6 Day Workout Routine For Muscle Mass

This is another topic that has been heavily requested by you guys.

There are many people who enjoy the gym so much that they want to train as much as possible.

If you want to maximize muscle growth and recovery, you’d probably do better training 3-5 days per week.

In any case, you’re here to learn what a proper 6-day workout looks like.

When done correctly, you can make even faster progress and gain more muscle as long as your recovery is on point!

Let’s go over the program now!

Push Pull Legs 6-Day Workout Routine

If you want to train six days per week, you need to recover quickly.

To do this, the best split you can use is push pull legs, which I’ve gone over extensively in the past.

I won’t go over all the specifics on what push pull legs is, but it’s just a way to split up your workouts into different body parts.

Because of how it’s setup, you get a lot of overlap between similar muscle groups, so you can spend more time recovering before your next training session.

When To Train Each Muscle Group

Here’s an example of the body parts you’ll be hitting each day of your training week.

• Sunday – Push 1 – Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, Traps
• Monday – Pull 1 – Upper Back, Lats, Biceps, Rear Delts
• Tuesday – Legs 1 – Quads, Hamstrings, Glutes, Calves
• Wednesday – Off
• Thursday – Push 2 – Shoulders, Chest, Triceps, Traps
• Friday – Pull 2 – Lats, Upper Back, Biceps, Rear Delts
• Saturday – Legs 2 – Hamstrings, Quads, Glutes, Calves

You can put Traps and Rear Delts on either Push or Pull, it really doesn’t matter too much.

I prefer how I set it up, but it’s fine either way.

Recommended Exercises & Sequence

For this program, you pick one exercise per muscle group and increase your reps or weight each workout.

Here’s an example of some exercises I recommend and the sequence you should perform them in.

Push 1	Pull 1	Legs 1
Chest – Dumbbell Bench	Upper Back – Upper Back Chest Supported Rows	Quads – Hack Squat
Shoulders – One Arm Cable Lateral Raise	Lats – One Arm Lat Pulldown	Hamstrings – Seated Leg Curl
Triceps – One Arm Overhead Cable Extension	Biceps – Leaning One Arm Cable Curl	Glutes – Glute Bridge
Traps – Plate Raises	Rear Delts – Rear Delt Rows	Calves – Calf Raise

Push 2	Pull 2	Legs 2
Shoulders – Seated Dumbbell Press	Lats – One Arm Landmine Lat Row	Hamstrings – Trap Bar Stiff Leg Deadlift
Chest – Incline Dumbbell Bench	Upper Back – Upper Back Pulldown	Quads – Leg Extension
Triceps – Cross-Body Cable Extension	Biceps – One Arm Cable Preacher Curl	Glutes – Hip Thrust
Traps – High Incline Dumbbell Row	Rear Delts – Cross-Body Rear Delt Rows	Calves – Seated Calf Raises

No more, no less. You don’t need to do 20 different exercises for each muscle group.

Exercise Selection Is Key For Muscle Growth

You need to make sure that you’re using the right exercises to bias the muscle you’re trying to work.

If you’re trying to train quads, using a low bar squat and sitting the hip’s back really far like in powerlifting isn’t a great idea.

Instead, you would use something like a hack squat with a narrow stance and your feet low on the platform.

Doing this will maximize your stability and allow you to get more knee flexion, which is how you train the quads effectively.

Adding to this, to maximize your training and ensure every muscle gets its focus, you need to make sure you’re training each head of a muscle group.

An example of this is that I have a dumbbell bench for the sternal head of the pec, and I also have a dumbbell incline bench for the clavicular head.

For the biceps, I have an exercise for the short and the long head.

Shoulders have one exercise for the anterior, medial, and two for rear delts as they’re usually a huge weak point for people.

There’s much more thought that goes into it than this, but definitely let me know if you want me to go more in depth on this topic.

It’s something that is largely ignored, when it’s actually quite important for muscular development.

Volume & Intensity

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How many sets do you think you could do with this level of intensity?

These are two of the most important things you need to consider when training 6 days per week.

Your volume and intensity will determine how well you recover and ultimately how fast you progress.

The faster you can progress in weight and reps while also allowing for recovery, the better your muscle gains will be.

Since you’ll be training 6 days per week, you need to keep your volume as low as possible.

With your volume low, you’ll need to push your intensity for muscular adaptations to occur.

Here’s what I recommend for sets and reps on this 6-day workout routine.

Sets

How many sets do you have left? pic.twitter.com/Vv62H0NMv4

— Muscle & Strength (@Muscle_Strength) June 30, 2014

As I mentioned before, we need to keep the volume low and the intensity high. 

This is simply due to the fact that you can’t push your volume, intensity, AND frequency into the red. 

You need to back something off, otherwise injuries will occur, and you’ll just be wasting your time.

On a lower frequency plan, I recommend between 1-3 sets per exercise. 

In this case, 1 to 2 sets is going to be your absolute maximum. 

I see 6-day training plans all over social media that prescribe five sets per exercise and half a dozen different movements. 

This is stupid and doesn’t make any sense. If you train with that much volume and frequency, when the hell is the recovery process supposed to occur?

Exactly, that’s what I thought!

So, 1-2 sets per exercise is what I recommend. 

