Bison Bulk Routine

aybige

New member
Hi guys,

After a three year hiatus where I could not go to the gym, I used this routine to get back to nearing my old levels of muscle size in a very short time. In 6 months I went from 84.9 with 22% bodyfat to 88.6kg with 15% bodyfat. I developed this routine while training others and tweaking it to work almost universally.

I wanted to use this routine as my stepping stone to a nice career in sports medicine, but lately my ambitions have steered me to a different medical field. So here it is, open source and free for anyone to use and change to their liking:

This is a very intense high volume routine to gain mass in the off season; 4-5 pounds of muscle gain a month is not unheard of. A complete mastery of the techniques to perform these exercises is a must to prevent injury. If you don’t know how to correctly do these exercises, do not try this training method just yet. Implement the exercises you don’t know in a conventional routine and come back when you feel comfortable with the movements.

Routine consists of workouts A/B/L, with A and B having three variations. The structure is A1,B1,L, day off, A2,B2,L, day off, A3,B3,L. So every 11 days you are doing 9 workouts.

You should complete this sequence at least 6-8x times, which will take 2-3
months, before assessment of muscle development. After such a cycle a rest period of two weeks should take place where you only do light cardio and stretches.

Except where otherwise specified,
exercises are done at the working weight with a 15/10/8/6/3 rep sequence and a maximum rest time of 30 seconds, and then followed up with volume sets of 6 reps at 80% the working weight until you fail to complete a whole set.

The rep sequence sets should be done until failure, the volume sets should be done with 1 rep in reserve.

Progression:

The working weight is increased when you can complete the rep sequence with a controlled and correct movement. For the first few workouts, this is expected to almost always happen every single workout

Diet:

2 grams of protein per kg of bodyweight, total calories= TDEE + 600kcal (+-200kcal). When designing a diet plan, put more focus on slow digestion proteins like casein and egg protein instead of fast acting proteins like whey. Protein timing is however irrelevant.

Body composition should be measured every four weeks by 7 site skinfold caliper measurement. If the gain in fat free mass is less than 40% of the total mass gain, reduce the daily kcal surplus with 100-200kcal

Workouts:

A1 Dumbbell Incline fly

A1 Dumbbell Overheadpress

A1 Dumbbell JM press



A2 Guillotine incline dumbbell press

A2 Lateral raise bentover/standing superset 4x12

A2 Skullcrushers



A3 Chest pressmachine

A3 Upright Row (no volume sets)

A3 tricep cable pulldown



B1 Seated 30degree incline hammer curls

B1 Wrist curls 3x20

B1 Chinups 3 sets until failure

B1 Shrugs 3x12



B2 Preacher curls

B2 Reverse Cable Curls 4x12

B2 Lat pulldown 4x12

B2 Dumbbell row



B3 Standing barbell curls

B3 pronating cable curls 4x12

B3 semisupinated chinups 3 sets until failure

B3 Low cable row



L kettlebell goblet squats 10x10 (max rest time 1 minute)
L Leg curls 10x6
L adduction machine 3x20
L sitting calve raises 3x20

For the second cycle, replace JM press for weighted dips and add 8x6 rep deadlifts at the start of the legs workout. Also replace kettlebell goblet squats for barbell front squats. Accurate assessment of body composition should guide any other changes in exercise.

How do I progress?

Each workout you try to hit the rep sequence for each listed movement. If you are not able to do this, repeat the same working weight for the next time you do the movement. Otherwise, add weight the next time. Either way, the total weight you are moving will increase every time. This forces the muscles to grow.

Going to failure

For the working weight sets, it is important to go to failure every set, do not stop before the muscle fails completely. This means that for the rep sequence 15/10/8/6/3, if you end up doing 20/8/5/4/2 instead, that’s great but you should still try to hit the minimal reps in the sequence next time with the same weight. Do not spare yourself in the first couple of sets to match the rep sequence in the later sets.

Controlled variables

Always perform a movement with the same speed and technique. Rest time should be fixed, I recommend 30 seconds max. If you don’t like timers, count your breaths; after ten breaths you start the next set.

Why the odd leg day exercises?

This routine is based on old school bodybuilding ideals, mostly from the work of Vince Gironda, who believed that for perfect aesthetics men should not have a big ass. Front squats hit the quads more and the rest of the exercises builds mass without destroying the V-shape (small waist, wide shoulders) you should strive for.

