One nuanced point people fail to point out, you can progress in weight each week and still not be practicing progressive overload.

If I can bench press 225 for 10 reps but I do sets of 10 at 135, then next week sets of 10 at 145, I’m progressing, but the intensity is far too low to warrant any meaningful physiological response.

Intensity is not just a term for how psychologically locked in you are. It’s a percentage of one repetition maximum. If you want to get strong, you need to lift between 70-100%.

In the words of Stephane Cazeault, 'people forget about the OVERLOAD part in progressive OVERLOAD’. You need to challenge the system with loads approaching* a repetition max in order to most effectively put on muscle and gain strength.

This doesn’t necessarily mean training to complete failure every day, every set, and every exercise. Weight selection and effort however will have a big impact on your results long term.

At the end of the day, progression is king for long term results.

Rep First Progression

You can add weight, intensity, volume, or a combination of these factors. No matter what strategy you inevitably choose, it always results in increasing volume on a long enough time horizon.

To avoid bombarding you with a bunch of math I won’t get too much into this, but if you’re lifting the same weight for more reps, you’ve increased volume. If you’re lifting greater weight for the same reps, you’re increasing volume.

Why the rep first progression works:

1. Allows you to build technique with a moderately heavy weight.

2. Increases volume gradually and sustainably over time

3. Can be autoregulated easily.

   1. Do less reps on days you feel fatigued, do more reps on days you feel good.

4. Most importantly, it’s simple. You can’t screw this up guys.

The System

The base of the program is perform 3 sets of 6 to 10 repetitions with a compound lift.

Compound Lifts

Squats, Deadlifts, Bench Press, Overhead Press, Chin / Pull ups, Rows

1. What weight do I start with?

Start relatively conservative. Pick a weight you can hit for 3 sets of 10 with 1-2 reps in the tank (RIR). Next week add 5lbs to it.

2. How Do I Progress?

Each week try to add reps. Even if you get just ONE more rep, that’s a successful week. Progress takes time, take your wins. Once you’re able to do 9 or 10 reps per set, add 5lbs or as little weight as possible to the bar / dumbbells.

Repeat indefinitely until you can’t fit through doorways.

For this type of progression I would highly recommend microplates especially for exercises like the overhead press where adding 5lbs may just be too tough.

Always begin the workout with a compound lift so you’re fresh. You don’t want to do squats after heavy volume leg press and leg extensions. I would only perform the 3 x 6-10 on these compound lifts, then do sets of 8-15 reps on your accessories.

Just keeping an 8 to 12 rep range for accessories and using a similar progression strategy (add weight when you’re hitting 11 to 12 reps per set) works well for beginners.

Exercise Variation

I recommend rotating accessory exercises every 3-6 weeks.

Your primary compound movements you can keep pretty much forever or switch them slightly. Going from flat barbell bench to an incline barbell bench for example for the next training block would be a solid option. Modifying back squats to front squats or pendulum squats is also great.

Use your best judgement here, the textbooks are rigid sometimes in recommend 3 to 4 week training blocks. That 3-4 week period tends to be the sweet spot but if you’re progressing well still you might as well extend that time out to6 or even 8 weeks if things keep progressing well.

What to Do When You Stall

Change things up. If you start to stall I would switch over to a more strength dominant rep range like 5 x 5 or 6 x 3 for 3 weeks. Then you could either cycle back to the 3 x 6-10 system or try another program.

Want a customizable template with the rep first progression? Check out the manual below.

Rep First Method Ebook

As always, stay strong.

Paid Subscribers, use the link below to get the manual free.

Subscribe now

Read more

You complete the workout in a non-repeating sequence so all reps of an exercise are done before moving to the next exercise.

One and done ✅

There are no rounds to count, just a ton of reps to keep track of. Chippers will also typically include a variety of movements to accomodate for the fact that there’s only 1 round.

Popular Chippers

Fat Amy

• 50 Air Squats, 10 Burpees,

• 40 Sit-Ups, 10 Burpees,

• 30 Lunges, 10 Burpees,

• 20 Kettlebell Swings, 10 Burpees,

• 10m Bear Crawl, 10 Burpees,

• 20 Kettlebell Swings, 10 Burpees,

• 30 Lunges, 10 Burpees,

• 40 Sit-Ups, 10 Burpees,

• 50 Air Squats

Filthy Fifty

• 50 Box Jumps (24/20″)

• 50 Jumping Pull-Ups

• 50 Kettlebell Swings (35/26 lb)

• 50 Walking Lunges

• 50 Knees to Elbows

• 50 Push Presses (45/35 lb)

• 50 Back Extensions

• 50 Wall Ball Shots (20/14 lb)

• 50 Burpees

• 50 Double Unders

The conditioning above isn’t quite a chipper. It’s more of a waved based conditioning workout but I decided to roll with this instead of a chipper for you guys because I’d rather you go heavier. I would rest 1-2 min between rounds to keep output high and to minimize any drop off in load. Keep technique crisp!

If you wanted to implement chippers into your training I wold use them as a standalone full body conditioning day or to build GPP at the end of a strength session. In the case of using a chipper at the end of a strength session, I would just target every muscle group you worked.

Example:

Upper Body Chipper

• Dumbbell Bench Press x 30

• inverted Row / Chin-up x 30

• Dumbbell Overhead Press x 30

• Bent Over Dumbbell Row x 30

This would be something good to hit in a hotel gym where you’re limited on equipment. Hit some pre exhaust sets then finish off with a chipper pump sesh.

Go forth and lay waste to your enemies.

Track Your Workouts with The Progress App: Progress Workout

If you don’t want to workout on vacation, that’s fine. This article ain’t for you.

Almost every single trip I do I find time to fit in a workout (or a few). I don’t wake up at 4am to a David Goggins podcast or chug C4 just to get it in. I just do it because it makes me feel better. I don’t need hype or motivation and I suggest you also don’t try to rely on it.

I’ll be in Europe for about 2 weeks soon, here’s my hotel gym survival guide. The loose plan on how I plan to train while on the road for a couple weeks.

Minimalist Equipment

I look in advance before traveling and book hotels with better gyms or I just find gyms to drop into. However, some places will have minimalist setups. In these cases I prefer to hit pre exhaust sets and only a couple exercises.

Full Body

Do this workout if you only have access to dumbbells and a bench. Shorten it to 3 sets if you’re short on time. Add in 5-10 min of cardio before the workout as as warmup or do intervals (5-10 sec hard, rest of the minute recover) at the end to sneak in some HIIT.

A1 Jump Squat 4 x 15

A2 Alternating Dumbbell Lunge 4 x 12 each side

Rest 2:00 b/t sets

B1 Pushups 4 x MAX

B2 Dumbbell Bench Press 4 x 12-15

Rest 2:00 b/t sets

C1 Bent Over Dumbbell Row 4 x 20

C2 Dumbbell Lateral Raise 4 x 10-15

C3 Dumbbell Overhead Press 4 x 12-15

Rest 2:00 b/t Sets

Full Body Giant Sets

Depending how heavy dumbbells get you may need to do higher reps.

A1 Alternating Dumbbell Lunge 4 x 12 each side

A2 Dumbbell Bench Press 4 x 10-15

A3 Bent Over Dumbbell Row 4 x 10-15

A4 Dumbbell Overhead Press 4 x 10-15

Rest 2:00 b/t sets

Bodyweight Only

The ultimate Hotel room workout.

10 Min AMRAP

Pushup x 10

Squat x 15

Crunch x 20

Subscribe now

Time Crunch Template

I highly recommend doing full body if you’re traveling unless you for sure know you can stick to your split. Either Way, to keep things concise I would stick to something like the template below.

A. Warmup 3-5 Min

• I highly recommend bike/treadmill intervals. 5 seconds hard, 55 seconds recovery. Get things moving faster.

B. Strength 15-20 Min

• Hit something heavy first. Work up to a heavy set of 5-8 reps. Then do 1-3 backoffs sets. Decrease weight by 5-10% each Backoff Set. This is also a great way to autoregulate when traveling.

• Heavy 5-8 reps = RPE 8-9. You don’t need to explode yourself. The environment is different, you didn’t sleep well, find a heavy ish weight and hit this target. Hit some volume backoff sets and move on.

C. Accessory Giant Set 15-20 Min

• 3-4 Exercises done as a Superset. Rest 1-3 min at the end and perform 3-5 total rounds.

Total Time = 45 Min (Max)

Track Your Workouts with Progress

Other Pro Tips:

• ALWAYS wakeup early to workout. Doesn’t need to be 4am, but get it done right away. “Later” doesn’t exist.

• Don’t ask friends or family to do it with you. They’ll chicken out and give you an excuse to not do it. Better yet, don’t tell anybody and just go do it.

• Bring bands. They’re lightweight and easy to pack.

• Try something new. Your circumstances aren’t ideal, just mix up the workouts, do alot more volume, take shorter rest periods, do exercises you usually don’t do.

• When in doubt, pick 1-2 exercises and just do 10 sets of 10 with 1-2 min rest. It’s not perfect, but it’ll make you look good at the beach.

Got some favorite workouts to do in hotel gyms? Drop them below in the comments.

My linkedin if for some reason you want an extensive history of my experience.

Programs

Workhorse

Hard Gainer Hypertrophy

Everday Athlete

Jacked Up

BTW, Paid subscribers get 50% off all programs. Links to that come in your welcome email when you subscribe. If you can’t find it, shoot me a DM.

