Workout 3: Intensification Training

Welcome to phase 3 of the 3 Day Muscle and Strength training program. Where the previous workout focused on building muscle, this training session is all about increasing strength. You should do this training two days after the accumulation training.


You'll be doing low-rep sets with longer rest periods. This will enable you to maximize power and recovery. This workout uses a 5-3-1 rep scheme, where your first set will be done for 5 reps, your second set for 3 reps and your final set for 1 rep. You will be increasing the weight you use on each set. For the final set should you should aim for about...aim for around 95 to 98% of your 1 rep max (1RM).

In addition to pulling back on volume and allowing for recovery, this type of training teaches your nervous system how to handle near-limit weights while keeping good form. You should take 2 to 3 minutes rest in between sets.

Back - 3 sets (5-3-1-) - deadlifts, weighted-chin-ups or rows
Chest - 3 sets (5-3-1-) - barbell or dumbell bench press
Thighs - 3 sets (5-3-1) - barbell squats, front squats or leg press

The style of training program as descibed in this 3 day workout plan, is what is known as "microperiodization". Instead of going with longer cycles that last several weeks, you do very short cycles which are compressed into a much smaller timeframe (a single week).

It's a similar idea to training the body more frequently with fewer sets rather than beating your body down by doing single-bodypart training and then giving it a week to recover. This is also the reason why these workouts focus on large movements rather than isolating single muscles.

Because this program is a one-week cycle, you can easily test drive it by just committing to it for three or four weeks. If you like the results you are getting, I highly reccomend Nick Nilsson's Mad Scientist Muscle. It expands this one-week cycle into an 8 week cycle. It also includes 3 different versions of the program, which gives you a total of 6 months of muscle-building programming all laid out for you.

If you want to break through your current palteau and take your muscle mass and strength to a whole new level, it's an excellent program and definitely worth checking out.

Back to:

• The 3 Day Muscle and Strength Building Program
• Workout 1: Structural Training
• Workout 2: Accumulation

Workout 2: Accumulation Training

This is the second workout in the 3 Day Muscle and Strength Building Porgram. The accumulation phase is all about building mass. You will be using Time/Volume Training, which has been proven to be extremely effective for building muscle. It can be used with just about any type of exercise, including bodyweight exercises.


Do this workout two days after the structural training workout. For instance, if you did the structural training on monday, you should do the accumulation training on wednesday.

Time/Volume training is Nick Nilsson's version of density training. By using an increase of training volume and workload within a specific timeframe, it accomplishes an overload of the muscles. This training is designed to hit your power-oriented muscle fibers, which is essential for mass building.

Time/Volume training uses small 3 rep sets with short rest periods between sets. This allows for tremendous training volume. Combine this with very deliberate increases in density, and this type of training will lead to rapid increase in both muscle mass and strength.

How it works:

Choose a weight that allows you to get at least 10 to 12 reps. When doing bodyweight exercises, you should choose a version of that exercise which allows for a minimum of 10 reps.

The key to this training is that it allows you to manage fatigue while at the same time maximizing your training volume. It is designed to hit your body with massive workload without going near failure and taxing the nervous system.

You will be doing 15 minute training sessions per exercise.

Back - 15 minutes - chin-ups, pulldowns, rows, or deadlifts
Chest - 15 minutes – barbell, dumbell bench press or pushups
Thighs - 15 minutes - barbell squats, front squats, split squats or leg press

• Do one set of 3 reps, then rest for 10 seconds. Do another set of 3 reps and rest for 10 seconds. Repeat this process until you can't get 3 reps anymore.
• When the third rep becomes a struggle, increase your rest time between sets from 10 to 20 seconds. Keep doing 3 rep sets with 20 second rests between sets.
• As soon as you can't get 3 reps anymore, increase the rest between sets with 10 seconds (from 20 to 30 to 40 and so on).
• Keep doing these 3 rep sets until your 15 minutes are up.

When should you increase the weight?

Nick uses a very simple rule which tell's you exactly when it's time to increase the weight. If you can do the 3 rep sets with 10 second rest periods for 1/3 (5 minutes) of the time period, you should increase the weight for your next session. As long as you don't reach this 5 minute mark, keep using the same weight.

For more detailed information on Time-Volume Training, click here.

To learn more about Nick Nilsson and his Mad Scientist Muscle program click here.

