You rolled into Memorial Day with that summer body you always wanted. And you managed to keep it despite the beach parties, barbecues and ice cream cone temptations. Now that fall is on our doorstep you need to resist that urge to start adding that bit of winter weight. Truth is, staying lean now will not only keep you healthier, it will make being lean next year that much easier. And if you’re one of those people who strolled the sand with a T-shirt on because you weren’t rocking a set of defined abs, it’s never too early to get started for next year.
If It Ain’t Broke, Fix It Anyway
While “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a great mentality when it comes to your car, it’s not that simple when it comes to your body. Why? Because your body is the ultimate adaptive machine. Whatever you throw at it, it’s going to find a way to get the job done as simply as possible. Remember the first time you did a set of 10 reps with 135 on the bench press? It was probably awkward, challenging and made your pecs sore for 3 days. Now you could bang that out without even thinking about it. That is adaptation. So how do you keep things from getting too easy and routine? You need to throw your body a “workout curveball” every so often to make sure you continue to make progress and not hit a plateau.
Minute-on-the-Minute
This program is going to utilize something called “Minute-on-the-Minute” sets in which you’ll perform an exercise at the top of the minute, rest whatever remains of that minute and then begin the next set at the top of the next minute. For example, place your 6RM of the deadlift on the bar. At the top of the minute (say, 1PM exactly) you’re going to perform 3 reps. Rest whatever remains of that minute (so if it took you 12 seconds to do the 3 reps, you rest the remaining 48 seconds) then start the next set at exactly 1:01. Continue to do this for 10 sets total and you just hit 30 pretty heavy deadlifts in 10 minutes. Not only will this build strength, the short time frame will build work capacity as you are now focused on compressing your rest time rather than taking 4 minutes between sets trying to talk up that girl in the booty shorts and high socks as she’s trying to finish her set of RDLs.
You’ll be strength training four times per week, two upper body days and two lower body days. Each workout will start with a Minute-on-the-Minute challenge and then progress to a pair of supersets. Be sure to pay attention to all rest periods and notice that the set/rep schemes change from week to week.
Conditioning
Perform these conditioning workouts at any point during the week (pre- or post-workout, on rest days, etc). The schedule is up to you, just make sure you get these workouts in twice during each week.
Exercise
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Kettlebell Swings*
100 reps
80 reps
150 reps
Rowing Machine**
4 reps x 500 meters
2 rounds x 500 meters
5 rounds x 400 meters
*Break up the Kettllebell Swings into as many or as few sets as you’d like. For example, on Week 1, you can do 1 set of 100 swings, 4 sets of 25 swings, etc. ** Rest twice as long as the round took. So if it takes you 2 minutes to row 500 meters, rest for 4 minutes between rounds.