For bigger movements such as Hack Squats, Pulldowns, Rows, Presses, and more, just one set should get the job done. 

For smaller movements like lateral raises, biceps and triceps, 2 sets might be something to experiment with. 

You have to consider how much energy you’re expending per session, over the course of a training week, and even over an entire training cycle. 

Keep the volume low, and I think you’ll be surprised at the progress you’ve made using this workout plan. 

Reps

What rep range is best for muscle growth? #evidencebasedfitness #bodybuilding pic.twitter.com/gEXgHCsso0

— JOSEPH MURCI | CPT, COPT, CSCS (@murcifit) December 26, 2018

As for the rep ranges you should be using, less is more. 

Anywhere between 6-12 reps is going to be best for the majority of your sets.

This gives you just enough effective reps to drive muscle growth, but it’s not so heavy your joints are going to take a beating. 

You can definitely work into the 12-20 rep range for smaller muscle groups, but anything more than that is pushing it. 

You can gain the same amount of muscle in all of these rep ranges, but heavier reps under five will beat you up training to failure. 

While reps higher than 20 are going to cause a ton of systemic fatigue. 

That’s why for the most part, 6-12 for the majority of your movements and 12-20 for some smaller movements is advised. 

Keep it simple. 

Intensity

For intensity, we want to push all movements with a high degree of stability to complete muscular failure. 

For movements with less stability and a lot of moving parts, such as Romanian Deadlifts and Squats, one rep away from failure works perfectly. 

Basically, if you can stabilize well, you can train to failure safely without worrying about form breaking down and causing injury. 

If you can’t stabilize as well, your form is going to break down before you get to failure. So form failure is what I recommend for those types of movements. 

As Always, Progressive Overload Is Key

All in all, this is pretty simple. 

To cause muscle growth to occur, you need to give it a reason to adapt and get bigger/stronger. 

Doing more reps and weight over time while training with a high proximity to failure is all you need to do. 

If you go from 200 for 6 reps to 200 for 12 reps with excellent execution, you’ll build muscle. 

That’s all you need to concern yourself with. 

The progression for this program is super easy to figure out. 

• Pick a rep range for your exercise. 6-12, 12-15, 15-20, etc. 
• Work up to one top set and do as many reps as you possibly can. 
• If you do more reps than your rep range, add weight the following week. 
• If you don’t, pick the same weight and try to beat your reps you did the previous week. 
• Do this until you can’t add weight or reps for a couple of workouts.
• Switch that exercise out for a new one and repeat the process. 

That’s literally all you need to concern yourself with. 

Fuck doing a million sets with a thousand reps in the tank. 

This is just a recipe for wasted effort and time. 

Push your sets hard, do more reps, add more weight over time, and you’re set. 

That’s it!

The #1 Thing You MUST Do While Training 6 Days Per Week

This should be obvious, but a lot of people, especially younger trainees, forget the most important thing for muscle growth to occur. 

You have to eat!

I don’t mean just a little, either. 

For muscle growth to occur, especially training 6 days per week, you need to make sure you’re eating above maintenance level. 

This will fuel your performance and allow you to recover from high-frequency training. 

If you want to learn more about how many calories you need to build muscle, check out this post here!

Should You Use a 6-Day Workout Routine To Build Muscle?

While many of you might like the idea of training 6 days a week, it might not be the best plan of attack. 

Depending on your lifestyle, career, and even your responsibilities; 6-day training might be too much on top of other stressors in your life. 

If you add stress on top of stress, something is bound to break. Whether that’s mentally exhausting you, emotionally draining you, or just physically beating you down, you need to make sure your training matches your lifestyle. 

That’s why I think that unless you work something like a desk job where you’re sitting down most of the day, 6 days of training per week just isn’t sustainable. 

The easier your life is outside the gym, the more you can afford to train. And the opposite is also true. 

If you’re a construction worker or any other profession where you’re doing hard labor, 2-4 days of training is all you really need. 

You have to look at your life and training as a whole. 

You might have all the drive in the world, but eventually you’re going to break down. 

Managing your stress and recovery is one of the most important things you need to do. 

If you can’t possibly recover on higher frequency training programs such as the one I laid out, that’s totally fine!

You don’t need to train 6 days per week to make substantial progress, I promise. 

Why This Might Not Be A Good Idea For Beginner Lifters

Some beginners might want to take it slow, and others might want to jump in to make up lost time.

It goes without saying though – as a beginner, you’ll make more progress doing the least amount of work than any other time in your life. 

Think about it, beginner lifters can go from doing absolutely zero training to doing a couple of easy sets a couple of times per week, and make tons of progress!

There’s no need to go to failure, do a ton of volume, or train 6 days per week. 

It’s just not necessary and will slow down the process if anything. 

2-3 days of basic lifts, excellent execution on those lifts, add weight and reps over time. 

That’s all a beginner needs to grow and get stronger. 

6-day training should only be used by intermediate and advanced lifters. 

If you have to ask if you’re either of those, you’re still a beginner. Plain and simple. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Now I turn it over to you!

What do you think of my 6-day training plan?

Also, does 6-day training sound right for you?

Regardless, let me know what you think in the comments below, right now!

Until next time,

-Dante