In this 3-part series, we’ll be creating a simplified, beginner-friendly training plan that gets you stronger and helps you look good naked by building muscle.

If you missed part 1 – go read that first HERE

If you missed part 2 – go read that first HERE

In part 1, we decided how often we’ll be training, which days we’ll be going to the gym, which exercises we are doing, and how to group them to save time.

In part 2, we figured out how many sets and reps to do, and how much weight we should be using. 

Now we have the framework for our plan built out – it’s time we talk about how to progress your workouts, adding weight, reps, and sets to keep you getting stronger and more muscular for a LONG time.

Making progress

Oh wait, isn’t this the hard part? 

Yes. 

But it’s also the part that makes you stronger and more jacked… 

And it’s the part that most guys never fully capitalize on – because it takes a little bit of extra thinking, and ensure that training is actually hard. 

So if you’re at this point, you’re already breathing rare air. 

Give yourself a pat on the back. 

Why bother making training harder?

You can’t just do 1 set of bicep curls with 10 lb week after week and expect to grow your biceps and get stronger. 

As you get stronger and stronger, your training needs to keep getting harder in order to continue driving adaptations. 

Otherwise, you’re going to end up doing sets where you leave 5-10 reps ‘in the tank’, which do next to nothing for growing more muscle. 

I’ve just ruined pre-built workout plans for you. 

If someone designs you out a 4 week training plan completely in advance…

How can they know how many reps you need to do each week? 

How can they know if it needs to be harder, or easier? 

They can’t. 

The only way to know is to use your workout data to guide your decision making. 

Luckily for you – you kept track of your performance last week, now you have week 1 as your baseline. 

In week 2, we will continue to use all the same exercises, but we are making things harder in order to help you continue getting stronger and building more muscle. 

There are 3 main ways that you can do that, and a simple set of rules for each. 

Adding weight. 

Adding reps.

Adding sets. 

Let’s jump into things. 

When to add weight

You should add weight to the bar if you did your set in the previous week with 5-15 reps without breaking down your technique. 

If you did a set of 7 squats, and it all felt great and you didn’t have to do a half squat to get the last rep up… 

You can add weight. 

If your technique got sloppy, don’t add weight. 

Just repeat the weight this week, and improve your technique – keep it constant from rep 1 to 7. 

If you did 4 reps, don’t add weight. 

When to add reps

If you did a set of 5-14 reps without breaking down your technique last week… 

Add reps this week. 

If you did a set of 15 reps this week, don’t add reps – that would take you out of the rep range. 

Add weight instead. 

So here are your basic rules: 

1. 1. 1. If you do more than 15 reps in a set without breaking down your technique, add weight to the bar. 
      2. If you do a high quality set of 5-15 reps without breaking down your technique, add reps or weight or BOTH. 
      3. If your technique is breaking down towards the end of your set in the 5-15 rep range, do not add any reps or weight next week – repeat your performance, but make your technique constant. 

How many reps or how much weight should you add?

In general, add the smallest increment of weight that you can find in the gym will be a good amount to add. 

About 2-5% in most cases. 

Going from the 45 lb bar to the 50 lb bar will almost definitely be exactly what the doctor ordered. 

And adding just 1 or 2 reps per week should suffice. 

Just make sure you’re not adding reps over 15 reps. 

If you feel like you need to add 5+ reps in order to keep your squats challenging this week, it would be best to add some weight too. 

Here’s what that looks like.

Monday – Week 1

A 

Barbell Squat – 75lb x 11 (felt hard) 

Push Ups –  bodyweight x 7 (felt hard)

B

Dumbbell Row – 35lb x 15  (felt hard)

Hamstring Curl Machine – 25 lb x 12 (felt hard) 

C

Dumbbell Split Squat – 10lb x 11 (felt hard)

Dumbbell Lateral Raise – 10lb x 12 (felt hard)

Dumbbell Bicep Curl- 15lb x 10 (felt hard)

Dumbbell Skullcrusher – 10lb x 10 (felt hard)

Monday – Week 2

A 

Barbell Squat 80lb x 11 (felt easy)

Push Ups – bodyweight x 10 (felt tough) 

B

Dumbbell Row – 40lb x 15 (felt tough)

Hamstring Curl Machine –  25 lb x 14 (felt tough)

C

Dumbbell Split Squat – 15lb x 11 (bad technique) 