Why these exercises?

These exercises are selected based on empirical experience combined with what we know works best based on (very limited) EMG research. You should not only aim to gain mass, you want that mass to be in the right places to give you that old school v-shape and the optical illusion of mass.

At some point you can replace these exercises with similar variations that work the same muscles, although I would recommend to follow the routine as is for at least 3 months before changing things up.

How about barbell work, where is my beloved bench press?
Firstly going to failure repeatedly in this manner and with this high of a volume is dangerous when doing an exercise like barbell bench. Also dumbbell presses are superior to barbell bench when it comes to hypertrophy training.

This is a specialized routine to gain mass quickly, If you like the big three and want to compete in powerlifting meets, I suggest you do a specific routine focused on those movements

How come some exercises have conventional straight sets instead of rep sequence style?

Some exercises do not lend themselves for going to failure with short rest intervals, because there is a higher chance of injury, because of a low range of motion, or because your technique will unavoidably get worse each set when going to failure.

For upright rows you should not do volume sets because of a higher risk of injury when doing this movement with high volume.

I have seen this repseq stuff before?

Yes it’s nothing more than basically one pause rep set, but with a fixed amount of reps to aim for before increasing the working weight. Pause rep sets have been used for decades with good results. The volume weight sets have been described in many workout routines as well and force you to aim for maximal volume each workout. The alternating exercises are pulled and adapted from Dante Trudel’s DC training.

Why is this workout called Bison Bulk?

What is a workout routine without a cringy name? Also Bisons are amazing and very underrated animals. We should mention Bisons more. You can call this routine whatever you like btw.

What are your credentials?

I do not have any to share since sharing any relevant credentials would deanonimize me to some extent. I work in the medical field, but to be honest not specifically physical therapy or sports medicine. If you like to follow anyone with actual credentials instead I would recommend you to look up Dr Mike from renaissance periodization. Don’t buy his app though, waste of money. Get a paper notebook and a nice pen instead.

Why is this routine better than routine x or routine y?

It isn’t. It might give you amazing results, it might not. Do whatever you feel is right, just be consistent in how you train

why biceps before back?

Because it works great, you can also do the more conventional back before biceps if you want and I won’t shed an eye.

Keep notes

Log everything you do, every set, every rep, how hard the set was etc. The next time you do the workout, you want to beat your previous workout.



Example log entry of workout A1:

Dumbbell incline fly

Working weight: 14kg

16/11/8/6/3 reps

Volume weight: 11kg

6/6/5 reps



Dumbbell Overheadpress

Working weight: 22kg

14/8/8/5/2 reps

Volume weight: 18kg

6/6/6/4



Dumbbell JM press

Working weight: 16kg

15/12/8/7/4

Volume weight: 12kg

6/6/6/6/4



In this case this person would increase the weight for flyes and jm press next workout, for the dumbell overheadpress he would try again to hit the rep sequence next workout with the same working weight.



Let me know if you have questions or comments.
 
@aybige That is the most dogshit exercise selection for legs I’ve ever seen. I’m assuming this is a troll

Edit: this is just a super shitty version of DC training
 
@doks You can disagree and that’s fine but it is not “dogshit”. Goblet squats are a primer for barbell front squats which I have people replace it with for the second cycle. Most people aren’t doing front squats so adding such a complex taxing movement immediately would be detrimental to the progression and would for the first couple of weeks mean minimal gains while they get comfortable with doing the movement with any relevant weight. In the second cycle you’d be doing deadlifts and front squats, also heavy dips are added.

This is a very hard hitting routine as it is, going all in on heavy lowerbody cns work for the first cycle will either burn you out in a way that you can’t complete the cycle and/or will impede your gains elsewhere. I have had guys try and it’s too much, let alone doing it pause rep. Strossen had guys do pause rep back squats in his routines but with just a handful of other exercises with very low volume.

And besides all of the above with this priming leg work you will still see good lower body hypertrophy, if you have any objective reasons why you would not I would love to hear it. Unconvential is not by definition “dogshit”. Poliquin and vince gironda prescribed similar leg workouts, it works.

