This training program will help you to progress quickly from beginner through to intermediate level trainee over the course of twelve weeks.  Every three weeks you will enter a new phase and increase the amount of exercises and the amount of weight in each workout.  If you follow this program strictly you should see some definite improvements, both in your performance and in your physique, by the end of the twelve weeks.

Phase 1:  Weeks 1 – 3

We’re going to start off the first phase performing all machine exercises.  This will help your muscles get accustomed to weight training while providing some safety, considering your stabilizer muscles are not well developed yet.  Since the path of movement is fixed on a machine, your stabilizer muscles are not needed as much as with free weights.  This will also provide a great workout for you and get your muscles ready for the free weights in the subsequent phases.

You will train your entire body every workout, three times a week – Monday, Wednesday, Friday for example – as long as there is at least one day of rest in between workouts.  Since you will be working out more frequently in this phase you should only perform one exercise per muscle group in every workout.  While this may not seem like much, you will be making up for it in volume.

You should strive to keep your reps relatively high, in the 12-15 rep range, for your sets.  Starting off with a higher rep range will condition your muscles and help your endurance for the phases ahead.

Phase 2:  Weeks 4 – 6

Now in this phase we will start to add in free weight exercises.  The emphasis will be on heavy, compound movements such as barbell presses, barbell rows and squats.  If you have never performed any free weight exercises like these before, it would be advisable to have a workout partner with you in the beginning, or at least a spotter to assist if needed.  In addition to adding the free weights, we are adding two new exercises for the larger muscle groups, and for the smaller muscle groups we will add one exercise.

You will also be moving to a two-day training split.  This will allow you to train your upper body one day and then your lower body the next, followed by a day of rest.  On this routine you will go to the gym four days a week – Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, Friday for example – and training each bodypart twice a week.  Saturday and Sunday are rest days in this example.

Since your rep ranges are going down in this phase to around 10-12 per set, you should strive to increase the amount of weight you use during the three weeks.  In the next phase we will decrease the reps again to 8-12 per set, along with increasing the weight, which is perfect for packing on size.

Phase 3:  Weeks 7 – 9

In this phase we will add an extra free-weight exercise for each bodypart as well as increasing the angles that the muscles are trained up to three.  This will give you a much more rounded workout.

This phase uses a three-day split where you train the entire body twice a week over six days and will consist of the old standard push-pull-legs routine.  One the first day of the routine you will train all of the upper body pushing muscles (chest, triceps, shoulders), on the second day you will do all of the upper body pulling muscles (back, biceps, abs), and on the third day you will do legs.  This is my favorite type of routine and the one I always seem to return to after trying new ones.

Like before, you will increase the weight you use and your reps will drop to the 8-10 per set range.  In addition, your weekly volume will increase due to the added exercises performed.

Phase 4:  Weeks 10 – 12

Now we move to training the larger muscles from four different angles using four exercises.  This will really exhaust the muscles completely in your workouts (which you want) as well as advance you into an advanced style workout program.  We will be adding exercises for the forearms and traps as well to really round out your development.

This time you will actually decrease the number of days you go to the gym compared with the last phase.  However even though the frequency decreases, you will make up for it with the increased volume.  This will help lead to consistent gains in size and strength.

The weight will increase again in this phase however the reps will be an increasing intensity range.  The first exercise will go down to the 6-8 range, the second exercise will use an 8-10 rep range, the third set will be 10-12 and the fourth set will be 12-15 reps.  Using a variety of rep ranges is an additional technique to use in addition to simply increasing weight or exercises.  This keeps your muscles guessing and helps you achieve consistent gains.

One last technique to use in this phase is drop sets.  A drop set is done at the end of a set and is when you reach failure on the last set, you immediately decrease the weight by a small amount and continue performing reps until you reach failure again.  As you become more advanced, you may even experiment with doing multiple drop sets in your workout to increase the intensity even more.

By the end of this training program you should have made great progress and noticed a definite change in your physique.  You are now ready to move into more advanced training programs to continue your progress that you’ve made.