Guides

Performance Nutrition Manual

Arm Training Manual

Body Composition For Strength Sports Manual

Lean For Life Playbook

Protein Packed Power Recipe Manual

20% Off A Comprehensive Nutrition Assessment

• Get a customized nutrition strategy and meal template designed for long term results

Products & Guides

Take things to the next level with a paid subscription.

Upgrade to paid for exclusive content and 50% off all training programs, FREE access to the recipe manual, lean for life playbook, and the Beginner Gainz Program.

Read the benefits below.

GAINS Upgrade To Paid

Want to break up? Cool, i’ll only cry in the shower for a few minutes.

You can unsubscribe in one click.

What is 5 Round Friday (5RF)?

A quick hitting 5 round workout. Most of these workouts are designed for general conditioning so if you wanted to pull out some quick workouts to hit in the garage on a Saturday morning, you can refer back to this article.

Programs & Guides

Read more

If you’re beat up, tired, too fat, then do the biking at lower intensity.

You could also do the pushups from the knees or on an incline to make the repetitions more manageable. I highly recommend a chest strap for cardio, it’s great for just being able to more precisely measure the intensity of your sessions but it also gives you a number to measure and gamify.

• Morpheus or polar chest strap

The Workout

Each of these below is a stand alone workout and will last 20 minutes. Push for Max calories on the assault bike. That’s your score. Keep the clock running the entire time, don’t pause the timer when you do the pushups or other exercises.

Bike & Pushups 01

20 Minute Assault Bike for Max Calories

Every 4 Minutes do 25 Pushups

Bike & Bodyweight 02

20 Min Assault Bike For Max Calories

Every 5 Minutes do 15 Squats and 15 Pushups

Bike & Bodyweight 03

20 Min Assault Bike for Max Calories

Every 4 Minutes do 10 Burpee Pushups

Hit the workouts hard this weekend.

Subscribe now

Programs & Guides

Free Arm Training Manual

Read more

You won’t find any notoriously underloaded exercises like planks.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think planks are bad.

If you can however already hold a plank for 1+ minute, it’s time to make it more challenging. You should also be adding other planes of movement into your core routine.

Your spine isn’t made to be just stiff all the time, it should be able to tolerate bending. We can increase that tolerance by rotating, flexing, and extending the trunk to keep your back healthy and strong.

Alittle while ago I wrote a comprehensive article on training the core that you can find by clicking here. You can use concepts from that article to build out a structured and comprehensive core routine.

🔑 One key point I like to always bring up about core training.

Your core is more than just your “6 pack muscles”. Your transverse abdominals, obliques, and spinal erectors (to name a few) are also an integral part of your trunk.

Your core training should vary movements regularly (every 3 to 4 weeks typically) to hit all planes of movement and to avoid neglecting any particular muscle or motion of the trunk and spine.

The Training

Be as explosive as possible for the wall ball sit up. Keep the twists controlled enough to feel the obliques, it’s for your trunk, not your arms. Your torso should rotate completely over and face the opposite wall.

Pretty simple. Start with 15 reps of each exercise, then do 10 the enxt round, then 5, then 10 , then finish with 15. Take little to no rest.

Nautical themed core blaster because why not. If you don’t have a sandbag, join a real gym or do a farmers carry with dumbbells. Go heavy! if the dumbbells aren’t about to fall out of your hands near the end of the distance, you went too light.

Core Technique Tips

If you have trouble feeling your core these tips and videos should help you get on track. People will typically feel their hip flexors or low back on ab exercises and they shouldn’t once they make a couple tweaks.

Also, a bonus workout for funsies.

Most people when they do twists rotate from the arms and not the trunk. I recommend slowing the tempo down a bit. Don’t rush, make sure your chest faces the opposite wall and that you’re rotating from the obliques and not just from the arms.

Additionally, when you lean back try to push the belly button toward the spine to engage your core a bit more.

The full range GHD situp is difficult but I highly recommend incorporating long range and shrot range core movements. Find ways to increase ranges of motion so you can tap into muscle fibers you largely likely leave untouched. The full range GHD sit-up is one great option.

Short range options would be something like a toe touch and should be done rapidly. I also recommend holding a plate or a medicine ball. Do high reps (20-30 reps) and make them rapid.

Last but not least, smash your lower back down. Your lower back should be stapled into the floor if you want your core to be active and not your hip flexors. See the video below for a more detailed description.

This workout below seems simple but it’ll really toughen up your core. If you’ve never done HEAVY bent presses before, your obliques are about to be lit up. Feel stability in the bottom position of the bent press for a couple seconds, don’t rush it back up. Work up heavy by adding weight each set if possible.

Drop any comments below or shoot me a message if you have questions.

At Home Abs

If you’re never banged up, you’re also doing something wrong.

Training with poor form, execution, or with excessive volume or load can lead to banging yourself up. That’s the point of periodization and programming; to manage volume and load so you can recover between sessions and make progressions long term.

However, if you’re 100% healthy all the time that’s also not great. You’re probably training like a coward. Never pushing, or making any heroic attempts at even the smallest records.

Notice, i’m NOT saying you SHOULD be in pain or injured. However, if you’re training hard then some minor injuries are inevitable and they shouldn’t take you completely off your program.

No Pain, No Gain

What most people do when they get injured is go straight to the doctor and get nocebo-ed. They eliminate everything strenuous and simply think passive rest will heal them.

It won’t.

When you’re injured, the best thing you could do is start to push movement you usually don’t touch.

Your knee tendinopathy makes squatting impossible? Great, you can push deadlifts and posterior chain harder.

Your shoulders hurt benching and doing dips? Great, you can start pushing heavy weights on back and arm exercises.

Unless you’re a parapelegic, there is ALWAYS something you can do. Rest is rarely going to be the solution.

How To Make Modifications

It’s important to select an alternate movement that closely resembles the one you’re replacing. You can maintain the same training template you currently have, just simply swap out the painful movements.

How to select a proper alternate exercise:

1. Does it have a similar range of motion?

2. Does it work the same muscle group(s)?

3. Is it appropriate for this section of the session? (ex: deadlifting at the end of a workout isn’t a great idea)

4. Does it aim to achieve a similar outcome?

5. Is it a compound or isolation movement?

6. Is it done in the same plane of motion?

When all else fails, target the same region of the body. For instance, if you have shoulder pain and every single free weight pressing exercise, machine, and cable flyes, all hurt your shoulder, then maybe just work the upper body by subbing in a heavy tricep exercise.

Move Up The Hierarchy

Move up the hierarchy as pain decreases.

Isometrics > Isolation exercises > Compound exercises

The goal is to start with a force the tissue can tolerate and progress it to greater forces and greater ranges. You can start with isometrics (like just holding a position) and progress into an isolation exercises for that muscle group, then eventually gradually load the compound movement you had trouble with.

This process can take weeks or months depending on what you’re dealing with, so have patience. Tendons especially can take months to heal, this isn’t by any means a quick fix.

Targeted Stretching

More than likely, you have something tight on your body. I’m not a big fan of static stretching but it does have it’s uses. Either way, find a mobility exercise or static stretch to safely load your tissues into greater ranges.

Do these stretches daily if possible. High frequency stretching/mobility done for 2-4 sets a day is better than just doing a couple sets a couple times per week.

Working Around Pain or Injury

It can be tricky sometimes to select a movement that can be performed pain free. Shoot for a movement that can be performed at a full range of motion and still stimulate the tissue without causing any further pain or damage.

If most movements cause pain, then, and only then, should you decrease range of motion. Range of motion can also be progressed each block.

Range of motion progressions

• 3’ Board Bench Press

• 1’ Board Bench Press

• Bench Press from chest

Changing leverages or performing a similar movement until you can perform the targeted movement pain free is also an option. By modifying the mechanics of the movement you can still work similar muscle groups while putting less strain into the affected tissue(s).

Tempo Progressions

Typically, a faster lowering phase will excerbate any pain you’re currently feeling. Slow things down and see if that feels better. I like to implement a 5 second eccentric (lowering phase) anytime something is banged up for a client. The weight will need to be lighter, but oftentimes if it’s minor joint pain like a tendinopathy then just going slower for a couple weeks tends to work pretty well.

Over the course of weeks you can begin to increase the speed of the eccentric or add inlow intensity extensive plyometrics to increase that tissue’s tolerance to rapid impact.

Mechanical Progressions

• Close Grip Floor Press

• Close Grip Bench Press

• Bench Press

It’s important to work through full ranges of motion to restore tissue function and eliminate pain for good. It can take days, weeks, or months depending on severity and weakness of the affected tissue(s). Use alternate movements to work around injuries or immobility, simply resting or hoping mobility will spontaneously improve is not an option.

Everyone nowadays runs to chiropractors, ice baths, and massages for recovery when they’re often just under trained and weak. Strengthen you soft tissues and muscle, work through full ranges of motion, and vary your exercise selection to stay injury free and make progress ad infinitum.

If you’re new it’s totally fine to only do the same couple of exercise per muscle group until you build a solid foundation. Most training plans shouldn’t have 10+ exercises per day to perform.

Train smart and train hard.

Track Your Workouts with the Progress App

Buy Programs

Everyday Athlete Program

Hard Gainer Hypertrophy Program

Nutrition Manual

Pick your poison.

