Full-Body Workout to Add Size

Full-body training is a highly effective way to gain muscle size and strength. In his book "Huge in a Hurry," strength coach Chad Waterbury writes that this is because on a full-body training routine you train each muscle group more frequently than on a split routine. For optimal results, keep your workouts basic and aim to progress each session.

  1. The Exercises

    • Keep your full-body workouts simple -- two upper body and two lower body exercises each session is ample. Make these exercises multi-joint ones using barbells, dumbbells or body weight. Perform a lower-body push, where you push away from the ground to work your quads, and a lower-body pull where you pull a weight toward you to hit your glutes and hamstrings. Add an upper-body push, where you're pushing a weight away from you, and upper-body pull, where you pull a weight toward you. Choose back squats or front squats for lower-body pushes, straight bar or trap-bar deadlifts for lower-body pulls, pullups or dumbbell rows for upper-body pulls and bench presses or dips for upper-body pushes, advises trainer Stuart McRobert in "Brawn." By picking one exercise from each category, you hit every major muscle group.

    Sets and Reps

    • Sets of six to 12 repetitions are most effective for building muscle size. Perform two to three light warmup sets for each exercise, then three to five sets of six to 12 repetitions using a weight that causes you to reach muscular fatigue on the last one or two reps. If you can complete all 12 reps easily you need to go heavier, and if you can't get at least six you need to lower the weight.

    Progressions

    • Your muscles need to be constantly challenged in order to grow. Increasing the weight you're lifting or the number of reps per set is the simplest form of progression. If you bench pressed 135 pounds for four sets of eight reps last workout, aim for four sets of nine or five sets of eight, or stick with four sets of eight but increase the weight to 140 pounds. Alternatively, Waterbury recommends aiming for a total number of reps and aiming to get there in as few sets as possible. With the 135-pound bench press as an example you might get 40 reps in six sets one week, so aim to get 40 reps in five sets the next week.

    Considerations

    • Rest is vital -- without time to recover your muscles won't grow, so take one or two days off between workouts. You also need enough calories, protein and carbohydrates to support growth, so increase your calorie intake and eat more carb- and protein-rich foods such as brown rice, oatmeal, fruit, chicken, lean steak and cottage cheese. Aim to gain 1/4 to 1/2 pound per week to gain muscle without adding fat. You can change exercises around if you feel progress starting to stagnate, but stick to the four-exercise template. An alternative exercise selection could be lunges, stiff-legged deadlifts, close-grip chinups and incline dumbbell presses, for example.