How the Program Works

GUIDELINES

Training Sessions Must Be Short

Long training sessions (anything over 60 minutes; not including the warm-up and cool down) are ineffective for rapid fat loss. Anything after 60 minutes is a recipe for overtraining, stagnation, and boredom. From what I’ve observed with clients, the performance usually starts dropping after 45 minutes. A shorter session usually means pinpoint focus and higher intensity.

Each workout, you’ll know exactly what to do and how. It’s important to execute efficiently, like a machine. For some people, caffeine before a workout helps (but not after 4 P.M).

Training Sessions Must Be Intense

Intensity is the most important variable for fat loss. The simplest way to increase your intensity is to shorten rest periods. Now, I’m not saying to make yourself throw up. You should not be able to carry on conversations between sets or play angry bird on your cell phone. Keeping the rest period short and sweet makes your workout short and effective (and a little painful).

Training Must Be Consistent (IMPORTANT!)

If you want to see results, you must do work, and do it often. You can have the best training sessions in the world, but they will be rendered ineffective without consistency. The high level of frequency ensures a consistently elevated metabolic rate, and a tremendous surge of EPOC, which means you’ll be burning calories well after your body stops working out. Flashy fitness sites call this “the afterburner effect”. Any activity is better than no activity – if there are days where you think you have “no time” to work out, well, you’re lying to yourself. Let me know and I will make something work for you on days where “you have no time”.

Your Body Must Recover

Usually, your strength training workouts will be 24 hours apart. If you’re still sore/fatigued/exhausted on a strength-training day, notify me.

Cardio

Unless training for a long-distance endurance event, all cardio prescribed is High-Intensity Interval Training. What this means is that you alternate intense periods of work with periods of rest. Studies showed that HIIT is about 9x more effective for fat loss than traditional distance cardio, not to mention it save a lot of time.

An example of HIIT would be to run at about 75-85% of your max effort for 30 seconds, walk for 60 seconds, and repeat for 3 rounds.

Safety

Mild discomfort is part of the exercise process and is necessary for the improvement of performance and physique.

The Burn is good pain. It should be short-lived and during the exercise only. Fatigue after a workout should leave you exhilarated, but not exhausted. Fatigue that lasts days means you have been excessively challenged and your muscles and energy stores are not being replenished properly. Chronic fatigue is referred to as “over-training” and is not good. Soreness is common, especially for muscles that have not been exercised for long periods of time, or when you perform an exercise you are not accustomed to. Soreness typically begins within a few hours but peaks two days after exercise. This is referred to as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and is normal when beginning a new fitness program.

Bad Pain – Usually caused by the improper execution of an exercise. Nothing should really “Hurt”. Immediately notify me and/or a physician of any sharp or sudden pains, swelling, or any unnatural feelings in your joints or ligaments. It is recommended to perform each exercise with NO WEIGHT to familiarize yourself with the movement pattern and to mentally and physically prepare you for the tasks ahead. Warming up is a crucial part of injury prevention and prepares your body for exercise by lubricating your joints.

Notify me of any extreme soreness that may occur. Mostly, it’s counter-productive to train through soreness.

SLEEP

I could write about the countless studies of why sleep is important for you, your appetite, your mental health, your happiness, and especially your fat loss. But I’m not going to bore you with the science stuff. That’s not the approach I take with fitness.

Get 6-8 hours of quality sleep every night. I can’t stress how important this is for both fat loss and muscle gain, especially when you’re in workout mode. Your body, your workouts, and your goals will suffer because of a lack of quality sleep. Have trouble falling asleep early? Form a sleep ritual. That means two hours before you want to go to bed, dim the lights, and unplug all electronics. Try sleeping with your cell phone in another room. Replace the TV with some light reading. If you’re still having trouble – try supplementing with Melatonin and/or drinking Chamomile tea before bed.

Notes on Gym Etiquette

Because I won’t be with you in the gym, I feel that it’s important to ensure that you follow the unwritten rules. You might notice others breaking these “laws of the iron” but I want you to get as comfortable in the gym as possible as quickly as possible. Here are the five most important rules to consider throughout your workout.

Respect the No-Lift zone

Don’t ever lift a weight within 3 feet of the dumbbell rack. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing shoulder press, split squat, biceps curls, or goblet squats or anything else. Pick up your weights and take 3 giant steps back.

Avoid walking in front of somebody else in the middle of a set.

If somebody is in the middle of their set NEVER cross their field of vision. Take a long way around if you have to. If you can’t take a long way around, wait for them to finish their set before walking in front.

Put your weights away.

Avoid the “Ab zone”.

Most gyms have a designated area for mats, balls, Bosu balls etc. Don’t bring heavy weights into that area. It’s designated for stretching and ab work. By taking up their space you force them to take up your space (see the next point).

Keep your mats out of the way.

Don’t set up a mat in between two benches in the free weight zone and do crunches unless you want a weight dropped on your head. Even if the gym is empty set up your mat out of the way. Either stick to the “ab zone” or place your mat in a corner out of the way. Think proactively. Where might somebody want to work out over the course of your set? Don’t set up there.

Workout Terminology

I wanted to quickly define some terms that will be used throughout. To give you the best workout possible, I give guidelines on a number of different factors beyond sets and reps. Below are definitions of some terms that I use to describe the different aspects of the program.

Rest

The rest is the time in seconds between two sets.
How Long You Should Rest in Between Sets? To make the most out of workout intensity less rest is better. Typically though, The higher the rep range, the lower the rest period.
The heavier the weight lifted the lower the rep range, then a longer rest period.

Reps/ Repetitions

Every time you go from the starting position, down into the bottom position and return back up to the original standing position you complete one repetition of the Squat exercise.
“Reps” or “Repetitions” are then grouped into what are called “Sets“

Weight Selection

Progressive Overload is something you earn from a previous good training session. When you train hard enough, your body will be forced to adapt and get stronger. As a consequence, you will be able to lift more weight or reps in the next session. In this training program for example, you will need to perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps. This means that you must do 8-10 reps of each exercise with perfect technique. For each set to be effective, or “Hard enough”, you should be aiming to complete somewhere between 8 to 10 reps. You should not be able to lift more than 12 reps.

I am going to repeat that last part.
You need to choose a weight that is light enough so you can just about do 8 to 10 reps with good form. Yet heavy enough that you can’t do 13, 14 or 15 reps. If you can do more than 12 reps with any particular weight then this weight is too light for you.
Your body will not have any reason to get stronger by the next training session.

Sets

A single set is just a group of reps performed together. Certain Rep & Set ranges can emphasize particular adaptations (benefits) of lifting weights. That is Strength, Hypertrophy, or Muscular Endurance.
You can gain all of the above benefits by training in any rep range, as long as you adhere to the number one most important principle of strength training,
Progressive Overload.