Well, there you have it; five workouts plus an abs workout that will help you gain 10 POUNDS OF MUSCLE in a month*!

If you start on Monday, your last day would be Friday when you will do Shoulders and Biceps. Ready for the weekend! Notice that I have TWO Legs days. That’s because working on your legs is very important to gain 10 lbs in a month. Your legs are the biggest muscle group you have, so working them out twice a week will get you some major muscle fast. It’s well established that working on your legs makes your body release testosterone, which will directly affect the muscle growth in all other parts of your body.

Notice that the Back day includes some triceps exercises and the Chest day has some back/delts exercises. This is to avoid over working some muscles and to provide stability in others. This is especially important for the delts and upper back muscles during Chest day. Doing too many pec exercises can result in underdeveloped back muscles at best, and shoulder injury at worst. Ever see dudes with a concave chest that looks like the pecs are pulling too much? Well, that’s exactly what’s going on; the back muscles are not developed enough to straighten the body and produce the preferred ‘shoulders back, chest out’ look.

I actually injured my shoulders a while back from doing too many chest exercises and also from pushing that extra inch at the top of the bench press. Don’t do that! Once your arms are fully extended, don’t go any further. All you’re doing is stretching the back muscles and rear delts against their will and you’ll end up injuring them. This is what the doctor told me, and upon research, I discovered a lot of info supporting this. I also found recommendations to do those Rotator Cuff exercises during Chest Day. It will most likely prevent that injury AND give you some nicely developed delts! (especially rear delts) Just look at your rear delts in the mirror after your Rotator Cuff exercises for proof of new muscles you didn’t know you had!

Machines vs Free Weights
You should be using free weights as much as possible, but there are times when it’s not safe, or not practical. I use the Hammer Machines for bench press. They are the closest thing to free weights. Or, you can use the squat cage with a bench. I would rather max out properly at 6-8 reps instead of stopping myself early because of fear of dropping the bar on my neck and killing myself.

Which one are you??

However, don’t do bench press on a Smith Machine exclusively because of the lack of movement the track provides. This can lead to injury because the exact same ligaments, tendons, and specific muscle fibers are being worked on while others are not. This is also partially responsible for my shoulder pain before I knew better. Use a barbell with a spotter, or dumbbells, or the Hammer machine as well as the Smith Bench Press. It’s best to switch them around.

Go to the free downloadable, printable Workouts Charts –>

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