This is a complete 20 week muscle building program from MusclePharm. Each phase is run as a 4 week block, and the 20 week cycle may be repeated after it is done. The phases are:

Get Swole Phase One doesn’t waste any time getting into some intense work. It originated to set up a foundation of my craziness in the gym for my clients, giving them a solid base from which to build.

I superset almost everything with a rep count around 12 and really focus on upping and improving the person’s GPP (gross physical preparedness) so they could handle any workout I threw at them in the later phases.

The phase certainly includes a greater type of volume than most are used to, and there’s an initial shock when introducing a plan this intense. That’s why I included a quality food plan and, just as importantly, a high-level recovery schedule to let everyone grow.

If done properly, this phase will build quality muscle. Whether you’re a hardgainer or just need to tighten up, this phase – and the Get Swole plan as a whole – will make your body change almost immediately. This is a proven blueprint to get rolling so all you have to do is jump in.

It’s all laid out for you, so don’t over think it. Just get to work and enjoy the ride.

Get Swole Phase 2 was designed to push even more growth, leaning on an old school pyramid-type workout to get it done.

It’s vastly different than Phase 1, which relied more on supersets in the 12-rep range, and that’s why it works.

Phase 1 laid the foundation and Phase 2 gives you the opportunity to push hard with some heavy weight. You’ll use pyramid sets, and it’s up to you to challenge yourself for each specified rep on each specified set.

If it says “20,15,12,10 reps” for a particular movement, you should barely be able to get each rep. That’s how hard you have to push, but the results will be apparent. You’ll see new growth and you’ll quickly know the effort is worth it.

You’re setting the body up to grow with a new stimulus, in addition to a solid diet, recovery and supplementation.

With this type of training in Phase 2, you’re tearing down and building new muscle, putting you on track for even more growth.

In short, Get Swole Phase 3 is brutal. It’s known as the Tri-Set Phase and there is nothing easy about this phase. We’re working on muscle fullness and roundness in this phase, and the nonstop tri-sets and huge volume allows that to happen.

You’ll put your body through some tremendously intense workouts, once again raising your GPP (gross physical preparedness). It gets your ready for the upcoming Phase 4, and you’ll see some strong results in the process.

Coming off the heavy pyramid workouts in Phase 2, your body will certainly be shocked for what’s in store in Phase 3.

But that’s exactly what we want and the pumps and muscle fullness you’ll feel will be awesome. The key is keeping your rest periods low and your intensity high, setting a brutal pace in the gym.

Once again, we’ll have a serious recovery schedule set for this phase, giving your muscles everything they need to recover while you’re still shedding body fat. Put in the work in this brutal phase and you’ll be impressed with how your body will change.

Get Swole Phase 4 is a bit different then the first three phases. I made it more of a cutting phase and turned the volume way up, making it closely mirror my daily workouts.

For the past 12 weeks, we have been putting on some serious sizes and those changes are probably apparent. With this phase, I wanted to make sure we could lose a little more body fat to really round things out and make this old school style workouts really shine. In phase four, I put two workouts for each muscle group, excluding shoulders, which get taxed plenty with all of the high volume chest and back work.

The timing for this phase is ideal and it comes at the perfect time because, from here, we transition to the basement phase to finish off the Get Swole plan.

Get Swole Phase 5 is designed to put on more quality mass – and a great deal of it – by returning to the basics of bodybuilding. This phase is all about the barbell and compound full-range movements and you’ll be impressed with the work you can get done in this phase.

These workouts take you back to the blue-collar, no excuses routines that have been performed for years in basements and garage gyms. I incorporate my own unique twists at the end of these workouts to increase blood flow and muscle pumps, leaving you supremely satisfied each time you’re done.

Begin each exercise by completing a few warm-up sets until arriving at a solid weight that’s suitable for completing 5 sets of 5 heavy reps. The key is making sure the weight is challenging enough so that it is very difficult to get that fifth rep on the fifth and final set.

Once you complete all five sets, decrease the weight and then perform the 28 method on the same core movement.

It’s the perfect mix of high and low reps and your body will thank you. Throwing the traditional heavy weight with some high volume will freak out the nervous system – in a good way – and increase blood flow to the muscle, leading to an absolutely sick pump – and plenty of more impressive results.