Bodybuilding Workouts In
Only 20 Minutes!

Bodybuilding workouts are the single best way to stimulate unlimited muscle growth. That said, finding the time to complete your weight lifting routines can be a tall order these days!

The focus of this site is to teach you how to gain more muscle mass by actually working out less than you have in the past!

Following along with this train of thought, I've put together a few weight lifting tips to help you streamline your weight lifting workouts and move you closer to your goal of gaining more muscle mass in less time.

While it is true that you will not gain muscle mass without, paying close attention to your muscle building nutrition plan, getting adequate rest and recovery from your intense weight training workouts and drinking enough water each day...

The bottom line is that in order for any of those things to even become important enough to hold back your muscle gain progress, you must first stimulate muscle growth with a series of well thought out weight lifting routines.

For every well informed bodybuilder I see at the gym these days, pumping through an effective bodybuilding workout, I probably see 20 that don't have a clue how to put together a weight training routine that will actually help them build muscle mass.

Don't fall into the trap of repeating the same stale weight lifting routine day after day because it helped you gain muscle mass 2 years ago!

Your body adapts. In order to move along and gain more muscle mass, you must provide a different form of stimulation.

In order to get your weight lifting workouts moving along the path to muscle building success, lets start at the top...

Bodybuilding Workouts 101...

At a minimum, the components essential to creating successful muscle building workouts are...

• Correct Exercise Selection

• Proper Order of The Muscle Building Exercises

• Adequate Rest intervals Between Work Sets

• Appropriate Muscle Stimulation or Overload

• The Length of The Bodybuilding Workout

• The Mindset Required To Stimulate Lean Muscle Growth

• Pre And Post Workout Nutrition

In order to stimulate lean muscle growth, all of these critical factors must be addressed. If you gloss over just one of these elements, you are increasing the chances that your bodybuilding workouts are not going to help you gain muscle mass.

While all of these components seem like common muscle building sense, most bodybuilders simply slap together a haphazard weight lifting workout with no reason or rhyme.

As you might guess, this unorganized approach to weight training rarely leads to anything other than burn out and frustration!

Lets dive in and take a look at what each component of a muscle building workout would look like if it were designed to maximize muscle gain results.

Muscle Building Exercise Selection...

When it comes to choosing the best exercises to stimulate muscle growth, my personal favorites are multi-joint compound exercises. These are the basic weight training exercises that everybody learns in the beginning...

• Bench Press
• Incline Press
• Squat
• Lunges
• Shoulder Press
• Straight Leg Dead Lift
• Barbell Curls
• Skull Crushers
• Pull Ups
• Bent Rows

There are a few reasons that I like these muscle building exercises so much. The first reason is that compound exercises encompass movement at multiple joints thereby stimulating multiple muscle groups at the same time.

This gives you more muscle building bang for your buck!

The second reason that I like compound exercises, is because they allow you to lift very heavy weight through a full range of motion. This combination allows you to stimulate the natural production of the "muscle building hormones" in your body, kicking off the muscle building process with a potent jolt of testosterone.

Muscle Building Exercise Order...

In order to design effective bodybuilding workouts, you must pay attention to the order in which you perform your muscle building exercises.

For maximum muscle building benefit, I recommend that you focus on only one or two body parts each workout. If you decide to go with two body parts, you need to decide which body part is the main focus of the workout. The body part you decide to focus on is the muscle group you need to train first.

This means that you perform a complete warm-up phase and all associated exercises for the primary muscle group before attempting to complete any exercises for the secondary body part.

This will help to ensure that you have enough energy to complete the workout with proper muscle building intensity.

After your warm-up, you need to perform the compound exercise that allows you to lift the heaviest weight first, then move on to isolation and specialty exercises.

Rest Intervals Between Sets...

Between each of your muscle building work sets, you need to allow for adequate time for your muscle to fully recover from each set. If you are training for muscle growth with heavy weights, you need to rest for 2 - 3 minutes between each set. This is enough time to allow your muscles to recover without cooling down and killing your momentum.

Stimulating Muscle Growth...

In order to build muscle mass, you must stimulate the muscle growth process. This is what an effective bodybuilding workout is all about.

While I would like to be able to sit here and tell you with certainty that there is one definitive style of training that builds muscle mass for everyone, this is simply not the case.

Building muscle mass is a complex process that is influenced by an unlimited number of factors. What works for one bodybuilder may not work well for another.

With that out of the way, lets get down to business. There are many different ways to stimulate muscle growth. Some of the more popular methods are...

• Heavy Free Weight Training

• Lighter Weight Higher Repetition (Volume Training)

• Shorter Rest Intervals Between Sets

• Increasing The Number of Reps, Sets or Exercises

While not one approach is ideal for everyone, most everybody responds to heavy free weight training in the beginning phases of their bodybuilding workouts by packing on lean muscle mass.

The best approach when it comes to muscle stimulation, is to start with heavy free weight training and continue until you stop gaining muscle mass.

