Are you curious about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s blueprint to mass program?

Do you want to know Arnold Schwarzenegger trained to become one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time?

Then you’ve come to the right place.

In this comprehensive guide, I will teach you how to take your training to the next level using Arnold Schwarzenegger’s blueprint to mass!

Introduction

  • Part 1: Chest / Back
  • Part 2: Shoulders / Arms
  • Part 3: Legs

Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time. He won the Mr. Olympia competition 6 times in a row from 1970-1975, and then again in 1980.

Arnold Schwarzenegger says his Blueprint To Mass program is the fastest way to build muscle mass.

After all, Blueprint To Mass is based on the exact workouts that he used in the 1970s to become a bodybuilding champion.

But what is Blueprint To Mass, and why is it so effective for building muscle?

Blueprint To Mass is a high-volume, high-frequency bodybuilding program designed to shock your muscles into growth. Arnold Schwarzenegger used many high-intensity techniques in his workouts, such as drop sets and supersets, and they are included in the program for maximum results.

Here is Arnold talking about the high-intensity techniques he uses in his Blueprint To Mass program:

“You have to shock the muscle, shock the muscle, shock the muscle with different kinds of training principles.

Expose your weak points! You’re gonna go and hit those marks.

Then you move the bar higher and move the bar higher and you feel that with hard work you can achieve the goals and become successful!”

If you are familiar with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s training program, then you already know he liked to train 6 days per week.

Here is the exact training split that you will use on this program:

The Arnold Schwarzenegger Training Split

  • Day 1: Chest / Back
  • Day 2: Shoulders / Arms
  • Day 3: Legs
  • Day 4: Chest / Back
  • Day 5: Shoulders / Arms
  • Day 6: Legs
  • Day 7: Off

Arnold Schwarzenegger says this training split is ideal for building muscle mass, as you can train every body part twice per week.

Blueprint To Mass is an old-school training program based on the based on the basic compound exercises, such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, chin ups, and barbell rows.

Arnold says these basic exercises are absolutely essential, as they create the foundation for the rest of your training program.

“The important thing is to train the proper way which is to train the basics!

If it is the squats, the 2 arm curls, the bent over rowing, the clean, the press, the bench press, the incline press, the dumbbell press…

All of those basic exercises and that is what you need to grow!”

Now let’s take a closer look at the exact Blueprint To Mass workouts that Arnold Schwarzenegger used to become the greatest bodybuilder of all time!

Part 1: Arnold’s Chest / Back Workouts

Arnold Schwarzenegger trained his chest twice per week on Monday and Thursday.

He says too many bodybuilders make the mistake of training these muscle groups separately.

Instead, you should train the chest and back together to maximize the pump in your upper body.

So what did Arnold’s chest and back workout look like? Arnold trained his chest and back with 4 exercises each.

He focused on a variety of compound and isolation exercises for his chest and back, such as bench presses, dumbbell flyers, pull ups, and dumbbell pullovers.

Of course, he also used plenty of high-intensity techniques to shock his muscles into growth!

Here is Arnold’s exact Blueprint To Mass chest / back workout. Check it out:

Blueprint To Mass Chest / Back Workout

  • Exercise #1: Bench press, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #2: Incline bench press, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #3: Dumbbell flyes, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #4: Dumbbell pullovers, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #5: Wide grip pull ups, 4 sets to failure
  • Exercise #6: Bent over rows, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #7: T-bar rows, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #8: Deadlifts, 4 sets of 8-15 reps

Here is the chest training video:

And here is the back training video:

Talk about an intense workout! Let’s start by talking about Arnold’s chest exercises.

Arnold says you have to find the exercises that work best for you on each body part.

For chest, Arnold loved to do three main exercises:

  • Bench press
  • Incline bench press
  • Dumbbell flyes

Of course, Arnold performed many other exercises for chest during his bodybuilding career.

However, these are the exercises that he believes work the best for overall chest growth.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has the biggest chest of all time, so maybe he’s onto something here!

