There are a thousand different training routines, used by a million different lifters. It can be difficult to find the one that best suits your needs, as the most effective routine is often the one you are not using. Here’s a routine known as the Golden Six, a muscle-building workout employed by many bodybuilding greats of the 1960s and 1970s to build a solid base of muscle.
- Squats: three sets of 8 to 12 reps
- Bench press: three sets of 8 to 12 reps
- Deadlift: three sets of 8 to 12 reps
- Barbell Row: Three sets of 8 to 12 reps
- Military press: three sets of 8 to 12 reps
- Barbell curls: three sets of 8 to 12 reps
This exercise will effectively stimulate each large group of muscle fibers in the body, several times. You should complete this workout three times a week, usually on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays to avoid crowds that tend to stick to Monday through Wednesday and Friday routines. Once you complete three full months of this routine, you are ready to return to your more traditional routine of “training every part of the body once a week”, carving some details into the new slabs of muscle.
Remember that it is very important to sleep properly and consume a lot of protein when doing this routine. This is a higher volume routine that will really test your resilience. If you’re sore from squats or deadlifts when the next workout comes around, you can use a lighter weight, just enough to draw enough blood to the region to stimulate growth a bit and break down the lactic acids. Overtraining is its enemy, but the body is remarkably capable of adapting and adapting quite easily to the demands it places on it. So don’t hold back!
You can make adjustments to this muscle building workout to better suit your needs and abilities. If you cannot adequately recover from these workouts, you should consider reducing the number of sets to two per exercise (making the routine 12 total sets, instead of 18). You can also use less weight or even fewer repetitions. Make adjustments for the first few weeks until your body adjusts to what is a pretty tough workout!
Anabolic steroid users in particular may find this type of muscle building workout ideal. Slow or hard growing bodybuilders may find that it is too much for their system, at which point they can switch to a “every three days” workout to allow for that extra day of recovery twice a week. You may be tempted to train more than once a day, as are many steroid users, but this is generally not the best way to go! You can also create your own variations of the Golden Six as you work to find the ideal bodybuilding workout. Follow with compound movements, sets of 6 to 15 reps, and keep the total number of sets below 25. Good luck in your intense training!