The workouts below are 3 different styles. As with any of these minimalist conditioning sessions I would keep a log of them and time yourself. Attempt to beat your previous time each time you do them. I’m a big Google Sheets nerd so I recommend keep them there so they’re easily accessible and simple to track.

Ideally, once you have a catalog of these conditioning workouts you won’t hit them as often and you should be able to PR a time almost every single time you hit one. This is essentially a conjugate approach to conditioning whereby a record is attempted every single week.

Conditioning is still training, push the pace and stop just coasting through each conditioning session like it’s a stroll in the park.

Workouts

If you plan on trying any of these drop a comment below.

Free Workout Tracker : Progress

“Between 80 and 85 percent of those who lose a large amount of weight regain it.”

• Stanford Medicine

Everyone wants “the program” or they finally found the hack that’s somehow been hidden to them for years. More recently, the trend is to just hop on GLP’s without bothering to look at any of the potential negative consequences (there are many).

Without getting too edgy, your problem likely isn’t anything external. It’s you, you’re the problem. The influencers and media want you to believe it’s your hormones or other external factors. They want you to buy their supplements and consume their media.

Their solution is presented as the only option, the holy grail. The missing link to what seems like an unsolvable problem. You’re not too busy, you’re not unmotivated, you’re not “confused”. Your efforts are just misguided and the solution is easy.

“There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists.”

Musashi

Weight loss is easy

People hate when I say this, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

If you believe it’s difficult to lose weight, ask yourself : compared to what? Compared to almost anything else, eating less is pretty damn easy. Fundamentally, all the strategies like fasting, keto, bulimia, you name it, all cause weight loss because you eat less.

Reframe

Would you bet $10,000 that you could gain 10 lbs of muscle in 4 weeks or would you rather place that bet on losing 10 lbs in 4 weeks? Is losing weight more challenging than engineering a bridge, sending an astronaut to space, performing open heart surgery, or making an NFL roster?

In relative terms, it is easy, and you already know more or less what to do, you’re just not doing it.

You need to address WHY you’re not doing what you should be doing. Not the method itself.

Compared to almost literally anything else that takes at least some effort, weight loss is pretty easy. I firmly believe you need to adopt a perspective that makes your goal seem attainable. The alternative is believing weight loss is an esoteric and monumental feat only the mentally strong can complete, and that mindset is NOT helpful for anybody.

“Weight Loss is Easy” - Easily my most villainous quote that upsets the most people, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Weight Regain is a Problem

Weight regain is a real problem but only because the initial action was likely wrong in the first place. In other words, you probably chose an unsustainable diet methodology. “If you can’t do it forever don’t do it for a day” is a good filter to run your diet through. It really needs to be a long term lifestyle change to sustain results. Quick fixes and hacks don’t get good results.

However, this doesn’t mean you can’t use quick fixes short term. I’m a big fan of short sprints where training or nutrition is more intense but there needs to be a plan for after the sprint.

The fact that people are regaining weight after dieting is actually causing headlines like the one below. In some respect it is true, let me explain.

Low calorie diets not accompanied with resistance training and high protein intake will likely lead to muscle loss. As you lose weight you’ll lose fat and muscle but as you regain the weight back, you just get fatter since you likely stopped training.

The results? You put on more fat, look worse, feel fatigued, and feel unhealthy.

How to Maintain Weight Loss

It starts with your lifestyle.

You need a template for your nutrition that’s flexible and fits your life, not the life of a celebrity on instagram. There are also other principles that I recommend following. If you aren’t training already, you damn well should be.

You’ll notice a lot of athletes have no problem eating junk and putting on slabs of muscle.

You’re not them.

You don’t train like them.

Your activity is likely lower and your muscle mass is likely not even close to them in terms of quantity and quality. Stop looking at athletes or celebrities and copycatting their diets.

Muscle is active tissue and raises your metabolic rate. Muscle contractions also improve carbohydrate utlization and insulin sensitivity, as a result, you store less carbs as fat. You don’t have to entirely reverse engineer an athletes lifestyle and physique to keep your weight down but success leaves clues.

7 Principles to Follow

• 1. High Protein

  • 1.5 -2.2 g/kg or 0.8 - 1.0 g/lb of bodyweight minimum. It’s not difficult, it just takes planning. You NEED to cook for yourself. This is a non negotiable aspect of nutrition coaching with my clients.

• 2. High Food Volume

  • Increase your food volume by eating more nutrients dense foods like fruits and vegetables. Vegetables especially provide fiber and bulk, making you feel full, without adding many calories. Diets low in fiber intake can result in more cravings and uncontrollable eating behavior.

• 3. Nutrient Density

  • Eat minimally processed nutrient rich foods. This includes fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, meat, eggs. If your food label has more than a couple ingredients in it, avoid it. This doesn’t mean you need to eliminate 100% of processed food, but if you want to get the best results for your body composition then minimizing processed food is essential.

• 4. Consistent Meal Frequency

  • Eat at roughly the same times and same amount of meals per day . This entrains your circadian rhythm so you can better manage cravings. You’ll also develop a routine. If you have no routine, you’ll be victim to the routine convenience sets for you.

• 5. Train Heavy

  • Put the pretty pink dumbbells down and sling some iron. Your hormones will thank you. You need to push near failure. Doing more metabolically taxing training like high intensity intervals or things like sled pushes is also a great option.

• 6. No Zero Days

  • The days where you sit around on the couch and do nothing are done. Aim to get 10,000+ steps daily or do some kind of training every single day. The human body has been active daily since the dawn of man, sedentary behavior is a modern invention. Move often and daily.

• 7. Plan

  • Know what you’ll eat, when you’ll eat it, and when it’ll be prepared. Leave nothing to chance. You should know EXACTLY what you’re eating tomorrow, and ideally for 3-7 days at a time. If you don’t you’re leaving your results to “motivation” (which probably doesn’t exist for you).

Lean For Life Playbook

Need more help?

I created a 40-page ebook that outlines the exact templates I recommend clients use for their nutrition. You can find a link to the Lean for Life Playbook below. It’s on sale for only $5. Paid Subscribers get it free, so if you’re a paid subscriber shoot me a DM and ask about the playbook.

If you want to get your body fat down and keep it off for good, i’d highly recommend adopting one of the nutrition strategies outlined in the book.

If you’re going to do it, do it right. Stop the cycle of diets for good.

My Nutrition Manual is also free/pay what you want. Leave me $5, $1, or nothing, whatever. I don’t care, just use the information.

Lean For Life Playbook

Nutrition Manual

Recipe Manual

I wasn’t impressed.

Almost everything was just a bodybuilding bro split with 3 sets of 10 and way too many exercises.

That’s where simple strength comes in. This is a free template you can customize for your goals and continually reuse to get results forever. The template is, as the name indicates, simple.

Simple scales, complex fails.

A lot of people like to think they’re special snowflakes.

They need a special protocol, carefully curated to their special snowflake self. When in fact, if you’re out of shape and just looking to build a good base of fitness, you can get by with just a few basics performed consistently and executed with high quality.

Simple Strength Template

When it comes to building a base of strength and muscle we want to prioritize compound movements. A compound movement is an exercise that uses multiple joints and works more than one muscle group at a time.

An exercise that uses one muscle group is called an isolation movement. Both a chin up and dumbbell curls work the biceps, but since chin ups also involve the shoulder & scapula, they have the benefit of simultaneously working the back and biceps.

Compound movements are efficient since they work more muscle groups throughout a workout. You can spend less time in the gym and still get great results. Compound movements are also more systemically stressful.

People often think of stress as “bad” but stress can be categorized into two forms: distress (“bad” stress) and eustress (“good” stress). Exercise stress is hormetic, in other words, it’s a small dose of something that’s harmful in the short term but beneficial in the long term.

If training isn’t stressful, your body has no reason to change. It’s important that your training is challenging enough to stimulate biochemical and structural changes.

A Series: Strength Exercises

B Series: Accessory Movements

C Series: Supplementary Movements

D Series: Core

Series can contain supersets. If you wanted to for example do an upper body day, you can do the following:

A1. Bench Press 4 x 4, 3010 tempo, RPE 7-8

A2. Chin-up 4 x 4, 3010 tempo, RPE 7-8

Both of these movements are compound exercises that work the upper body and it makes sense to pair antagonist movements together (a push with a pull). You can use supersets in the B series and C series as well. If you really want to get crazy, you could do giant sets (3 or 4 exercises back to back instead of just 2).

In the case of giant sets, I would keep an alternating pattern of antagonist pairings. For instance, do a push, pull, push, pull, then rest.

Example:

B Series Giant Set Accessories

B1 Dumbbell Bench

B2 Dumbbell Row

B3 Tricep Extension

B4 Dumbbell Hammer Curl

Rest

Movement Selection

Select most of your movements for the A series (strength) and B series (accessory movements) from this list above. This is not an exhaustive list, it’s just some of the most common compound movements you can perform.

The C series (supplementary movements) can be isolation movements. Add your bicep curls, pump work, rehab, and small exercises into the C series to keep you healthy and beef up any small weaknesses you have.

Select just a few movements from each category that you’re comfortable performing, your program doesn’t need 100 different movements. Find 3 to 5 from each category that work best for your body and perform them consistently. You can change movements every 3 to 6 weeks depending on your experience level and programming methodology.