This is a specialized routine to build mass effectively but is for sure not for every lifter out there. If you are looking for yet another conventional variation on rippetoe with some extra volume added or a generic PPL routine, there are plenty of other routines to follow.

Tldr: I disagree with your assessment

Edit: Lol you do behind the neck presses and talk about bad exercise selection, I am not arguing with you any further.
 
@aybige It’s funny how there’s tons of really good programs on the internet (for free) and you could’ve copy pasted any one of them, and instead you took what I assume is DC training principles and you managed to make a garbage-tier version. Well done. At least you were somewhat creative.

For those reading this besides OP, look literally anywhere else to find a better program. This is rubbish.
 
@doks So basically you have no real substantive arguments here, just asshole comments because something doesn’t follow your narrow minded dogma.

And people are free to follow other programs, I mention a couple of times in my post that that would be a good idea. And yes as I mentioned this routine is based on pause rep ideas from the past, with the alternating exercises being very similar to DC training ideas.

Whether you like it or not, this approach works. I get no benefit in taking time to write this stuff up, I just want to add my knowledge to the discussion. With the increasing interest in heavy duty style training I have seen lately I wanted to share one approach (out of many) that works. If anyone has actual arguments I would love to hear them, but asshole remarks like yours are just a waste of time to be honest.
 
@aybige This is terrible top to bottom well done.

Also it's quite hilarious to call something the "bison bulk" then turn around and say let's keep the glutes small though. Being afraid of the waist thickening because of doing heavier freeweight work for the legs is fucking stupid.

Doing only goblet/front squats to "keep the waist small" goddamn is this some prime bullcrap to feed to some beginner at planet fitness.
 
@surfing_australian Lol you are very right on the name, I will give you that. Didn’t give the name much thought

Besides that saying it’s bad top to bottom without being able to point out why it’s bad, shows you don’t know what you are talking about. I am very open to arguments and to talk about my reasoning while designing this program over the years and the ideas I implemented.

But that’s fine dude posting this here was a mistake on my end, I learned that now. Never go agains the trend, imagine approaching training from a different paradigm, I must be insane
 
@aybige It would be a waste of my time to start unpacking all of the stuff I'd program differently when you're worried about 20 year old fitness myths like the waist thickening if you do backsquats. I have actual work to do today.

In short I'd say you picked the exercises you wanted and then just slapped them somewhere into the program. Why even mention Mike Israetel if you're just gonna go against the most surface level recommendations he/others make?

Your whole post and comments here have real "Wow everyone is really stupid except me" energy
 
@aybige alright I'm too curious why is limiting yourself to three exercises one chest, one shoulder and one tricep and then waiting 3 full days before you hit them again a good idea?

I mean it isn't at all but please still explain where you got that from
 
@aybige Sounds overcomplicated. Why not do something with double progression? Or easy to follow periodization?

Advance natural lifters like Geoffrey Verity Schofield, Alex Leonidas, Bald Omni-Man still have basic double progression on their lifts.

2 weeks rest period with cardio and stretching? I have not seen 1 decently built natural lifter do that...
 
@aybige This is probably the worst program I've seen in some time, even the ones proposed by rank novices.

Good exercise science is evolutionary, not revolutionary, so when you see something that looks night and day different to what is being done at the top levels, it may be best to ask why - Is this person running training camps for NFL players? Or is he just a PT at some globo gym getting middle aged dudes in slightly better shape? What special insight could this person possibly have, and in what way is that better than the multiple jacked as fuck PHD's who look night and day better than this guy and have academic chops to back it up?
 
@nikkideamus Lol at pretending there is some kind of consensus among exercise intellectuals on what works. There is to some extent of course and this approach fits right in within that very broad consensus.

Mechanistically there is nothing wrong with this approach, you just don’t like it and that’s fine.
Beginners should just do a conventional approach, but this is not designed for beginners in the first place but for intermediates who want to train hard and edge out gains in the short term using a somewhat unorthodox high intensity training program with variable volume.

Also if you think NFL coaches (why nfl?) don’t implement these kinds of training ideas I suggest you talk to some
 
@aybige Yeah.. So much arbitrary nuanced useless junk presented as some well developed program that gave you 20 pounds/9kg's of lean mass in 6 months. I don't know what to tell you other than good that you have been steered to a different medical field.
 
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