Routines have little to do with growing. Growing is 80% done of the kitchen, at least. Without a healthy diet your basically going up the creek without a paddle. In this article I'm going to try to teach what a good routine is made of.

First, you need to get your goals straight. Are you bulking or cutting? It makes no difference, only difference between bulking and cutting is the amount and what you eat and the amount of cardio. Plain and simple. When bulking, your routine should be anywhere from 2-3 days per week. If you workout more than that, your just wasting your time. When bulking you should be working with so much volume 3-4 exercises should feel like a whole day in the gym, your CNS needs time to recovery. Rest is almost as important as diet.

Rep ranges? A lot of people have this question. What amount of rep ranges give me size? Well, that will depend on how long you've been training. For beginners and amateurs, 4-8 reps should be idol. Try to switch them up very cycle to cycle. In example, 12 weeks of 5x5, then 12 weeks of 3x6, then 12 weeks of 3x8 (mainly in the summer while cutting to increase the intensity), then 12 weeks of 4x6, then 12 weeks of 3x5, there's countless ways to switch things up. Keep your muscles guessing, if your used to the same rep ranges and same workout, your body will become amuned and won't be willing to push itsself. You need to leave your muscles guessing. Yeah, I know what your thinking...when you go to the gym you see bodybuilders using rep ranges like 3x10-12, and it's alright. Advanced bodybuilders on the pro wrestling level for example should be working out like that.

4-8 reps - beginner/amateur size and strength
1-4 reps - beginner amateur strength
6-8 reps - beginner amateur size continued
8-12 reps - advanced bodybuilder size

Wheather your bulking or cutting, you should keep your routine based on compound exercises. 99.9% of your routine should be compound during bulking, but as far as cutting goes, you may have 1 exercise per day isolation to increase the intensity.

Basic compound exercises

Bench Press
Squat
Deadlifts
Powercleans
Bent Over Barbell Rows
Chins
Dips
OHP
etc.

How long should you use the same routine? 8-12 weeks is idol. After 8-12 weeks, you should take a 1 week break from training. No cardio or anything, this gives you CNS time for complete recovery. Change up your routine to keep the muscles guessing, there are plenty of routines on this forum, to keep 1 for 2 consecutive cycles is just plain ignorant.

A good example of routine.

We're pretending this person is new to bodybuilding, we'll say he's been working out 1 year and his max is 225 lbs (bench press), 300 lbs (squat.

Bench Press - 5x5
Set 1 - 135 lbs
Set 2 - 150 lbs
Set 3 - 175 lbs
Set 4 - 185 lbs
Set 5 - 195 lbs

The last set he needs to fail to keep hisself challenged, when he can complete the sets for 5 reps in all of them, it maybe time to increase the weight. This is a good idea for numberous reasons, it allows you to push more weight and it allows you to get a better warm-up. This type of training should only be done once a year however, preferably done in your 2nd or 3rd bulking cycle of the year to gain tons of strength. In all other cases keeping the weight at the same rep ranges would be idol.

To be continued....