Movement

Centr Team

The best workout plan for gaining muscle

Centr Power – designed by Chris Hesmworth and his personal trainer Luke Zocchi – has transformed lives across the globe. Will you be next?

The key principles to gain muscle

Building muscle isn’t just about lifting heavy – it’s about consistency, progression and recovery. If you want real gains, you need a plan that keeps you challenging your muscles, training with purpose and allowing for proper recovery. Here’s how to do it:

1. Progressive overload
Your muscles grow when they’re forced to adapt to increasing stress. That’s where progressive overload comes in. To keep making gains, you need to gradually increase the challenge by:

• Adding more weight to your lifts

• Doing more reps or sets

• Improving your form and control

• Reducing rest time to push intensity higher

If you’re lifting the same weights for the same reps every week, your progress will eventually stall. Aim to keep pushing your limits – that’s how you grow.

2. Training frequency
How often should you train to build muscle? Well, it depends on your schedule, but we recommend 2-3 days at the minimum, divided into separate training splits. Some of the most common splits include:

• Push-pull-legs (PPL): Hitting each muscle group twice per week

• Upper-lower split: Focusing on the upper and lower body on separate days

• Body part splits: Training individual muscle groups on different days

No matter which split you choose, consistency is key to your goals. Train with enough frequency and volume, and you’ll see steady progress.

3. Proper rest and recovery
Muscles don’t grow while you’re lifting – they grow while you recover. Skip rest, and you risk burnout, injury and stalled progress. Here’s what you should prioritize:

• 7-9 hours of quality sleep every night to repair and build muscle

• 1-2 rest days per week to avoid overtraining

• Active recovery (light movement, stretching, mobility work) to keep your body primed to build muscle

If you train hard but don’t recover well, you’re leaving gains on the table. Remember: recovery isn’t optional – it’s a key part of the process.

With these principles in mind, you’ll build muscle faster, avoid plateaus and stay injury-free.

Now, let’s get to work on your muscle-building plan.

Short on time but looking to achieve maximum gains? We’ve got you covered with these 7 hacks.

Designing a workout plan for muscle gain

If you want real muscle growth, a structured workout plan is the key to consistent progress and balanced development. To maximize hypertrophy, you need to hit each muscle group with the right mix of volume, intensity and recovery.

Here’s how to build an effective muscle-building workout plan:

1. Choose a training split – Decide how many days you’ll train and how to divide your workouts between the key body parts.

2. Prioritize compound movements – Focus on big lifts that engage multiple muscle groups for maximum strength and growth.

3. Incorporate isolation exercises – Use accessory movements to target specific muscles.

4. Follow the right sets & reps – Stick to 3-5 sets of 6-12 reps per exercise for hypertrophy.

5. Track your progress over time – Log how heavy and how much you’re lifting during each session. Gradually increase weight, reps or intensity to keep your muscles adapting and growing.

Now, let’s look at some of the moves to include in your workout routine for maximum muscle growth.

Exercises to take your gains to the next level

Whatever workout split you opt for, you should include a mix of compound and isolation exercises in your routine. It’ll challenge your body in new ways and help you hit your goals fast.

Compound exercises
These moves help save time and help you build a foundation quicker than isolation exercises. Over time, they’ll help you lift heavier loads and build overall strength. Compound exercises are also great for functional fitness, helping you move easier through life.

Centr Hex Dumbbells with convenient A-frame storage can turn even the tiniest apartment into a home gym.

Isolation exercises
Need to zero in on a specific muscle? Isolation exercises are your go-to for building strength, fixing imbalances and activating any muscles you may have missed. They’re also a smart way to train around injuries or give overworked muscles a break while still making progress.

Don’t forget – you (and your muscles) are what you eat.

Nutrition is critical for muscle-building

Training hard is only half the battle – your diet is just as crucial for building muscle. To maximize muscle growth, you need to fuel your body with the right nutrients to support repair and recovery. Your calorie needs will be increased when you’re looking to bulk up, so you’ll need get pretty serious about eating.

Centr’s Build Strength and Gain Muscle goals have inbuilt meal plans that help you calculate the calories you need, and will provide you increased calories via extra snacks.

Remember, everybody’s nutrition needs are different – your requirements will vary according to a range of factors, including:

• How hard and often you train

• Your body composition

• Your muscle mass

• Your age, metabolism and genetics

• Your specific goals

Remember to track your progress

To keep building muscle, tracking your progress and making adjustments is a game-changer. Sticking to the same routine without progression will eventually lead to plateaus, so it’s important to keep challenging yourself. Here’s how you can keep the gains coming:

Track strength and performance
Use a workout log, app or notebook to track your exercises, weights, sets and reps. The Centr app offers a handy logbook within workouts, so you can track your strength gains over time. Challenge yourself to increase weight or reps each week – that’s the key to progressive overload and muscle growth.

Monitor physical changes
Snap weekly progress photos to see how your muscle definition is improving. Measure your body weight and muscle circumference (arms, chest, legs) every few weeks to check for changes.

Prioritize recovery
Make sure you’re getting enough sleep and taking rest days to allow your muscles to repair and rebuild. Add some mobility work on your rest days to prevent injuries and enhance your performance.

By tracking your progress and making smart adjustments on your muscle-building journey, you’ll stay on the fast track to continuous gains. Remember: consistency and patience will take you all the way.