This concludes the second workout in the 3 Day Muscle and Strength Training Program. The next workout is aimed at increasing your strength. You will be reducing the volume but increasint the intensity.

Back to Workout 1: Structural Training

Workout 1: Structural Training

This is the first workout of the 3 day muscle and strength building program. It is designed to alter your body's physiology and to prepare it for the muscle and strength development workouts which follow. The workout is divided into two groups of exercises:

• High-rep / light weight: These are meant to increase capillarization to the muscle tissue, which leads to increased blood flow and oxygenation.
• Partial range sets: These are designed to strengthen the connective tissue as well as the nervous system.

For the high-rep sets, you will be aiming for 100 reps. Use a very light weight which you can handle with ease, and get as many reps as you can. If you don't hit 100 reps, stop , take 10 seconds rest and continue for as many reps as you can. Repeat this procedure until you get to a total of 100 reps. Follow this same pattern on the second set as well. Take 2 minutes rest between sets.

Back - 2 sets of 100 reps - seated cable rows or pulldowns
Chest - 2 sets of 100 reps - barbell or dumbell bench press
Thighs - 2 sets of 100 reps - leg press, barbell squats or dumbell squats

For the partial-range sets, you should work only the top few inches of the range of motion and hold the lockout position for at least 5 seconds on each rep to load the connective tissue. In order to get the most from these exercises, you should be aiming for the most weight you can handle. You can use weights 20 to 50% higher than your 1 RM for these sets. Take 2 minutes rest between sets.

Back - 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps - rack pulls or top-range chin-ups or rows
Chest - 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps – top-range barbell bench press
Thighs - 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps – top-range squats or leg press

This concludes workout 1 of the 3 Day Muscle and Strength Building Program. Don't skip it, as it lays the foundation and prepares your body for the next workout, which is all about building mass.

Workout 2: Accumulation

This workout was brought to you by Nick Nilsson from Mad Scientist Muscle.

3 Day Muscle and Strength Building Program

Looking to build build some serious muscle but keep hitting a frustrating plateau? This 3 day total body workout program uses a systematic and scientific approach to smash through the plateau's that are holding you back. It takes advantage of how your body works and the way it responds to various forms of training. It does this by using 3 very specific phases (Structural, Accumulation and Intensification).

The program is based on Nick Nilsson's Mad Scientist Muscle training method. Basically it compresses the entire 8 week cycle of this program into ONE week. All you have to do is repeat these 3 workouts for up to 6 weeks (or until you stop seeing results) and observe an increase in your muscle mass and strength.

This training is all about pushing your body to its limits. It does this in a systemic, targeted and controlled fashion. In order to get the maximum results, each workout sets up the next and builds on the previous workout.

Like the original program, this three day per week (monday/wednesday/friday) workout is based on three phases....

Phase 1. Structural Training:

This phase is designed to alter the physiology of your body. It does this by using very high-reps (which increases the capillarization of the muscle tissue) and very heavy partial-range training (which strengthens the connective tissue and nervous system).

Phase 2. Accumulation:

The accumulation phase is all about building mass. This phase introduces a strategic increase in training volume using Time/Volume Training. It is designed to overload the body and force adaptation. This is where you will start to see an increase in muscle mass.

Phase 3. Intensification:

This final phase brings a pullback on training volume while at the same time increasing the intensity. This allows the body to rebound from the previous training. Where the previous phase was aimed at increasing mass, in this phase you'll see the increase in your strength.

The first day in this 3 day program is 'Structural Training'. The objective for this training is to improve your body's ability to build and support muscle tissue. This lay's the foundation for the two following workouts. The second workout is volume... This means lots of sets using moderate weight and very little rest. The third is intensity, where you will be using heavy weight and longer rest.

In order to produce maximum results, each workout will be a total-body session. You will be focusing only on the big muscles and will only be using big exercises. This helps to activate as many muscles as possible simultaniously, which will stimulate maximum gains. Don't worry about the smaller muscles. They will get ample stimulation and do not need to be worked directly.

To get the the best results, perform this program for 4 to 6 weeks, mixing up the exercises you're using regularly. You should also increase the weights you're using whenever you can do so, while always being careful to keep good form.

Workouts:

Workout 1: Structural Training

Workout 2: Accumulation

Workout 3: Intensification