“I think the three exercises for chest today I have always done.

The first year when I started training and the last 10 when I was training is bench press, incline press and then flys.”

Arnold says the dumbbell flies were especially important, as that was the only exercise where he really felt the full stretch and contraction in his chest.

Arnold used to perform dumbbell flys where the weights almost touched the ground in the bottom position!

This can be a little bit dangerous if you aren’t careful.

However, Arnold believed this high-intensity technique was the key to getting complete chest development.

“Dumbbell flys was an exercise that gave me the full pectoral muscle development.

I went all the way out and almost hit the ground, and I was a big believer in expanding the chest as much as possible and giving that stretch.

Remember, with the muscles the important thing always is to get the flex and to get the stretch.

And to me, going all the way out with the dumbbells as far as you can to get that stretch, and then to come in and then to have the dumbbells touch, and then flex like you’re doing the most muscular on top, and then to go out again…

Those were the kinds of exercises to me that were like, you could not replace them with any machine. This was it!”

After training chest, Arnold went right into his upper back routine.

For this program, Arnold wants you to perform 5 different back exercises:

  • Dumbbell pullovers
  • Wide grip pull ups
  • Bent over rows
  • T-bar rows
  • Deadlifts

Now THAT is an intense back workout!

Arnold believes too many people skip the basic mass-building exercises like pull ups, barbell rows, and deadlifts.

He believes the only way to build up the thickness of the traps, rhomboids, and spinal erectors is to perform these basic barbell exercises.

“Bent over rowing with a barbell and t-bar rowing. I mean, any kind of rowing exercise that used the thickness, those are the exercises I always relied on from beginning to the end.

A lot of bodybuilders have a deficiency when it comes to the lower back and to the striation of the lower back which you only get from the stiff legged deadlift, from regular deadlift, from bent over rowing, and all the stuff without supporting your chest.

You’ve got to let your body free and let the lower back hold you up while you’re doing the bent over rowing.”

Arnold trained with a ton of volume on his chest and back workouts, and it showed in his physique.

These were two of his absolute best body parts on the bodybuilding stage.

If you are looking for a high-volume chest / back workout to shock your body into growth, then let it be Arnold’s Blueprint To Mass chest and back routine!

Part 2: Arnold’s Shoulder / Arm Workouts

Arnold Schwarzenegger trained his shoulders and arms twice per week on Tuesday and Friday.

He says that training the shoulders and arms is completely different from training the chest and back.

You still want to be strong and lift reasonably heavy weights – especially on overhead presses and close grip bench presses.

However, Arnold believed that training the shoulders and arms was first and foremost about training for the pump!

Arnold used many different isolation exercises for his shoulder and arm workouts, and often used high-intensity techniques like drop sets and tri-sets.

For the Blueprint To Mass program, Arnold wants you to perform different shoulder / arm workouts on Tuesday and Friday. Here is the first one:

Blueprint To Mass Shoulder / Arm Workout #1

  • Exercise #1: Clean and press, 5 sets of 5 reps
  • Exercise #2: Dumbbell press, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #3: Front dumbbell raise, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #4: Lateral raise, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #5: Upright row, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #6: Barbell curls, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #7: Incline dumbbell curls, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #8: Dumbbell concentration curl, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #9: Close grip bench press, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #10: Barbell skull crushers, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #11: One-arm overhead dumbbell extension, 4 sets of 8-15 reps

Here is the training video:

Talk about an intense workout!

For this routine, Arnold wants you to perform a total of 11 exercises for your shoulders, biceps, and triceps.

Here is how Arnold organizes the workout:

  • Shoulders: 5 exercises
  • Biceps: 3 exercises
  • Triceps: 3 exercises

Arnold starts this workout with some heavy dumbbell presses.

He says heavy overhead presses with dumbbells or the barbell is absolutely essential to developing the thickness of the deltoid muscle. 

One of his favorite strategies was to perform “strip the rack” drop sets on the dumbbell overhead press.