Programming: Setup Your Program

I’m going to attempt to outline programming for you in a couple of steps. It can be complicated, but it doesn’t need to be. Figure out these factors:

1.) How often will you train?

2.) What training split will you use?

3.) How many sets and reps?

• If you want more work with the exercises, go to the higher end of the set and rep range.

• If you only need a sprinkle of those exercises for gains, go toward the middle or lower range of the sets and reps. The section below goes into more detail about selecting rep ranges.

• Use heavier reps to bias strength gain and lighter reps to bias muscle gain. Heavy reps can still stimulate muscle gain, but it’s easier to get sufficient volume with higher reps like sets of 8 than it is with sets of 2.

4.) What exercises?

Choose 3 to 5 from each category in the chart above and distribute them into your week. For isolation movements, pick the ones that target weaknesses, feel the best, or just ones that give you big arms (who doesn’t want bigger arms?)

You did it.

You now have your first week of training. Now, how do you progress it?

Programming: How to Progress Training (Periodization)

You can gain strength doing sets of 25, build muscle doing heavy sets of 3, and gain endurance doing sets of 6. But those aren’t the best rep ranges to choose for your goals. When you’re lifting you’re always influencing protein synthesis regardless of the rep range you select.

However, factors like mechanical tension, volume, fatigue, and metabolic stress will dictate the end result. To keep things simple, just use the general guidelines below. They’re not perfect, but for a novice and intermmediate they provide a good base to understand the impact of selected intensities.

Rep Ranges

Strength Range: 1-5 reps (85-100% of 1RM)

Strength/Hypertrophy Range: 6-10 reps (74-83% of 1RM)

Hypertrophy Range: 8-12 reps (70-78% of 1RM)

Hypertrophy/Endurance Range: 12-20 reps (< 70% of 1RM)

Once you determine your reps, you can begin to think through your progressions. I prefer novices use wider rep ranges. For example, 3 sets of 8 to 12 is a better recommendation for a novice than 3 sets of 12.

The only exception I would say is if you’re brand new to the gym. If you’re brand new to lifting, I’d shy away from failure and just hit a target like 3 sets of 12 until you build proficiency with technique.

Here is a sample training day to explain this:

A1. Bench Press 4 x 8-10, 2010 Tempo, RIR 1-2

A2. Neutral Grip Pulldown 4 x 10-12, 2010 Tempo, RIR 1-2

B1. Incline Dumbbell Bench Press 4 x 8-12, 3010 Tempo, RIR 0-2

B2. Single Arm Dumbbell Row 4 x 8-12, 2010 Tempo, RIR 0-2

C1. Tricep Extension 3 x 10-15, 2010 Tempo, RIR 0-2

C2. Dumbbell Curl 3 x 10-15, 2010 Tempo, RIR 0-2

C3. Dumbbell Lateral Raise 3 x 10-15, 2010 Tempo, RIR 0-2

D1. Bosu Crunch 4 x 10-15, 2010 Tempo, RIR 0-2

Rep ranges help you more easily select a challenging weight without needing to be super precise. Keep a larger rep range for the B series (Ex: 8-12) and a narrow rep range for the A series (Ex: 8-10). As you become more experience you can make the A series just a rep target (Ex: 4 x 8) and the B Series a narrow range (8-10 reps).

Keep more reps in reserve for the A series and less for the B and C series (What is RIR?). Progress reps or weight weekly when allowed based on this intensity. Simple.

I recommend….

Accessory Lift Progressions

For the B, C, and D series I recommend just adding reps whenever possible. If you can hit 12 reps every set of your incline dumbbell bench, you’re probably going too light. If you hit 12 reps, then 10, then 9, then 8 on your fourth set, maybe keep the weight next week and try to hit more total reps until you’re getting close to 12 each set.

I prefer rep ranges for novices over straight sets since it’s easier to select appropriately heavy weights and progress them gradually rather than just always adding weight to the bar.

Note: D Series

If you want to replace the core work, you certainly can. My recommendation would be to add in remedial exercises to strengthen weak joints/problem areas, a giant set, or conditioning. Core training is still important though so don’t skip out on it.

That’s it, hope you found this helpful. If you need help building your plan as always just comment, shoot me a DM, or an email.Weeklyflextraining@gmail.com and i’d be happy to help.

Check out programs and other stuff linked below. Some are free, some are paid. Paid subscribers get 50% off paid programs as well, that gets sent to you over email once you sign up.

Stay strong.

The Art of Training : How to read training programs

Training Programs

Nutrition Manual

Arm Training Manual

Mini workouts are short and highly targeted. They allow you to hammer weak points without draining your recovery.

Mini workouts should be centered around improving a specific weakness, be short (under 15 minutes usually), and Moderate to high volume. It’s best to fit in mini workouts either on off days or if you play a sport you could do them before or after practice. They can also be used to raise general physical preparation (GPP) or your ability to tolerate greater workloads.

Some problem areas I find mini workouts to be helpful with include: shoulders, hips, neck, knees, low back / core. You could also do bodyweight miniworkouts just to get a full body movement session in or to improve joint mobility.

Mini Workout Methods

1.) Time Domain Goal

Set a timer and just work.

I like doing this at the end of workouts or before a kickboxing training session. You could also do this after cardio or on a rest day. I’ll set a 5-10 min timer and just hit as many reps or sets as possible of 1-3 exercises.

Typically i’ll mix in band exercises, calisthenics, or structural balance / mobility exercises. You could also break this up and, for example, hit 5 minutes of calves and 5 minutes of grip training.

I will often throw in core exercise for this method. Pick 3 exercises and just hit sets of 10-15 reps on them with 30-60 seconds of rest until my 5-10 minute timer goes off.

The key here is to just work hard for that time domain. If you need a more objective outcome, you could try escalating density training. Set a 5 min timer for example and hit as many pushups as possible in that time. Next week. try to beat your reps.

2.) Rep Goal

Perform 100 reps of an exercise, 50 reps of 3 exericses, or 2 sets of 50 of 1-3 exercises. Do these reps with as little rest as possible (depends on the exercise). This should be high repetitions but remember to keep the total time of the session under 15 minutes.

If you’re in better shape you could even push the rep count to 150, 200, or 300. Something like banded leg curls can be done for a set of 200-300 pretty easily within 10 minutes.

I’ll often just do 100 reps of abs as a mini workout and mix up the exercises. Sometimes I’ll just do exercises at random until I hit 100 reps. Variety is good here, again if you want structure feel free to make this more structured by alternating exercises every 3 weeks or having a progression.

Distance is also an option provided the workout is still short. For instance, you could drag a sled for 400 yards total (rest as needed), 6 x 50 yards, or drag 4 x 40 yards and lateral drag 2 x 40 yards each way.

In summary, mini workouts are a great way to raise volume and frequency without beating your body up, Add them into your off days to improve weaknesses, enhance mobility, or to strengthen past injuries/limitations. If you’re really feeling beat from training, just take a walk or rest a bit, that’s also acceptable.

Weak Point Mini Workouts

Any body part can be weak but more often than not you’ll commonly see weaknesses in the shoulders, hips, knees, core, and neck. Here are some more targeted strategies to hammer these problem areas. Note, this is not an exhaustive list.

The best way to address a weakness is to find a movement deficiency/insufficiency and then hammer it. For example, if my hip flexors get tired doing core exercises before my abs ever feel it, i would work on increasing the work capacity of my hip flexors by doing high volume high flexor exercises. If i’m unable to get low enough on a squat, i would do something like an ATG split squat and pair it with stretches to open up the hips and ankles.

Your weakpoint training should still be specific to your goal.

1.) Shoulders

Mace Swing / Shoulder Rok 2 x 25-50/ea, 3 x 25-50/ea

Be careful with this one, if you already have super shot shoulders, I would not do these right away.

Shoulder Big 3 / Lock Raises

Rip these for high reps, 10-20 reps per position and with weight if possible.

Donnie T Shoulder Protocol

Great option if you have shoulder tightness or mild pain. Watch the video below, hit high reps, 25 to as high as 50 reps at each position can be great.

Pushups

Always a great option for shoulder health. I recommend keeping more reps in reserve than usual if you’re doing pushups as a mini workout. Avoid failure so you don’t impact recovery too much. I’d shoot for 50, 100, or 200 total reps. Break up as needed or into sets with planned rest periods.

Band Facepulls and Pullaparts

Light up the upper back with 100-200 reps of either of these. If you do a lot of pressing, your shoulders will thank you with these.

Battle Ropes

Great for conditioining and building work capacity in the shoulders especially for fighters. Vary the motion as well, don’t just do slams. Perform either for 20-30 sec of time, or for reps (25 to 50). Mix in other exercises with this one as well if you’d like.

2.) Hips

Kettlebell Swings 3 x 20, 4 x 25, or 1 x 100

Modify to wider stance to open up the hips more if desired.

Monster Walk 3 x 50, 2 x 100

ATG split squat

(Modify to foot on box if needed to access full ROM : hamstring to calf) 3 x 10 or 2 x 12 but pause in the end range to milk the stretched position.

