Lyle McDonald's Generic Bulking Routine

The Generic Bulking Routine is Lyle McDonald's all-purpose program for gaining muscle, posted on his BodyRecomposition forum and later explained by Lyle and his readers in a long forum FAQ (JC Deen's jcdfitness.com mirrors both). It is meant for intermediate lifters, bodybuilders and anyone training to look better, eating in a surplus. Lyle doesn't recommend it for beginners.

The week Four days: Monday lower, Tuesday upper, Wednesday off, Thursday lower, Friday upper, weekend off. Every muscle is trained twice a week. Lyle lets you either repeat Monday and Tuesday on Thursday and Friday, or vary them slightly. This program uses his suggested variation: Thursday is built around deadlifts and leg presses instead of squats, and Friday starts with incline bench and pulldowns instead of flat bench and rows.

Each session pairs heavy sets of 6-8 (3 minutes rest) with lighter sets of 10-12 (2 minutes) and arm work at 12-15 (90 seconds).

Sets and effort Lyle gives sets as ranges: 3-4 sets on the 6-8 rep work, 2-3 on the 10-12 rep work and 1-2 for arms. This program lists the top of each range. After the second-to-last set, make a judgement call: if you still look and feel strong, do the last set; if you're fried, stop. If the volume is too much overall, Lyle suggests dropping to 2-3 sets of 6-8 and 1-2 sets of 10-12.

Warm up with progressively heavier low-rep sets so that your first work set is your heaviest. Then hold that weight or drop it slightly to stay in the rep range. Stop about a rep short of failure on every set, so that you can get all the volume done.

The cycle One cycle lasts 6-8 weeks. This program uses 8:

• Week 1: run-up at 80-85% of your previous best weight for each exercise and rep range
• Week 2: run-up at 90-95% of your previous best
• Weeks 3-8: push the weights. When you reach the top of the rep range on your first set with a rep or two to spare, add weight. If you can't add weight, add reps.

There is no separate deload week. The two submaximal run-up weeks at the start of the next cycle are the deload: after 4-6 hard weeks your joints get a break, and coming back up from lighter weights usually lets you set new bests. If your performance drops for 2-3 workouts in a row before week 8, end the cycle early and start the next run-up.

Between cycles Change exercises only between cycles, during the run-up, so you have time to relearn the movements. Lyle also suggests changing rep ranges from cycle to cycle, for example 6-8 + 10-12, then 5s + 8-10, then 3s + 6-8 for a strength emphasis. He sees no need for time off between cycles, but every three cycles you might take about 5 days completely off.

Exercise choices Lyle names movement types more than exact exercises: "row", "pulldown/chin", "triceps", "biceps", "calf raise". The picks here are defaults; swap freely. He prefers rows done with a close, underhand grip and elbows tucked. Stiff-legged deadlifts on Monday can be replaced by a leg curl, Tuesday's incline bench by a shoulder press, and pulldowns by chin-ups.

This plan covers two cycles (16 weeks). Keep running cycles for as long as you are gaining.