Men's Fitness: How to build an effective routine: smart training don't gamble away your chance for

Ahhh, Las Vegas. The roll of the dice, the turn of the card, the anxious thrill as you await the verdict ... and the emotional swoon as you watch the dealer sweep your wager away. But hey, what's another hundred dollars when it's disguised as a colorful plastic chip?

A trip to the Vegas Strip may not seem like it has a lot in common with your training. But if your workouts are disorganized mix-and-match sessions devoid of reasoning or fore-planning, you have a better chance of leaving the roulette table a millionaire than ever leaving the gym with the muscle you want.

Instead of relying on blind chance for your killer body, increase your odds of muscle-building success by using these hot tips to design an effective routine. If you put in the effort, you're virtually guaranteed success. And if you fail, at least we won't be sending Vinny out to break your kneecaps. At least the first time.

BEATING THE ODDS

The human body has a natural desire to maintain the status quo, which is why you may find it hard to gain significant amounts of muscle. To overcome that break-even inclination, you have to fight hard--actually, you have to fight smart--for every new ounce of muscle. That means short but intense sessions in which you continually challenge yourself to do more without substantially increasing the time you spend training, according to Patrick Hagerman, M.S., C.S.C.S., N.S.C.A.-C.P.T., owner of Quest Personal Training in Oklahoma City.

"For a muscle to grow, the training stimulus must be progressively increased," Hagerman explains. "You have to work out harder and harder, which may mean more weight, reps or sets. Reaching near failure, or training to the point your exercise technique begins to waver, is the goal."

You also need to constantly change up the workout. If you've been doing the same exercises, sets and reps week in and week out, with more predictability than a Boston Red Sox late-summer dive, your muscles will stop responding. "Try pyramiding the weight on successive sets, up or down, straight sets, supersets, drop sets or any other method you can think of," Hagerman says. "Don't get into one set routine. The more often you change your program, the more your body must respond to and overcome a new stimulus, which equals growth."

STACKING THE DECK: ROUTINE DESIGN GUIDELINES

If you're still not convinced you need a plan before tackling the weights, your persistence is admirable, if your physique isn't. For the rest of you, we cut to the chase: how to design the most effective routine possible for gaining size.

THREE TRAINING DAYS PER WEEK, WORKING ALL MUSCLE GROUPS ONCE

If you're really strapped for time, you could get away with two weight-training days a week, hitting the lower body in one session and the upper body in the second, and still see some results. But for a regular Joe with a full-time job and priorities at home, the optimal balance between training and recovery time is three workouts per week.

The body-part pairings are up to you, although some work better than others. For instance, training chest and shoulders with triceps hits all the complementary muscles of your upper body (e.g., your triceps are involved in shoulder and chest presses). With this approach you can also get away with fewer triceps movements, since the triceps are already trashed from the delt and pec work. Back and biceps are likewise complementary, while thighs and calves round out the third workout. (This is called a "push-pull" system, wherein you train a pushing muscle one day, a pulling muscle the next, and legs on a third day to complete the cycle.)

TWO TO FOUR EXERCISES PER BODY PART

There are literally hundreds of exercises to choose from, but only a few are sure winners--we list them in "Best Bets" (page 124). Choose two to four for each muscle group: more for the larger, more complex body parts such as legs, back, chest and shoulders; fewer for triceps, biceps, calves and abs. And follow these vital rules of thumb: big body parts before small body parts (such as back before abs or arms), and compound exercises that engage several joints before isolation exercises which engage only one (for example, flat-bench and incline presses before incline dumbbell flyes).

ONE TO THREE SETS PER EXERCISE, EIGHT TO 12 REPS PER SET

Debate continues to rage over the most effective number of sets for muscle growth. Research out of the University of Florida at Gainesville, published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, showed that experienced weight trainees made strength and size gains at the same clip on a one-set-to-failure routine as on a three-set-to-failure routine; with both regimens muscle failure was reached between eight and 12 reps. However, other research has indicated that, at least for those who have been training for a while, three sets may be most beneficial. Let results be your guide: If you respond well to one set per exercise, go for it. Otherwise, bump it up to two or three.

Whether you do one set or more, be sure to warm up. To raise your core temperature, jump on a piece of cardio equipment for 10 minutes before lifting; this does not mean you operate at 85 percent of your maximum heart rate--60 percent to 65 percent will do. Also, precede each body-part workout with a light warm-up set. For instance, before launching into a heavy set of delts, do a set of 15 to 25 reps of presses or lateral raises with a very light weight. (Don't count this warm-up toward your main working sets.) Not only will this flush some blood into the working muscle, it will help preset the neural pathways for the upcoming assault.

WEIGHT SELECTION

In "science" terms, you'll want to use 70 percent to 85 percent of your one-rep max. How the heck do you find out what that is? You have two options. You can test your strength to figure out how much you can lift for one rep and do the math from there, or you can choose the safer and easier road and estimate. Pick a weight that will challenge you: If you fail between eight to 12 repetitions, you've picked a good one. If after three or four reps you need to scream for help to get the weight off of you, you've gone too heavy. If you can rip through 12 or more before feeling any twinges of muscle fatigue, the weight is too light.

CASHING IN

Before we set you loose in the gym, one word of caution: This is not a process you can do once and be done with. Every two or three months you should reevaluate what's working, what isn't, and change up your routine, whether that means trying a few different exercises, a new split, even a slightly altered set-and-rep scheme. If you don't keep your body off balance, it'll grow staler than day-old bar pretzels.

Will a well-designed routine guarantee more mass? No, but it is an important first step. You also need to lift consistently and continually push your limits in the gym, as well as eat properly. Will having a plan put you ahead of all the guys who treat their training like a crapshoot, rolling the dice to see what they should do next? You can bet your biceps on it.

BEST BETS

The following are some of the best movements for each body part.

MULTI JOINT EXERCISES *

Back: Deadliff, bent-over row, pull-up, seated row

Chest: Flat-bench press, incline press, decline press (all performed with either dumbbells or a barbell)

Shoulders: Overhead press (seated or standing)

Thighs: Squat, hack squat, leg press

Triceps: Close-grip flat-bench press, triceps dip

SINGLE-JOINT EXERCISES *

Chest: Flat-bench, decline, or incline dumbbell flye, pec-deck machine

Shoulders: Lateral raise, front raise, bent-over lateral raise (all performed either with dumbbells or using a cable machine)

Thighs: Leg extension, leg curl (standing, seated or lying)

Calves: Standing or seated calf raise

Triceps: Lying EZ-French press, one- or two-arm overhead dumbbell extension, cable press-down (with rope or bar)

Biceps: Standing barbell curl, alternating dumbbell curl, dumbbell concentration curl, preacher EZ-bar or dumbbell curl

* Compound exercises involve two or more of the body's joints; for example, in the bent-over row, movement occurs at the shoulder joint and at the elbow. Single-joint exercises, like a concentration curl, involve only one joint.