Band Hip Flexion Marches 3 x 15-25/ea

3.) Knees

TKE 2 x 50/ea or 3 x 25/ea

Sled Drags or Reverse Sled Drags (walk backwards) 4-6 x 40-60 yards

4.) Core

30/30/30 Abs

3-4 Rounds

A1. Ab Exercise x 30 sec

A2. Ab Exercise x 30 sec

A3. 30 sec rest

Basic Gymnastic Isometrics

Hold a hollow hold, L sit, superman, or other bodyweight variations to accumulate 1-3 min of total work (rest as needed).

Heavy Carries

Farmer carries, sandbag carries, offset carries, the variations are endless. This one is more taxing, don’t destroy your grip or overload yourself before a hard session that day or the next day.

Reverse Hyper 3 x 25

Classic option to keep your low back healthy if you’re a serious lifter.

5.) Neck

I always recommend starting with calisthenics before loading the neck. I linked a simple neck routine below. Once 20 reps of each direction becomes too easy, then you can either start loading or doing neck bridges.

Band Neck Rotations

2-3 x 25-50 reps /ea

You can also do flexion and extension with a similar band setup.

Drop questions and threats in the comments below.

Stay strong,

These misconceptions exist largely because people are comparing apples to oranges. They see the bodybuilder in the gym who just lifts and never does any cardio, and they see how quickly he gasses out doing any cardio. He should gas out, he doesn’t train for it (duh?).

More importantly, everybody is stuck at looking at training from the lense of bodybuilding. Strength and conditioning encompasses more than just growing bigger muscles. Unlike fat tissue, muscle can contract, so from that standpoint it’s also more functional for improving force output, stability, and preventing wear and tear on the joints.

Training heavy and explosively (you need both) also develops your nervous system. You are able to produce greater forces much quicker, you also improve intermuscular coordination.

Why Strength Matters

If being strong didn’t help with combat sports then why do we have weight classes?

Being bigger makes you faster ?❌❌❌

Being bigger makes your technique better? ❌❌❌

Heavyweights generally aren’t faster than featherweights, but we’d all agree having a heavyweight fight a featherweight is unfair. Being bigger also won’t make your technique better.

So why do we have weight classes?

Steroids also don’t improve your technique, yet they’re banned from every legitimate fighting organization. Being stronger than your opponent is a distinct advantage and another tool you can weaponize, just like other physical qualities like having an endless gas tank, being fast, or having greater mobility. The more tools you have, the less weakness you have to get exposed in the ring.

Having a well rounded strength and conditioning program ensures your techniques can be more lethal.

Body Weight Training For MMA & Combat Sports

I’m going to take a hard stance here and say body weight training alone is not enough. We have examples of athletes with great physiques that apparently* predominantly trained with body weight movements. Examples include Mike Tyson, Bruce Lee, and George St Pierre (GSP). There are a couple of problems with these examples that people forget to consider.

1.) Never let an exception prove a rule. Most of these men are gifted mentally or physically on a structural or biochemical level sometimes completely imperceptible to the human eye. It’s actually MORE common for high level athletes to weight train than it is for them not to.

2.) Most of them trained with weights still, it just didn’t make up a majority of their training. There’s documentation of Mike Tyson doing barbell shrugs and GSP doing Olympic lifts.

3.) Just because these people didn’t do much lifting, doesn’t mean that they’re better for it. In another universe where Mike Tyson had a 600+ lb back squat he may have even been more powerful and explosive, not less. You never truly know.

4.) Most importantly, you aren’t heavy weight world champion Mike Tyson. The same man that threatened to eat somebodies children. You have different strengths, weaknesses, goals, and physiology. Doing exactly what they do out of a cookie cutter template would be stupid.

Can you get by JUST body weight training? Yes.

Are the odds in your favor that you’ll massively improve your force production & rate of force development, intermuscular & neuromuscular coordination, soft tissue strength, pliability, mobility, and bone density by doing so instead of lifting weights?

Probably not.

Strength & conditioning is the great equalizer; allowing otherwise weak and mechanically disadvantaged athletes to step into competition with physical traits that rival, or mismatch, their gifted opponents physical arsenal. Those that don’t weaponize their body might as well be bringing a pool noodle to a knife fight.

How To Train For Combat Sports

In my opinion, combat sports are more complex to train for than field sports since there is less predictability, higher frequency, and intensity of training, and more physical trauma. This makes recovery difficult enough before adding even adding in strength & conditioning into the mix.

Managing volume and load is critical for any training plan. Doing too much will just dig a deeper hole that will cause performance to decrease and predispose you to inury. We want a dose of training that compliments the qualities it’s trying to improve. This means at first using the minimal effective dose and slowly increasing volume and intensity as fitness improves.

The initial phase of training should be to build general physical preparation (GPP). GPP is just what it sounds like, improving general fitness. This doesn’t mean hitting pads or sparring; those activities are specific fitness. GPP is the foundation that all other qualities rest atop of, “The bigger the base the taller the pyramid”.

GPP For Combat Athletes:

• Sled drags

• Loaded Carries

• High repetition band exercises

• Conditioning (running, biking, swimming, jumping rope, circuits)

• Traditional strength training

An underrated aspect of training for combat sports is zone 2 - zone 3 aerobic training. Intervals are used very often and are a great tool, however the adaptations one gets from true aerobic conditioning are too often ignored.

Increasing capillarity and mitochondrial density allows the body to more energy aerobically and recover your anaerobic energy systems. As a result, you rely less on anaerobic systems, delay fatigue, and recover quicker between bursts of activity.

Intervals build the horsepower while the aerobic system is the fuel tank. What good is a car that can go 0 to 60 mph very fast but can only go 10 miles before needing to refuel?

Aerobic Conditioning

Aerobic conditioning is often also referred to as zone 2, zone 3, or low intensity steady state cardio depending on the context. It is most commonly around 60-70% of estimated heart rate max (HRmax). It’s a pace you should be able to hold a conversation but probably not sing comfortably.

This is a slow pace.

You’re not trying to always die in training, again this comes back to load management and digging the hole. The deeper you dig the hole, the harder it becomes to recover (fill the hole back up) and the more you will begin to experience the negative side effects like muscle loss, increased stress response (elevated cortisol & low HRV), lack of energy, decrease in performance, and greater risk of injury.

I recommend performing aerobic training (Zone 2-3) 2-3 times per week for 20-45 minutes if you’re super out of shape or 1-2 times per week for 20-45 minutes if you’re in better shape.

20 to 45 minutes is a broad time range and depending on the mode (run, bike, swim, elliptical, stairs, etc.) you select you may need to adjust the time. Start toward 20 minutes and work your way up to 45 minutes by simply adding 3-5 minutes each week over the course of 8 to 12 weeks.

How to calculate estimated HRmax:

220 - [Your Age ] = HRmax

• This is a super rough estimate. I would test your heart rate max to get a more accurate number.

This article would need to be the length of a textbook to fully explain periodization strategies in-camp, off-camp, and how to personalize them for the athlete so i’m going to give you a practical tip; be smart.

Don’t do any aerobic conditioning? Probably do it more.

Only do aerobic conditioning and never do intervals? Probably do intervals more often.

If possible, I would avoid adding aerobic training immediately before or after resistance training or practice. Place the cardio days between lifting sessions or at least a few hours before or after an upper body session that way they don’t interfere with the lower body training as much.

For more detail on how to program cardio, read the article below.

Resistance Training

Just because you’re lifting doesn’t necessarily mean you’re “strength training” or “bodybuilding”. Although aspects of bodybuilding training can be incorporated into a well rounded strength and conditioning program, the program itself shouldn’t resemble a bodybuilding routine.

As a fighter, having a leg, arm, chest, shoulder, and back day is a silly idea. Instead, I recommend either full body or upper lower conjugate.

Movement Selection

Compound movements should be the foundation for any athlete. Compound movements are multi joint exercises that work more than a single muscle group at a time. As opposed to isolation movements, like a bicep curl, that would only work one muscle group.

Training is stress. Stress is only good if you’re able to recover from it and make an adaptation. The hormonal response you get from free weight movements (barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell, sandbag) is also typically better than that from isolation movements.

I like to divide movements into 5 primary categories:

1.) Push

2.) Pull

3.) Hinge

4.) Squat

5.) Carry

All 5 movement types should be hit within a week to some extent to provide a balanced program. Below you can see a list of movements for each category. This is not an exhaustive list, there are more you can do however it’s wise to only pick 2 to 5 of these movements at first before branching out to more.

The template below is a great starting point. Plug and play the exercises that will yield you the best results. This starts with compound movements but you should find those with the best transfer to whatever your game is.

Find your physical weaknesses and attack them relentlessly. Find your physical strengths and exploit them, your opponent should feel your strengths; continually improve on the things you do really well to further dominate your competition and to cultivate your style.

I always believed that for sport you should lean into the things you are good at, you’re probably really good at them for a reason. Training is no exception; if you’re strong, don’t just maintain your strength. Get even stronger. If your conditioning is good and you wear people down, great, keep hammering it just at a lower dose to bring other qualities up.

Lastly, for grappling based sports (wrestling, bjj, judo, mma) I would incorporate a lot of conditioning that emphasizes a high pressure load. This is especially present in exercises like heavy carries, yoke walks, back squats, or sand bag exercises.

You want to be able to pump blood through that pressure load. Working with heavy weight for endurance is mimicking grappling and is a much different physiological adaptation than you can ever get from jogging or skipping rope.

If you need help adjusting this template for yourself or your goals, shoot me a DM on substack.

“There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.”

