As a result of the beginner’s program that you have been using during the last months, your body has adapted to training and stress and you have mastered the groove of the movements. In addition, you have surely gained some muscle mass and strength. However, you feel that lately the progress seems to be slowing down a little. Now your muscles work more efficiently, so they can handle the workload easily than they used to be. This means that they are not stimulated enough, and for this reason, they grow slower, or perhaps they even stop growing altogether. To overcome this situation, now it is the time to jump to the next level of your bodybuilding training: the intermediate level. You can find in this post the basic guidelines that you must follow for designing your intermediate’s program.
As you’ve learned to use your muscles more efficiently, you require higher intensity for further progress, and consequently you will need more time to recover. Obviously, you cannot increase the intensity and train all your body-parts in the same day. For this reason, you probably will need to split your workouts so that you can focus more on specific muscle groups and train with the proper intensity all your body-parts. The obvious answer is to split the body into 3-4 different days, and extend the rest to allow for full recovery. A split option in a 3 day split workout can be, for example, push movements on day A, pull movements on day B and legs on day C. Train 3 days a week in non-consecutive days using, for example, the following pattern: ARBRCRR and give each body-part at least a full week of rest before training it again. Use three or four exercises per body-part, combining compound and isolation exercises for maintaining proportion and symmetry.
At this level it’s time for introducing periodization in your training. Combine heavy cycles (for strength training and muscle building) with light cycles (for endurance training). During heavy cycles focus on compound exercises and stay in the low rep range for hitting more fast-twitch fibers. During light cycles increase the isolation work for hitting the muscle from different angles and stay in the high rep range for hitting more slow-twitch fibers. In any case, maintain always perfect form and feel the contraction. Periodization will help you to avoid stagnation. In this sense, remember also varying your workouts every 4-6 weeks by altering one or more factors (i.e. number of reps, sets, tempo, exercise selection, etc.).
Of course, nutrition and rest are also very important in an intermediate program. Follow the general guidelines provided with the beginner’s program. Eat several small meals throughout the day (every 2.5-3 hours) including enough protein (1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day). In addition, drink plenty of water and sleep at least 8 hours per night.
Finally, keep in mind that you will probably never see the gains you got when you were a beginner. Although this may be slightly discouraging, you should mentally adjust to slower progress. With determination and consistency gains will still come, but slower than before.
These and other guidelines for developing your intermediate’s program can be found in the articles “Intermediate Training: You're not a ‘Newbie’ Anymore” and “Intermediate’s Bodybuilding Program” by Matt Danielsson and also in the article “Progression of Training” included in the I.C.E. Training Program developed by Big Cat.
As you’ve learned to use your muscles more efficiently, you require higher intensity for further progress, and consequently you will need more time to recover. Obviously, you cannot increase the intensity and train all your body-parts in the same day. For this reason, you probably will need to split your workouts so that you can focus more on specific muscle groups and train with the proper intensity all your body-parts. The obvious answer is to split the body into 3-4 different days, and extend the rest to allow for full recovery. A split option in a 3 day split workout can be, for example, push movements on day A, pull movements on day B and legs on day C. Train 3 days a week in non-consecutive days using, for example, the following pattern: ARBRCRR and give each body-part at least a full week of rest before training it again. Use three or four exercises per body-part, combining compound and isolation exercises for maintaining proportion and symmetry.
At this level it’s time for introducing periodization in your training. Combine heavy cycles (for strength training and muscle building) with light cycles (for endurance training). During heavy cycles focus on compound exercises and stay in the low rep range for hitting more fast-twitch fibers. During light cycles increase the isolation work for hitting the muscle from different angles and stay in the high rep range for hitting more slow-twitch fibers. In any case, maintain always perfect form and feel the contraction. Periodization will help you to avoid stagnation. In this sense, remember also varying your workouts every 4-6 weeks by altering one or more factors (i.e. number of reps, sets, tempo, exercise selection, etc.).
Of course, nutrition and rest are also very important in an intermediate program. Follow the general guidelines provided with the beginner’s program. Eat several small meals throughout the day (every 2.5-3 hours) including enough protein (1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day). In addition, drink plenty of water and sleep at least 8 hours per night.
Finally, keep in mind that you will probably never see the gains you got when you were a beginner. Although this may be slightly discouraging, you should mentally adjust to slower progress. With determination and consistency gains will still come, but slower than before.
These and other guidelines for developing your intermediate’s program can be found in the articles “Intermediate Training: You're not a ‘Newbie’ Anymore” and “Intermediate’s Bodybuilding Program” by Matt Danielsson and also in the article “Progression of Training” included in the I.C.E. Training Program developed by Big Cat.
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