can proceed to the main routine. There are three main muscles in the legs―quadriceps, hamstrings and calves.

Quadriceps: For quadriceps you can start by doing lunges with dumbbells. You can do 4 sets of lunges, with 10 reps each. You can then either do leg raises on the machine or Smith Machine squats. These too can be done in 4 sets of 10 reps each.

Hamstrings: The hamstring is the muscle on the posterior side of the thigh. To tone up this muscle, you should do leg curls on the machine. This exercise can be done in the same format of 4 sets of 10 reps each.

Calves: There aren't a variety of exercises for your calves and most of them revolve around calf raises. So you could either do the calf raises on a stand or a hack. Ideally, you ought to do both these exercises in 4 sets of 10 reps each.

Wednesday: Biceps

For the biceps, you could do regular bicep curls, thumbs-up curls (hammer curls) and barbell curls. Preacher curls are especially useful for the front part of the biceps. You can do all of these too in 4 sets, with 10 reps to a set.

What most people forget to do are exercises for the forearms. So you could do front wrist curls and back wrist curls on a machine or with a dumbbell/barbell again in 4 sets of 10 reps each.

Thursday: Cardio and Abs

Devote one day a week to a rigorous abs and cardio schedule. Cardiovascular exercises range from running and jogging, to cycling and swimming. Whatever you do, make sure you do it for an hour.

For abs, you should do 3 sets of each―forward crunches for upper abs, reverse crunches for lower abs, and side crunches for obliques. Along with these basic exercises, you can also do the jackknife and v-ups. These exercises have to be done in 4 sets, but with 15-20 reps.

Friday: Triceps and Shoulders

Friday is probably going to be the toughest day of the week as there are two muscle groups to be worked on in one day. So for triceps, you can start with push-ups as they are also a good warm up exercise.

For triceps, you can perform lying triceps extension, triceps dips, one arm triceps extension and triceps curls. All these exercises can be done in 4 sets of 10 reps each.

For shoulders, two of the best and essential exercises are lateral raises and shoulder press.

You can do these two exercises either on the machine or with dumbbells.

Along with these, you can also do rear lateral raises and front lateral raises for the posterior and anterior deltoids, respectively. You can also do dumbbell shrugs and back flies for the lateral deltoids and the posterior deltoids respectively.

Saturday: Back

Start your back exercises with push-ups and pull-ups/chin-ups. Do 15-20 reps of each.

For the lateral muscles, you can start with lateral pull-down and one arm dumbbell rows. For the mid back, you can do machine rows and dead lifts. All these exercises can be done in 4 sets of 10 reps each.

Remember, when it comes to bodybuilding, it is not about the workout alone. It is also about how you eat and how well you rest your muscles. Make sure that you are assisted by a gym instructor to avoid any injuries, and eat well.