-Miyamoto Musashi

Training Templates

Below you can see the training templates i’d recommend. Avoid performing 3 resistance training sessions on back to back days if possible. Doing that along with your combat skills training or classes could be a lot to recover from.

Read more

Partials can also be used to improve technique or train through sticking points. Novices could benefit from using submaximal partials to build strength or technique in a certain position. A great example of this would be a block deadlift. I often start new trainees with deadlifts from blocks and slowly bring them to the floor over time. This allows us to get a better start position without taxing their already weak low back.

Other Partial Variations

Bench Partials w/ Boards or Bench Blockz

Overhead/Military Press from Pins

Pin Squat / Anderson Squat

The difference between the pin squat and the anderson squat is that an Anderson Squat starts in the bottom (on the pins). A Pin Squat starts from standing and involves a lower phase.

Best use cases for partials:

• Power Training

  • Overcoming inertia by going from a complete dead stop. This builds starting strength. You don’t have to go super heavy. If the goal is power development then you shouldn’t go heavy. This is where movements like floor presses, board presses, or quarter squats become useful.

• Positional Weaknesses

  • Lift from the position you’re weakest in. For example, if your bench press lockout is weak, train the top range with pin press or board presses. If you lose position in the mid range of your squat, squat from pins at or right beneath that height.

• Overloading

  • Handle more weight than you normally could to train your nervous system to handle greater loads. You would only do this for the top range of movements since that’s where you’ll lift the most.

Partials are a great tool but only if you’re using them correctly. Most of the bros at the gym half squatting in the power rack aren’t doing partials. They’re just doing really bad squats. There’s a difference.

I’d recommend atleast squatting 1.5X your bodyweight before ever attempting a partial. There’s nothing magic about this number, but at that point you have decent strength at most lifts to derive some benefit from training partials. Most people will also tend to begin plateauing around this point.

“Why only 1.5X your squat and not a multiple of a bench press or other lift?”

Squats are king. If you’re not squatting, it better be for a good reason (I.e., you physically can’t). You want a big squat if you want total body man strength.

To really hammer this point home, partials really will only benefit those seriously strength training. If you’re not pushing your squat, you’re probably not strength training super seriously and won’t benefit much from partials anyway.

Technique Tips

If you’re going to do rack pulls I highly suggest doing them with bands. The deadlift is much easier at the top than it is off the floor. You might as well really overload the top with bands to develop a strong lockout.

Face bandana in the video because this video was from COVID times (weird time ay?).

Technique Cues

• Pull BACK against the bar.

  • The deadlift is not a vertical lift like a squat. It’s a hinge. Use the bar, brace yourself against it and push on an angle like you’re trying to pull a sword from a stone.

• Keep the lats tight by driving the elbows in against the sides.

• Before you begin the rep, breathe DEEP into your stomach and push the air against your obliques.

  • This will maximize your intrabdominal tension.

Got questions? Drop a comment or shoot me a DM.

Rest pause sets are great for muscle gain because they allow for more effective reps at a higher intensity. First off, if you’re trying to get strong and you’re lifting below 70% of your 1RM, it’s not going to work very well (arguably not at all, but it’s possible I suppose).

From a muscle gain perspective, high reps, medium reps, and low reps work. What matters most is the proximity to failure we reach when performing the set. Doing a set of 12 reps on bench press but leaving 10 reps in the tank won’t stimulate growth very much. Doing 22 reps with that weight however will.

Rest pause works because you take that set to/near failure, recover your ATP-PC system with short rest (high intensity energy system), and squeeze out a couple more reps near failure. This method is highly time efficient since you’re getting high quality reps in without needing full rest between multiple sets.

Accumulation

There are many different ways to use rest pause, i’m going to present one of my favorite ways i’ve recently applied rest pause.

3 x 20 Accumulation

3 sets of 20 reps with a weight that’s challenging for 12 reps. Hit your 12 reps with 0-1 reps in the tank, then rest 15 seconds, then hit another set. Continue this until you hit 20 total reps. Rest 2-3 minutes between sets. This is A LOT of high effort work. You will not be doing this for more than 1 exercise per muscle group per day.

If this volume is too high, start with just 1 or 2 sets of this method instead of 3. If you’re using this method as a way to save time I would structure a session similar to below.

Upper Body

A1. Bench Press 4 x 6-8

A2. Neutral Grip Chin-up (Weighted) 4 x 6-8

B1. Dumbbell Bench Press 3 x 20 Rest Pause Accumulation

C1. Chest Supported Dumbbell Row 3 x 20 Rest Pause Accumulation

“It’s too simple.”

Execution matters most here. If you’re limited on time but you’re taking each set to failure, this should be a hard session. Again, this is not for beginners who don’t understand weight selection and don’t have the technique with compound movements to move heavy loads.

Lower Body

A1. Back Squat 12,10,8,8,8

B1. Leg Extension 3 x 20 Rest Pause Accumulation

C1. Hamstring Curl 3 x 20 Rest Pause Accumulation

D1. 100 reps of abs

Builder Workouts For The Week

004 Upper Alt. EMOM

5 Rounds Alternating EMOM (10 Min total)

• Every Minute on the minute, alternate between Movement A in minute 1 and Movement B in minute 2.

A. Dips x 8-10

• RIR 0-1 each set. Use weight if possible.

B. Ring Rows x 10-12

• RIR 0-1 each set. Adjust body position to hit this rep and RIR target each set.

005 Lungs & Lower

Kettlebell Swing x 25,20,15,10,5

Jump Rope x 100 Jumps Between each set

Get Gainz Arm Training Manual

Far from the mainstream social activity it largely is today where people show up in $200+ outfits to barley sweat doing 5 lb curl and presses.

The Grit is completely gone from most gyms.

Subscribe now

Like it or not, Crossfit brought us back to the underground culture. People were lifting heavy weights in warehouses or garages. The workouts were tough and even stupid at times. Although I don’t believe you should be doing stupid workouts all the time, challenging yourself with questionable training every now and then has value.

I wanted to recreate a similar feel for the weekly flex. This blog isn’t a buttoned up 30,000 sq ft upscale Manhattan health club. It’s a dusty garage with a squat rack.

It isn’t a $5000 nautilus machine or rows of ellipticals. It’s the boring fundamentals hammered repeatedly. It’s dumbbells, kettlebells, bodyweight, sandbags, and odd implements.

Grit is simple, not flashy.

I’ll be posting workouts more frequently and in the style of the old school CrossFit main site.

Some of these workouts are finishers we’ll be doing at the gym with small group training clients. If you try one, let me know how it goes. These workouts are designed to be at most 20 min long but usually 8 to 12 minutes. Since they are done at the end of your session and not as a stand alone session they just need to be hit hard, it’s not an endurance event.

001 Push, Row, Carry

15 Minute AMRAP

Pushup x 15

Ring Row x 10

Single Arm Farmers Carry x 20 yards each side

002 Full Body Assault

Every 3 Minutes for 5 Rounds

KB Complex: Double Kettlebell Swing + Double Kettlebell Clean + Front Rack Lunge (1+1+1) x 5 Reps

• Do 1+1+1 x 5. 1 rep of each movement x 5 times.

5 Calorie Assault Bike

003 Torso Torture

10 Minute AMRAP

Kettlebell Seesaw Press x 8 each side

Hammer Curl x 10

Toe Touch Crunch x 15

Cashout (Perform this AFTER the 10 min AMRAP)

Band Bicep Curl x 50

Band Overhead Press x 50

The 3x/week OS Strong & Fit program is on sale until July 1. $89/mo is now just $99 for 8 weeks.

Join the OS Strong & Fit Program

Other Programs

Read more

You’re either not training hard enough (very common) or you’re not recovering. In order to warrant “recovery” (I.e., muscle gain or any training adaptation for that matter) we need a stressor, which means the workout must be challenging.

But simply intiating a stressor isn’t enough, you need to then ADAPT to that stressor.

Adaptation = Recovery

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) aims to explain the stress response and this model has been used by exercise scientists to describe how we adapt to training. As a trainer at multiple large health clubs I’ve seen tens of thousands of people training in the gym. One common denominator is they love a routine.

They use the same exercises, same machines, same rep ranges. Because it’s comfortable. Routine is the death of progress. When your body has all the answers, it’s time to ask different questions. The common misconception is that by just going into the gym, you’re doing something and that’s “better than nothing”. I detest that mindset. Also, it’s not guaranteed you’re actually doing better than nothing. In fact, you’re likely going backwards by repeatedly doing the same routine week in and week out.

Programs and Guides

Stages of GAS in Weight Training

1. Alarm Reaction Stage: The initial phase that begins as a result of putting your body under stress. Training is stress, if it isn’t stressful, you’re doing it wrong. Performance temporarily decreases due to stress and you feel fatigue, soreness, and stiffness from your training within 48 hours.

2. Adaptation (Resistance) Stage: This stage is self explanatory. It’s when the body begins to adapt to the stress placed upon it. You recover from the stress and begin to see improvements in muscle size, strength, endurance, and other performance qualities.

3. Exhaustion Stage: This is often referred to as “over training”. Under recovery is a bigger problem than over training for most people but realize exhaustion is possible. If I had you squat for 24 hours straight with no sleep you’d either end up in the hospital with rhabdomyolysis or drop from exhaustion. You’d also be so sore you’d need a wheel chair for days.

