Hey guys, I'm a 23 year old male 6'0 225. I've played football all my life and graduated college in Dec. of 2010. Now that I'm no longer playing football, strength is not that great of an importance to me since I am no longer competing. My strength coaches usually had us doing workouts utilizing pyramid techniques. Eventually I would plateau. Since I have stopped playing football and have been working out on my own, I have tried to switch my workout around and have been using split training. I have been splitting upper body and lower body between workouts on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday for about 4 months now.

I now want to focus on just gaining size, strength gains are ok but my main focus is to make my muscles bigger. I have been doing my research on the different types of workout programs available. To my understanding, the programs best tailored for size are: German Volume Training, HST training, FST-7 training, some articles said 5x5 training, and I've also been eyeballing the 12 week split workout featured in Jim Stoppani's article titled "Stop Training Like An Idiot! The 12-Week Shortcut To Size"


My question here is to ask any advice on which program would be most beneficial for me given my background. Or maybe more insight to these particular programs to help me make the best decision. Also any personal experiences with these programs would be greatly appreciated!

While you're at it, if you could name any non-steroid supplements that you have had a good experience with in gaining muscle size.

Im not sure if you would need any additional information to give me better advice, but I'm pretty experienced with weight lifting, so I know the ropes. If you need any more info, let me know!

1 Rep Maxes
Bench - 380
Incline - 345
Squat - around 500



Thanks in advance guys! I would love to hear any type of advice!