How much lean muscle mass can I gain in 12 weeks?
My goal for my inquiry project is to see how much lean muscle mass I can gain in a week. Throughout this process, I plan on working out 4-6 days a week depending on how much time I have. I plan on eating approximately 2576 calories every day give or take 200 every day. These calories will be made up of 142grams of protein, 85 grams of fat and 307grams of carbohydrates. My starting weight as of January 8th was 137lbs and I want to see how much weight I can put on. I will be weighing myself on an empty stomach at the start of each week, and post an updated check in every week with my current weight and what my workouts looked like that past week.
What does the workout plan look like?
A traditional push-pull legs (PPL) program is typically 6 days. On what’s referred to as a Push day the target muscles you will work out are your chest, triceps, and shoulders. On Pull day you would work out your back, and rear delts. Finally, on the third day, you will hit your legs, and then have a rest day in between and repeat the split. I will be doing a modified version of this. On days 1-2, I will do the push and pull days as normal. On the third day, I will do a quad-focused leg day with more quad-focused exercises, than hamstring and glute-focused ones. I will make up for that by doing a hamstring and glute-focused leg day later on. On day 4 I will do a rest day. On day 5 I will be doing a chest and back day, on day 6 I will do a leg day. Finally, on day 7 I will do shoulders and arms. I will put the detailed breakdown of each day below.
Explanations
What is a rep? A rep is short for repetition and is the act of performing an exercise. For example, if you did 3 pushups you would say you did 3 reps of pushups.
What is a set? A set is a collection of reps.
Working Sets? Working sets are my challenging sets where I am lifting my target reps from failure. I will only track these sets, not my warmup sets.
Warmup Sets? A warmup sets goal is to pump blood into the designated muscle and get the appropriate ligaments and tendons loosened up and prepared for my working sets. This is done to minimize injury risk.
Form? Form is the specific way in which you perform a movement. Proper form when performing an exercise is essential for minimizing injury risk and stimulating the most muscle growth.
RIR, RM, and Training Philosophy? 1RM is my one rep max on an exercise, this means the most amount of weight I can perform on an exercise without form breakdown for one repetition. RIR is reps in reserve, or how many reps I am away from failure. In the context of my inquiry failure, or concentric muscle failure is where the targeted muscle gives out and I am physically unable to perform a rep without form breakdown. For my inquiry all of my sets will be between 30%-85% of my 1RM on average. I will be doing between 5 and 30 reps on any given exercise, and I will be between 4-0 reps of failure or 4-0RIR. This is based on recommendations from the current knowledge sport and exercise science. A lot of this information is taken from Renaissance Periodization, a group of professional bodybuilders, nutritionists and exercise and sports scientists. https://rpstrength.com. As well as this study https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Fulltext/2019/01000/Resistance_Training_Volume_Enhances_Muscle.13.aspx I will be roughly following the RP suggested training volume landmarks for each muscle. Those can be found here below :

MV: Minimum volume (sets) to retain muscle mass. MEV: Minimum effective volume to stimulate muscle growth. MAV: Maximum affective volume is the best range for muscle growth MRV: Maximum recoverable volume.
Day 1: Pull day
- Wide Grip Lat Pulldowns 4 sets of 10-12
- Medium Grip Cable Rows 3 sets of 10
- Close Grip Lat Pulldowns 3 sets of 12
- Cable Rear Delt Flies 4 sets of 15
- Cable Bicep Curls 4 sets of 12
- Incline Bicep Curls 4 sets of 12
Day 2: Push Day
- Bench Press 4 sets of 6-10
- Incline Dumbbell Press 4 sets of 8-12
- Cable Flies 4 sets of 12
- Dumbbell Shoulder Press 4 sets of 6-10
- Dumbbell Lateral Raises 4 sets of 12
- EZ Bar Skull Crushers 3 Sets of 12
- Straight Bar Tricep Pushdown 4 sets of 12
Day 3: Quad Focused Leg Day
- Heel Elevated Squats 4 sets of 6-10
- Narrow Stance Leg Press 4 sets of 10-15
- Bulgarian Split Squats 4 sets of 15
- Leg Extensions 4 sets of 12
- Hamstring Curl 4 sets of 15
- Calf Raises 4 sets of 30, 10reps each leg, and then 10 of both legs
Day 4: Rest Day
Day 5: Chest and Back Day
- Incline Dumbbell Press 4 sets of 6-10
- Bench Press 4 sets of 8-12
- Cable Flies 4 sets of 12
- Dumbbell Row 4 sets of 8-12
- Close Grip Cable Rows 3 sets of 10
- Close Grip Lat Pulldowns 3 sets of 12
Day 6: Hamstring Focused Leg Day
- Squats 4 sets of 6-10
- Romanian Deadlift 4 sets of 8-12
- Hamstring Curls 4 sets of 15
- Hip Thrust 4 Sets of 12-15
- Calf Raises 4 sets of 30
Day 7: Arms and Shoulders
- Dumbbell Lateral Raises 4 sets of 10-15
- Dumbbell Shoulder Press 4 sets of 6-10
- EZ Bar Skull Crushers 3 Sets of 12
- Straight Bar Tricep Pushdown 4 sets of 10-15
- Cable Bicep Curls 4 sets of 12
- Incline Bicep Curls 4 sets of 12
- Dumbbell Front Raises 4 sets of 10-15
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.