Application to Training

Understanding GAS helps in designing effective training programs:

1. Progressive Overload: Gradually increasing the training load and/or volume allows the body to continually progress.

2. Periodization: Structuring training into 2-4 week Mesocycles and 8 to 12 week Macrocycles prevents plateaus. It also allows you to steer clear from exhaustion/over training or potential injury.

3. Recovery: Working out doesn’t grow your muscles and make you stronger. REST DOES. You need to rest to recover. Eat a healthy diet, get good sleep, daily Sunlight, etc. you can find more about lifestyle optimization for recovery and hormone benefits in this article.

4. Variation: Variation is the spice of life. I recommend rotating exercises every meso cycle (every 2-4 weeks). You can keep your core lifts like bench presses, squats, deadlifts but rotate you accessory movements. Use different angles, cables, dumbbells, barbells, etc to challenge your body through different angles, avoid pattern overload, and drive adaptation.

Now that you’ve read an article you have no reason to plateau. You’re welcome.

Like this article? Give it a share or restack.

Share

I’ve said this frequently on my Instagram stories.

Being fat and out of shape is a spiritual problem.

Issues of the soul need to be addressed if you want any shot at successfully reinventing yourself. This article will be more esoteric, if you’re looking for empirical data on motivation and discipline then this isn’t for you. Regardless if you’re Christian or not, some truths stand self-evident even when stripped of their religiousity.

The issues man faces today are the same he faced centuries ago and will continue to encounter for centuries. Our imperfections and weaknesses change form or are exposed in a different environment / social landscape then they once were, but they remain the same.

The seven Deadly Sins start spiritually, but manifest in reality. They influence what we do and how we do it. Spiritual fitness will directly impact your physical fitness. Again, it doesn’t matter if you’re Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, polytheist, etc. Some truths stand the test of time as evidence of our divinely gifted human nature.

Success leaves clues.

Look at anybody that’s in shape and doing well. Yes they still succumb to weakness of the human spirit, they are not without fault. You’ll however see a difference in the way they think and act. They’re humble, kind, action takers, generous, not self indulgent or a slave to craving.

Here are the seven deadly sins and how they manifest in your life to keep you spiritually and physically weak. Presented without judgement, don’t take this personally if one, or all, of these are speaking to you.

The Seven Deadly Sins

Pride

Proverbs 16:18 — "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."

Excessive love of the self, often to the point of fault. Think of GLP-1’s, hormone therapy, plastic surgery, gastric bypass. Any medical or pharmacological intervention that comes with great risk just to elevate the self.

It’s not always the case, but more often than ot you’ll notice these individuals never have enough. It’s not just the tummy tuck. I then need a nose job, and my cheek bones have a bit too much fat around them. GLP-1? Sure but I should also take testosterone to put on some muscle.

Envy

James 3:16 — "For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice."

Consumed by the fire. This is the “wait until you’re my age” crowd that mirrors their poor life choices on others. A constant state of victimhood. “I would look that way too if I had the time”.

The classic example of this is the crabs in a bucket analogy. By itself the crab will crawl out of the bucket. When you put multiple crabs in a bucket, if one crab nearly reaches the surface, the other crabs will pull him down.

It’s the friends that aren’t happy for you when your business finally starts taking off or the coworker jealous of your promotion, because they deserved it.

Wrath

James 1:19-20 — “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”

“I’m doing this to prove everybody wrong.”

Newsflash: nobody is thinking about you that much (pride).

Wrath is any punishing behavior often done to yourself. People will starve themselves with crazy diets as punishment (wrath) for their over indulgence. They’ll punish themselves with unsustainable workouts that tank their energy.

There is rightful or justified wrath, but this sin specifically speaks to unjustified wrath. It is rooted in pride, to defend a damaged ego rather than to do what’s right and just. You care about what people think about you more than you want to be healthy, strong, or fit.

Sloth

Proverbs 14:23
“All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.”

You’re lazy. As the woman sleeps her maid tends to the home. This sin on face value seems obvious, just laying around and doing nothing. It also however refers to spiritual apathy. Turning away from your purpose in life, shurking responsbility, and not embracing the Heroes Journey.

Greed

Acts 20:35
“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Greed is typically represented as valuing money above anything else. I see it often. You’ll stay at work late to work hours you know you shouldn’t be working, take on projects you don’t have time for because you don’t have the courage to say no, all with the expectation of a greater monetary reward.

Making money in itself is not evil, but worshipping the mighty dollar at the expense of your health & relationships certainly is. It’s never enough, you always need more; a constant cortisol drip coursing through your veins.

Giving > Receiving

Your fitness is a gift. People reduce fitness to surface value ideas like looking good naked when it is actually a gift to your a family. A healthy and strong man can take care of his family instead of being a liability to them. He’s giving security & safety.

Gluttony

Proverbs 23:2
“Put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony.”

Overindulgence isn’t just common, but expected. When you tell people about your healthier nutrition habits you’ll be asked “Don’t ever have fun?” or “don’t you enjoy yourself?”.

The expectation is to succumb to weakness of the flesh; eat the donuts, have a couple beers after work, stuff your face with the 1200 calorie lunch when literally hundreds of healthier options sorround you (ever heard of a grocery store?).

There are obvious repercussion to gluttony. Excess fat gain isn’t bad because you look less attractive (pride), it’s a pro inflammatory organ wreaking havoc on your immune system. Fast food, beer, soda, and highly processed foods are damaging your gut microbiome, causing lethargy (sloth), and hacking away at your metabolic health.

Lust

You’re hitting the gym because you want women to notice you. Anybody with even a little bit of “game” will tell you that it doesn’t matter. Physical appearance is a facade that can’t mask your mundane uncompelling life and weak spirit. You’re a slave to your vices, shackled to the pursuit of material wealth and satisfying reptilian desires; you hold temporary satisfaction of the dopamine hit over virtue and meaning.

It’s obvious to everyone around you and you’re not self aware enough to realize they smelled it on you before you even spoke.

Building Virtuous Physicality

“Bro, kinda doom and gloom. Why are you speaking to people this way. Not everybody is a trash bag.”

If anything in this article personally offended you, it’s probably because you identified with it on some level. I’m not your priest, I don’t care to listen to your confessions and I won’t scold you for not seeing you at church service.

I’m not going to pretend i’m a Shaolin monk with no vices either. We all need some real talk, because we’re all victimizing ourselves in some capacity.

You need to reframe your goals.

It’s no longer about the body for the girls or satisfying immediate cravings.

You’re doing this for bigger reasons.

The intention needs to shift from trying to be physically appealing to strangers to enriching your life, and ideally, the lives of those important to you.

Train heavy and hard, eat well, go to bed early, cut out all the junk from your diet. Not because it’s beach season in 30 days, but because your body is a temple.

"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."

Action Points

Identify atleast 3 things you can start improving today. Not Monday, not tomorrow, Today. You can pick things to add or habits/vices to eliminate.

“Luck” loves speed and change demands action. There’s never a good time to start, waiting won’t make it easier nor will it get you results any faster.

You’ll never have more time.

You’ll never not be busy.

You’re not “unmotivated”.

Stop coping, start acting… and in case nobody has ever told you this, you can do it.

I’m rooting for you,

Although this workout will make you suck some wind, I’m not a huge fan of it for a few reasons listed below. I also have a more nuanced opinion on training for MMA and combat sports that I won’t get into for this article.

Original fight Gone Bad workout

The original workout is 3 rounds with a minute per exercise and a minute of rest between each round.

1. Wall Balls (20/14 lbs) x 1:00

2. Sumo Deadlift High Pulls (75/55 lbs) x 1:00

3. Box Jumps (20 in) x 1:00

4. Push Press (75/55 lbs) x 1:00

5. Row (for calories) x 1:00

6. Rest x 1:00

Fight Gone Bad Meathead Variation

My major criticism with the original workout is that it’s too easy to pace and has too many technical movements. 1:00 intervals are too long to produce high outputs, even 30 seconds is pushing it. Although if the point is to simulate a fight, this gets pretty close from a fitness standpoint.

Do this instead.

Don’t pace it.

I want you to go hard, burn the ships, embrace the feeling of your heart pounding out from your chest, and your lungs burning.

Fight Gone Badder

4 Rounds

30 sec pushups
30 sec sandbag carry
30 sec sled push/drag
30 sec rest
Swap the pushups to the knees once you start burning out. You can build in a 3 second transition timer between each exercise if you’d like, or simply just rush to the next exercise.

This is a circuit I did in preparation for my fight which was 3 x 2 :00 rounds, so it made sense to keep the intervals near 2:00 of work. I used this similar style of circuit to build up to closer to the 2 minute mark.

This should suck, like really bad. The better shape you get, the worse it should feel.

This circuit is a bit more suited for fighting then the original circuit especially for a sport that would have clinching or grappling (MMA, BJJ, Wrestling). To truly train for combat sports however I recommend less circuits and more isolated work to improve strength, endurance, or sport specific conditioning.

Fight Gone Badder Lactic Tolerance

3 Rounds

Alternating Lunge Jumps x 40 sec, 20 sec rest

Battle Rope Slams x 40 sec, 20 sec rest

Sled Push / Assault Bike x 40 sec, 20 sec rest

1:00 Rest

Keep those 40 second intervals at a near max. The effort should be hard but not drop off precipitously. This circuit purposely alternates between lower and upper body movements to maximize your output while still improving your ability to buffer “Lactic acid”.