For this technique, he would pick a heavy weight, such as the 110 pound dumbbells, and lift them 6 times over his head.

Then he would pick the 100s and perform 6 reps. He would keep dropping the weight until he was lifting the 40s for 6 reps! Check it out:

“We went to the 110 pound dumbbells and did dumbbell presses. We did 6 reps. So we picked up the 100s and did another 6 reps.

Then we picked up the 90s and did another 6 reps. Then we picked up the 80s and we went all the way down to he 40s and we could barely do 6 reps with the 40s.

I could tell you, I did not no where to put my arm because my deltoids were screaming in pain. Why? Because I shocked the muscle!”

This is a very intense strategy, and is not something that you have to use every workout, or even every week.

However, Arnold believed that these “muscle shocking” techniques are absolutely essential for building a world-class physique – especially for an advanced lifter getting ready for their bodybuilding competition.

After the heavy overhead presses, Arnold performs a variety of isolation exercises for his front, side, and rear delts.

After training shoulders, Arnold moves onto his 6 exercises for biceps and triceps.

Arnold likes to focus on simple exercises like barbell curls, close grip bench presses, and skull crushers for overall arm development.

Here is Arnold talking about his favorite drop set technique on barbell curls:

“Many times we would start out with a heavy weight we could lift for 1 rep. Then I have them pull off just enough weight that I can do 2 reps.

Then pull off plates so I can do 3 reps. Then pull off plates so I can do 4 reps.

And so this is how I would train without ever letting the bar down to really let the bicep know, you don’t know what’s coming!

You’re never going to get used to my training method!

I’m going to have all kinds of tricks up my sleeve!”

I’ll talk more about his arm exercises in the next routine. Here is Arnold’s second weekly shoulder / arm workout. Check it out:

Shoulder / Arm Workout #2

  • Exercise #1: Arnold press, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #2: Behind the neck press, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #3: Front dumbbell raise, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #4: Rear delt dumbbell flyes, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #5: Upright rows, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #6: Barbell curls, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #7: Incline dumbbell curls, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #8: Dumbbell concentration curl, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #9: Close grip bench press, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #10: Tricep pushdown, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #11: One-arm overhead dumbbell extension, 4 sets of 8-15 reps

Here is the training video:

Talk about an intense workout!

Arnold uses slightly different exercises in his second weekly shoulder / arm workout in the Blueprint For Mass program.

Many other legendary bodybuilders like Ronnie Coleman also liked to rotate between two different workouts for each body part, so this makes perfect sense.

For example, Arnold uses Arnold presses and behind the neck presses for shoulders, rather than clean and presses and regular dumbbell presses like he used in the first routine.

For biceps, Arnold believes you have to use a combination of mass-building exercises, like the regular barbell curl, and pure isolation exercises, like the standing dumbbell concentration curl.

“I mean it was absolutely essential to do the barbell curl to get the thickness of the bicep, to do the incline curl and to do the concentration curl.

The concentration curl isolated the biceps with the heavy weights, not with light weight but with heavy weight to isolate and build that peak on the outside of the biceps in the back shots.”

Arnold uses a very similar approach in his tricep routine, where he uses heavy compound exercises like the close grip bench press, plus lighter isolation exercises like tricep pushdowns and overhead tricep extensions to really isolate the triceps.

If you are looking for a new high-volume shoulder / arm routine to shock your muscles into growth, then you have to try Arnold’s Blueprint To Mass shoulder and arm routines!

Part 3: Arnold’s Leg Workouts

Arnold Schwarzenegger trained his legs twice per week on Wednesday and Friday.

Arnold’s legs were always one of his weaker body parts, so he had to work extra hard in the gym to bring these muscles up.

So what did Arnold’s leg workouts look like?

Arnold used extremely high-volume leg workouts with as many as 8-10 exercises to train his quads, hamstrings, and calves!

Arnold says the legs respond well to high-volume workouts with high rep ranges, so you have to dig deep and push yourself if you want to develop world-class quads and hamstrings!

