How to structure a weekly training plan to build real strength and muscle

If you’ve been training for a while and feel like you’re going in circles (switching routines every two weeks, or you destroy yourself one day and the next you don’t even make it to the gym), this article is for you.

I’m not going to tell you what muscles each exercise works or give you a list of generic tips.

I’m going to show you how I think about weekly planning—and why most people don’t progress even when they work hard.

The problem isn’t a lack of effort

The most common mistake I see isn’t training too little. It’s training with no structure.

Some people bust their ass in the gym for months and don’t add even 1 kg to their numbers. Why? Because strength training doesn’t work off random bursts of intensity—it works off systematic progression, week after week.

A weekly training plan isn’t a list of exercises. It’s a system where every session has a clear purpose, every muscle group gets enough stimulus to grow, and your numbers (weight and reps) go up in a measurable way over time. If you want to stop winging it and train with a real plan, the Bilbo Method Plan is built for exactly that.

Without that, you’re just improvising. And improvising in the gym is the fastest road to a plateau.

How many days you should train

It depends on how many days you can realistically sustain for months. Not how many you can train this week—how many you’ll still be doing three months from now when work hits, August heat shows up, or any other excuse.

• With 3 days a week. That’s plenty to build serious strength and muscle. A well-designed full-body plan, with heavy main lifts and measured progression, is extremely effective. It’s what I recommend for beginners or anyone with a life full of variables.
  
• With 4 days. You can split the work by muscle groups and add more volume without making sessions longer. An upper/lower split or a body-part split works perfectly and lets you train each muscle twice per week, which is optimal for hypertrophy.
  
• With 5+ days. Now you’re in high-performance territory where periodization, volume control, and recovery are critical. If you haven’t trained intelligently for at least a year, you don’t need this.

There’s no “ideal frequency” in the abstract. There’s only what fits your real life.

How to split muscle work across the week

Here’s one principle I don’t negotiate: each muscle group needs to be trained at least twice per week to maximize hypertrophy. The evidence backs it up—and it’s what I’ve seen for years training and coaching athletes.

The classic mistake of “chest day” on Monday and not touching chest again until the next Monday is inefficient if your goal is to build muscle. Muscle recovers way sooner than 7 days.

An efficient 4-day split could look like:

• Monday: Push (chest, shoulders, triceps)
• Tuesday: Pull + biceps (back, biceps)
• Thursday: Legs (quads, glutes, hamstrings)
• Friday: Push/pull or full-body strength

With 3 days, full-body gives you that frequency naturally because every session hits all the main groups.

In this video I explain more about how to program your training to build muscle mass:

The main lift is everything

Inside every session, there’s a hierarchy.

The main lift (the one you do first, heavy, and with the most demanding technique) is what moves the needle for strength and muscle. Accessories help, but they’re not what makes you grow.

That’s why in the Bilbo Method the first exercise for each muscle group follows a structured progression system: instead of doing flat sets with the same weight week after week, the load increases in a calculated way based on your one-rep max. That way every session has a clear, verifiable performance target.

If you’re not progressing on the main lift, you’re not growing. Simple as that.

Progression: the missing ingredient

Progression isn’t “try to lift more whenever you can.” Progression is a plan. You know ahead of time what weight you need to move this week, how many reps, and when it’s time to add load.

There are lots of ways to program progression:

• double progression (first you add reps, then weight)
• classic linear progression (you add weight every week)
• undulating periodization (the load varies by day)

What matters isn’t which one you pick—it’s that you have a system and you track it.

90% of people in the gym don’t track anything. They don’t know what they lifted last week or how many reps they did. That makes progress invisible. If you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

One tool I use that works is calculating your estimated 1RM to adjust working loads. If you want to run that calculation, on bilboteam.com you’ve got a free 1RM calculator that gives you the number in seconds.

Strength training for women works the same

I’m saying this because I get asked all the time: the principles of progression don’t change by gender. A woman who wants to build strength and muscle needs the exact same thing: measured progression, heavy main lifts, and enough training volume. What changes is the starting numbers, not the training logic.

The myth that women should do “lots of reps with light weight to tone” is one of the most damaging ideas floating around the fitness world. Muscle hypertrophy works the same in men and women. Hormones differ—the mechanism doesn’t.

How much volume you really need

Training volume (the total number of sets per muscle group per week) has an optimal range. Too little and there’s not enough stimulus to grow. Too much and you don’t recover—which also kills progress.

As a general reference, to build muscle most people respond well to 10–20 weekly sets per muscle group, spread across at least two sessions. Big groups like legs or back usually need the higher end of that range.

But here’s something almost nobody says: you have to earn volume.

If you’re new to training—or you’ve been training for a while without real progression—your body isn’t ready to handle 20 weekly sets per muscle group. Start at the low end, execute well, and increase volume when you’re recovering fine and your numbers are going up.

Rest is part of the plan

A weekly plan isn’t just training days. Rest days are part of the structure. Muscle doesn’t grow while you train—it grows while you recover. If you train every day without giving your body room to adapt, you’re literally blocking progress.

That includes sleeping well, eating enough protein, and not showing up to every session with your nervous system fried. Nutrition and sleep aren’t extras—they’re the environment where adaptation happens.

If you want to go deeper on how to eat so your training actually makes sense, I’ve got an article on nutrition for building muscle mass where I break it down with no fluff.

Civil-service fitness tests: a special case

If your goal is to prepare for competitive civil-service exams (Firefighters, National Police, Guardia Civil, Mossos), the approach changes. It’s not just about building general strength: there are specific physical tests with minimum standards you must hit, and your training has to be built around that. That’s why I have a dedicated section on fitness prep for civil-service candidates where I explain it in detail.

What you need to start right

Here’s the no-BS summary of what makes a weekly plan actually work:

• First, the number of days has to be sustainable. Better 3 days for a year than 5 days for a month.

• Second, you need measured progression on the main lifts. No numbers, no reference. No reference, no improvement.

• Third, volume should match your level—not the maximum you can survive this week.

• Fourth, rest days should be planned just like training days.

• And fifth—this is what separates people who progress from people who spin their wheels—you need a system that tells you exactly what to do each day and how you’re doing compared to last week.

👉🏻 That’s exactly what the Bilbo Method Plan does: three complete routines with built-in progression, tracking for weights and reps, automatic 1RM calculation, and direct access to me if you’ve got questions. For less than what a shake costs per month.

If you’ve been stuck for a while, it’s not that you’re not trying hard enough. You’re missing a plan.