Lactate is your friend. We use it to produce more energy. If you’re unable to sustain high intensities or hit a wall when you do for a period of time, then this training method could work wonders for you. I would recommend shorter intervals (20-30 seconds) at first if this absolutely smokes you.

Keep in mind, again, this should suck. Really bad. If it feels hard but no problem, it’s not because you’re in great shape. You’re just doing it wrong.

Upgrade your engine. Stop spamming Zone 2 and start ripping some lung splitting intervals on runs, biking, or with circuits.

It’s not a cardio vs strength training debate. Not only do you need both, there are sub categories within these that should be trained to enhance your quality of life.

To be truly fit for life means having musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and immune systems capable of thwarting threats. Just a couple zone 2 sessions a week isn’t going to cut it pal.

Fit For Life Formula

[(AF+ STR + CNS + Nutrition) × Consistency − Distress] / Under-Recovery

• AF = Aerobic Fitness

• Strength = Strength (Hardware)

• CNS = Central Nervous System (Software)

• Distress = Negative Stress

Now I know most of you probably failed college algebra or got it done thinking “i’ll never use this concept ever again in my life”, so i’ll take a moment to explain the equation.

Being Fit for Life is a sum of your aerobic fitness, strength, CNS, and nutrition. If you improve these domains then you’re heading in the right direction. You also improve your Fit For Life-ness when you increase all of those things in combination. This is of course dependent on consistency which is why we multiply by consistency.

Consistency is a force multiplier, it scales every other quality. The closer your consistency is to 0, the worse outcomes you’ll get from your training and nutrition.

Greater consistency for longer will amplify your results. Terrible consistency will make your results worse. If you eat well for 2 days and have great workouts but hit the gym inconsistently, then your results will decrease. Which makes sense, you need consistency for incremental progress.

Doing cardio is good, adding in strength to that is better, using nutrition to improve your recovery and support your performance is even better, doing all those things consistently is best.

Stress

There are two types of stress.

Distress - Negative Stress

• Arguing with your spouse, family members dying, getting fired from your job

Eustress - Positive Stress

• Working out, getting a promotion at work, getting married

We want to minimize distress which is why we’re subtracting it in the equation. Greater distress will lead to you getting less from your training and nutrition. You simply won’t perform or recover as well if you’re chronically stressed.

Recovery

The entire equation is divided by under recovery. Essentially, the more under recovered you are, the less you’ll get from your inputs (training, nutrition, etc). The better your recovery is, the greater your results will be.

Keep in mind there are a lot of components to recovery. Sleep and nutrition are the biggest but program design is another. Eating a whole food micronutrient dense diet and sleeping 8+ hours a night with a regular sleep schedule is fantastic, but if your training program is just too much to recover from, it won’t matter.

For instance, if you go into the gym and just max out your bench, squat, and deadlift multiple times a week or you run 10 miles a day without building up to it, your body is going to be smashed. This is especially true when people start to combine lifting and cardio, they’ll typically do too much too fast from the get go.

Also, don’t worry about optimizing your recovery if your training is trash. Too many people are talking about doing saunas, cold plunges, or boofing coffee ground for “recovery” but there training isn’t even stressful enough to warrant anything beyond some post workout protein and a decent night of sleep.

This should be obvious but people oversee it, you need to train hard enough before you start worrying too much about recovery or over training.

Aerobic Fitness, Strength, & CNS Function

Aerobic fitness is essentially anything that increases your heart rate to elicit a training adaptation. This can be any mode like biking, running, playing soccer, etc. There are obviously sub components of aerobic fitness and things like aerobic power, threshold, Zone 2, and other modalities we could discuss in this section but for sake of time we won’t.

Aerobic fitness in this equation can simply be anything that improves your autonomic nervous system & cardiovascular function. This can be assessed by measuring a few biomarkers.

• Resting heart rate (lower is better)

• Heart Rate Variability or HRV (higher is better)

• VO2 Max (higher is better)

• Blood Pressure (lower is better, to a point)

There are other adaptations such as improving capillary and mitochondrial density that we get from aerobic training but those can’t be as easily measured.

Basic Guidelines for Improving Aerobic Fitness

Baseline recommendations. These should be adjusted according to your goals. I recommend polarized training:

2-3 Sessions a week at a low intensity for 30-45 Minutes

• Zone 2-3, Low Intensity Steady State

• This can also be 2-4 min tempo intervals with 3-4 min recovery.

1-2 Sessions a week at a high intensity for 10-20 Minutes

• Zone 4-5, High Intensity Intervals

• Favorite Intervals: 20-30 sec hard but repeatable, 2-3 Min Recovery. Perform 4 to 8 rounds.

There are many ways to skin the cat here and I would get more in depth if you had more specific goals, but use this as a baseline.

Strength

I recommend 2-4 sessions a week for most people.

Do full body if you train 2-3x a week and Upper Lower or Push/Pull/Leg alternating split if you train 4x a week. Hit every rep range. Maybe not every single day, but over the course of months if you want to be physically developed you should train across the spectrum from heavy singles to sets of 15 reps.

I wrote more about this on the articles below.

The strength domain includes building muscle and gaining strength. Although they’re related, they’re not necessarily the same thing.

CNS Function

Your central nervous system will govern your force output. We want to avoid being the crochety old guy who moves gingerly out of fear he’ll slip on carpet. The way we do this is we train for force output and rate of force development regularly. The key word is REGULARLY.

This means lifting heavy and moving fast. Heavy lifting would be anything in the 1 to 5 rep range to maximize force output & maximal strength.

Training for speed and rate of force development doesn’t just have to be sprinting.

It can also be ballistic movements like kettlebell swings and throws provide they’re done with the correct intent (to move the implement as explosively as possible). If you’re doing medicine ball slams but not actually slamming the ball down like you’re trying to break through into the center of the earth, then you’re not training rate of force development. You’re just moving with a 10 lb ball. Not the same thing.

I actually don’t recommend sprinting for most people starting out, I’ve seen too many hamstring strains. If you would like to sprint then go ahead, just make sure to prepare your body for it and ease into it. I also recommend starting with hill sprints instead of just a flat line sprint down a parking lot.

You can also include sled sprints, jumps, olympic lifts, and dynamic effort barbell exercises with bands or chains. Too many people still avoid this aspect when it comes to longevity. There’s an obsession over VO2 Max and nobody is concerned with how your software functions. It’s important to include this type of training for both function and neurological health.

Keep your brain and nervous system firing.

CNS Guidelines

Train Heavy 1-2x a week (80%+ of 1RM)

• This can be phased in, you don’t always need to be hitting heavy sets of 3 for example. But always keep strength training in the program.

Move Fast 2-3x a week

• This can also include sport movement like a martial art that requires you to move dynamically. Otherwise aim for 20-40 jumps / plyometrics per session. Low amplitude extensive plyometrics like jumping rope can also be put in here but preferably you still do some maximal speed output activities like broad jumps for distance or box jumps for height.

Skill Acquisition

• Explore new movements, try new sports, or practice new skills every few weeks.

Nutrition

Nutrition is a new religion. There’s no need to be dogmatic, the solution is pretty simple. Eat mostly whole, minimally processed foods and minimize anything that will disrupt sleep, increase inflammation, or damage your body in some shape or form.

I highly recommend tracking your diet for a few months if you’ve never tried it. You don’t need to do it forever, but a few months is enough time to build good intuition. From there you can try intuitive dieting approaches or something like carb cycling.

I think there is some benefit in adopting an ancestral diet if possible as well. I strongly believe we’ll see more research on this in a few decades as the data is only now emerging. Check out the video below if you want to learn more.

Nutrition Guidelines

These are baseline recommendations, you could of course need more or less depending on your goals.

• 0.8 g / lb bodyweight of protein Daily

• Fruit or vegetables with each meal

• Eat 3-5 meals a day

• Minimize Snacking

• Eat mostly whole, minimally processed, and micronutrient dense foods

• Carb Cycling

  • Eat carbs when you need them most. Before, during, or post workout is the best opportunity. In the morning is the next best opportunity to reduce cortisol and you’re also most insulin sensitive at this time.

• Stay Hydrated

  • Hydration is more than just water. Potassium, Sodium, Magnesium, and Calcium are all key electrolytes to keep in mind.

• Avoid deep valleys and major peaks in calories

  • You don’r want extreme calorie deficits or surpluses. If you’re losing weight keep the deficit moderate, if you’re gaining weight keep the surplus moderate.

• Gutmaxxxxing

  • Improve your digestion and gut health. This means getting plenty of fiber, a diverse asssortment of fruits and vegetables, and probiotic, prebiotic, or fermented foods.

• Supplements for ergogenic benefits or to fill the gaps

  • This is not a supplement article. Supplements should be targeted. I highly recommend booking a nutrition assessment to determine what supplements may help you, if any.

Fit For Life Training Plan

There is no perfect plan, but this template will get you on the right track. This training is fundamentally a conjugate system. We don’t want to specialize. You’re not a powerlifter, a runner, or a discus player. Specializing in our context doesn’t make sense.

Therefore, we need to train all qualities within a week. This is not a bro split. Again, realize the purpose of this training. If you’d like to add more in, i’d add in mini workouts that are 10-20 min long during the week our simply add in 1-3 accessory movements at the end of a session.

Read more