Once you begin to plateau (stop gaining muscle mass), try too incorporate another method of stimulation into your bodybuilding workout. Continue with this method until it too becomes less effective at helping you build muscle.

You will find that you need to constantly strive to provide fresh challenges for your muscles, by changing up the variables of your muscle gain workouts. After you have worked your way through all of the suggestions listed in this article, start back at the beginning with heavy free weight training.

How Long Should My Workout Be? 

In order to stimulate muscle growth, each of your bodybuilding workouts should last somewhere between 20 - 50 minutes.

If you plan on performing a two body part training session with a warm-up, 3 exercises for the primary muscle group and 2 for the secondary with 2 minute rest intervals between sets, you are looking at approximately 30 minutes in the gym.

Muscle Building Mind Set...

In order to build muscle mass, you must approach your bodybuilding workouts with the right mind set. When it comes to the muscle building process, everything begins and ends with applying the right muscle building stimulation.

In order to accomplish this, you will need to train with an intensity that stimulates muscle growth. This simply won't happen if you're not focused on your bodybuilding workouts.

As you prepare for your bodybuilding workouts, block out every distraction that you have faced during the day and focus solely on the workout you are about to perform.

Once you are in the gym, don't allow any distractions like conversations with other gym goer's, excessive water breaks, or multiple trips tot he bathroom to slow the muscle building momentum that you are creating.

If you're following my advice, you only need to focus for 20 - 50 minutes. It's realistic to maintain this level of focus for a shorter period of time. If your workouts ever start to drag on past the 60 minute mark, it is an indication that you are not applying the proper focus to your weight lifting routine.

Pre-Workout Nutrition...

When it comes to supplying your growing muscles with the right amounts of nutrients at the right times, no meals are more important than the ones you eat pre and post workout.

You should aim to eat you pre-workout meal about 1 hour prior to hitting the gym, this should give your body enough time to get a good start at digesting the nutrients. In order to ensure that you have enough energy to make it through your bodybuilding workout, it is important to eat a mix of complex and simple carbohydrates, a decent amount of protein as well as some fat.

I speak from experience when I say that you absolutely must eat a meal prior to training with free weights! If you attempt to struggle through your workout on an empty stomach, you will run out of gas before you are able to stimulate any muscle growth at all.

If you are not sure if you can workout on a full stomach, it may be a good idea to look into substituting a high quality whey protein supplement for other more filling sources of lean muscle building protein.

A solid pre-workout meal could look like this...

• 1 Apple, 1 Banana And 1 Cup of Beans

• 1 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast

• 3 Cups of Water

• 2 Cups of Any Sports Drink

Immediately before your workout, it's a good idea to eat light. After all, nothings worse than breaking your muscle building concentration to rush to the bathroom and unload a few half way digested chicken breasts!

Post-Workout Nutrition...

Your post workout meal is the most important meal of the day when it comes to lean muscle growth. Don't make the mistake of glossing over the importance of a complete post workout meal. The foods that you eat after training in combination with the time you eat them, will play a huge impact in the amount of muscle mass that you gain or leave on the table.

After your workout is complete, it is time to refuel your body with muscle building nutrients so that it can get to work repairing damaged muscle cells.

Eat your post workout meal as soon as possible after completing your bodybuilding workout!

Ideally, you'll want to eat within 20 minutes of your weight training workout. At the very least, make sure to eat within 1 hour of completing your bodybuilding routine.

Your post workout meal should contain a lot of lean high quality protein mixed with a good dose of simple carbohydrates and dietary fat. In my opinion, the key to a good post workout meal, is getting enough muscle building protein. If you neglect everything else, at least make sure to take in about 40 grams of high quality muscle repairing protein.

While I admit, that it can be an inconvenience to carry prepared meals around with you throughout the day (not to mention scarf the food down within 20 minutes of your workout), this is an area where high quality whey protein powders and meal replacements can help out.

With whey protein prices as affordable as ever, there is simply no excuse for not eating a nutrient rich post workout meal within 20 minutes of completing your bodybuilding workouts.

Your muscle building post workout meal could look like this...

• 1 Scoop of Whey Protein Isolate (20g of protein) immediately after competing your workout

• 2 Cups of Fruit Juice

• 2 Slices of Wheat Bread

• 1 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast (or another scoop of whey protein isolate)

• 1 Cup of Oatmeal

While your specific nutritional needs may vary a bit form the meal outlined above, I'm sure you get the idea.

Make sure to consume a well balanced, protein and carbohydrate rich meal before and after your bodybuilding workouts. This will ensure that you have enough energy to complete your workout with the right intensity, and allow your muscles to begin the repair and regrowth process quickly.

Your Custom Bodybuilding Workouts...

If you've made it this far, congratulations!

You now know exactly what it takes to design safe and effective bodybuilding workouts.

The muscle building tips outlined in this article are the same principles that I use to design bodybuilding workouts for clients from all around the world!

Simply read through this article again, and begin to work all of the tips and pointers into your muscle building routine. Before you know it, your bodybuilding workouts will be helping you to pack on slabs of rippling lean muscle mass!

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