Arnold usually started his leg workouts with heavy compound exercises like squats and deadlifts, and then moved onto smaller isolation exercises like leg extensions and leg curls.

As usual, Arnold liked to alternate between two different leg workouts so he could attack each muscle group with a wide variety of exercises.

Here is Arnold’s first weekly Blueprint To Mass leg workout. Check it out:

Leg Workout #1

  • Exercise #1: Squats, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #2: Stiff-legged deadlifts, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #3: Good mornings, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #4: Lunges, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #5: Leg extensions, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #6: Leg curls, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #7: Standing calf raise, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #8: Seated calf raise, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #9: Kneeling cable crunch, 4 sets of 8-15 reps

Here is the training video:

Talk about an intense workout!

Arnold Schwarzenegger used 9 different exercises in this Blueprint For Mass leg workout to build up his quads, hamstrings and calves.

Arnold says that his hamstrings and calves grew reasonably well, but he always had a harder time developing his quads.

His big breakthrough came in 1971 when he started supersetting leg extensions with squats.

The basic idea was to pre-exhaust his quads with the leg extensions, then jump straight into squats where his quads would have to work even harder than normal. Check it out:

“The biggest progress I made in my quad training, though, was in 1971, when I was looking for ways to define my thighs.

I began supersetting leg extensions with squats, performing the extensions first. Now we call this pre-exhaustion.”

You don’t have to superset leg extensions with squats on this routine. In fact, this leg workout is probably hard enough as is!

However, this is definitely an option if you are looking to “shock the muscle” as Arnold Schwarzenegger liked to say.

For this workout, Arnold trained his hamstrings with the classic mass-building exercises, such as stiff-legged deadlifts, good mornings, and leg curls.

Arnold believed that the basic exercises like stiff-legged deadlifts and leg curls work the best for building thick hamstrings, so there was no need to innovate for that body part.

Finally, for calves Arnold liked to use a variety of exercises including seated calf raises, and standing calf raises.

On Saturday Arnold performed his second weekly leg workout, and he liked to mix things up by performing different exercises whenever possible for his quads, hamstrings and calves. Check it out:

Leg Workout #2

  • Exercise #1: Front squats, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #2: Deadlifts, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #3: Good mornings, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #4: Lunges, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #5: Leg extensions, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #6: Leg curls, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #7: Standing calf raise, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #8: Seated calf raise, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
  • Exercise #9: Kneeling cable crunch, 4 sets of 8-15 reps

Here is the training video:

Talk about an intense workout!

Arnold kept a lot of the smaller isolation exercises the same in this workout.

However, he completely changed the heavy exercises, such as squats and deadlifts, to hit the quads and hamstrings from slightly different angles.

For this workout, Arnold focused on the front squat rather than the back squat.

It’s rare that a bodybuilder really pushes themselves on front squats.

That is a shame, as it is one of the best quadriceps exercises you can perform in the gym.

“I think everyone knows when they get into training that you’re not going to become a champion from one day to the next.

The question is, how can I speed up the process?”

Arnold also mixes things up by performing regular deadlifts for his hamstrings, rather than stiff-legged deadlifts.

Arnold has superior recovery ability, and was able to recover from two heavy deadlift sessions per week.

If you cannot recover from deadlifting heavy twice per week, then you may want to consider backing off the deadlift frequency, and just performing it once per week.

Conclusion | Arnold Schwarzenegger's Blueprint To Mass!

Arnold Schwarzenegger was the greatest bodybuilder of all time, and it’s easy to see why.

He used a high-volume, high-intensity training program to become one of the biggest and strongest athletes in the world.

If you are looking for a high-volume bodybuilding program to shock your body into growth, then you may want try Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Blueprint To Mass program.

It may be just what you need to take your training to the next level!

Before you go, check out my other world-class bodybuilding articles:

Trust me – you won't find this cutting-edge information anywhere else!

“The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.”

Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of luck on your strength training journey!