Dumbbell Lateral Raise – 10lb x 12 (bad technique) 

Dumbbell Bicep Curl – 20lb x 10 (felt easy)

Dumbbell Skullcrusher -10lb x 12 (felt easy)

Monday – Week 3

A 

Barbell Squat – 90lb x 12 (felt tough)

Push Ups – 12 (felt tough) 

B

Dumbbell Row – 45lb x 13 (felt tough)

Hamstring Curl Machine – 25 lb x 15 (felt tough)

C

Dumbbell Split Squat – 15lb x 11 (felt tough) 

Dumbbell Lateral Raise – 10lb x 13 (felt tough) 

Dumbbell Bicep Curl – 20lb x 12 (felt easy)

Dumbbell Skullcrusher – 10lb x 14 (felt easy)

I know that’s a lot of information, but check it out. 

In week one, everything felt tough. 

We aimed to add some weight or reps across the board, depending on where we were at in the rep range. 

And basically 1 of 3 things happened. 

I highlighted the three cases above so you can see them clearly. 

In the first case, like with barbell squats, it was totally fine, and week 2 actually felt easy. So we added reps and weight in week 3 to make sure it was hard enough. 

In the second case, like with dumbbell split squats, our technique was breaking down by the end of the set in week 2. So we repeated the same weight and reps in week 3 to clean it up. 

In the third case, like with hamstring curls, it felt tough in week 2 after adding 2 reps from week 1. So we added just 1 rep for week three, and that was bang on.  

Pouring gas on the fire 

As you continue getting stronger and building more muscle, you’ll need end up needing more training VOLUME in order to keep growing and adapting. 

What used to be enough training to tell your body that it’s time to grow isn’t enough any more. 

That means you’ll need to add more sets if you want to keep progressing.

When to add sets

If you’re not getting much ‘disruption’ in a target muscle, you can probably do more training for that muscle. 

Some signs you SHOULD add sets: 

• • You’re not getting sore at all from a specific exercise despite good technique and hard work
  • You feel like you could do a LOT more work on that muscle inside the workout
  • You’re not getting much of a pump, or feeling weak/worked within your workout
  • You’re fresh to train that same muscle in your next workout, but not progressing

In that case, you can add just 1 set per exercise per week.

Remember, this is specific to the exercise. 

So if you do barbell curls on Monday, and 1 set doesn’t give you much of a pump or soreness, and hardly feels like any work… 

You can add a set next week to that exercise. 

Here are some signs that you SHOULD NOT add sets:

• • You’re unsure whether or not you need it.
  • You’re running out of time to get your workouts done.
  • You’re sore af in the target muscle you’re training
  • You get overlapping soreness and performance isn’t increasing
  • You’re doing so much work in a session that your training quality tanks

Hold off on adding sets until your third week, when you have a better idea of how things are feeling, and how you’re recovering. 

So weeks 4 to 5 your plan might look something like this: 

Monday – Week 4

Barbell Squat – 90lb x 12, 9 (felt tough) (good pump, tons of work, got sore)

Push Ups – 12  (felt tough) (not much pump, not much work, minimal soreness)

Monday – Week 5

Barbell Squat – 95lb x 11, 8 (felt tough) (good pump, tons of work, got sore)

Push Ups – 13, 12  (felt tough) (good pump, plenty of work, got sore)

We added a set of pushups, because it was clear that we could handle more work – no pump, not much work, and not getting much soreness in the chest. 

We left the squats right where they were since it was already plenty of work. 

Sure enough, 2 sets of pushups was enough to feel like a good amount of work! 

Now you’ve started to tune up your program to match the amount of volume you need, you’re making progress week to week, and you’re getting it all done in a reasonable time frame. 

This is fantastic.

You can always revisit these decisions and add or remove sets as needed! 

Your training plan is like a resumé… 

It’s a living, breathing document that changes along with you. 

Plan out your training ahead of time. 

Then make a habit of sitting down with your plan each week for a few minutes to update it. 

Hope this helps you! 

Matteo

PS: If you want all your workouts delivered your inbox each weekend, along with 1-2 muscle building concepts… you should subscribe to The 1% Weekly. 

It’s my free (pay what you want, $0+) weekly resource that will help you build more muscle and save time in the gym. 

It even comes with a neat little tracker to keep track of everything. 

No fluff. No passwords. Straight to your inbox every Sunday. 

Grab it HERE