Making the Cut (30 page)

SPLIT ROUTINE

A split routine is a focus on different muscle groups during different workouts. The particular split routine developed for
Making the Cut
is the most effective way of preventing fatigue and overtraining, while achieving maximum calorie burning, because it trains muscles based on their functions and relations to other muscles.

For this program I have created the front-back split: you will be training all the muscles on the front of your body one day, and all the muscles on the back of your body the next. For instance, you will use your triceps and shoulders to train your chest; these are all “push” muscles used for basic pushing and pressing motions. Then your biceps and forearms are used to train your upper back; these are all “pull” muscles used for pulling and bringing things toward you. Muscles with common functions should be trained on the same day, to ensure that your muscles get the proper rest in between training sessions.

You will also be training your lower body at every training session because it is the most effective way to elevate your heart rate and burn calories. You will be training the front of your lower body on chest-shoulder-triceps day and the back of your lower body on back-and-biceps day. By working the upper and lower body in supersets (i.e., in rapid succession; see Chapter 3), you will be shunting your blood back and forth between your upper and lower body, which allows you to burn twice as many calories, due to a phenomenon known as peripheral heart action, or PHA. When you get the blood moving between the upper and lower body as constantly as possible during a workout, you greatly reduce the formation and buildup of lactic acid, which is the cause of muscle fatigue. PHA not only contributes in the short term by helping you burn more calories during your workout; it also benefits you in the long term by optimizing muscle development and preventing muscle damage or burnout. A reminder: when it comes to something as serious as your heart, everything I say above should be secondary to what your body tells you. If you ever start to feel faint or extremely out of breath, you should stop until you’ve recovered your breath and feel better. If breathing problems or heart palpitations persist over time, you should seek advice from your doctor.

Last but not least, know the best sequence for performing your exercises so that you do not ace your muscles out of a highly effective workout. To prevent undue fatigue, you always want to train the muscles from largest to smallest. Here’s the logic: when you exercise one of the big muscle groups, say the back, you also recruit the smaller muscles nearby, like the biceps and forearm flexors, in a secondary or helper capacity. Your biceps will not work as hard during a lat pull-down as they will in a bicep curl, but if you exhaust your biceps before you even train your back, they will be weak. As a result, you will not be able to give your back the best workout possible. So if you get the big muscles out of the way before you spotlight the smaller ones, your performance will improve, and this means you will achieve more fat-burning lean muscle in less time.

CIRCUIT TRAINING

If you’re committed to getting in great shape and improving your health and fitness, circuit training is about the best method you can employ. Over the course of this program, circuit training is the
only
way you will be performing your resistance training. Don’t get me wrong: we will be employing many different types of exercise techniques. But we will be performing them
in circuits,
with no rest in between sets. When done properly, circuit training builds lean muscle and improves aerobic fitness simultaneously, making it nothing less than
the most effective
fat-burning workout.

So what is it? Circuit training simply means performing a series of selected exercises or activities in sequence as rapidly as possible. This allows you to achieve the benefits of a systemic aerobic workout while also doing a continuous series of anaerobic exercises. Additionally, with circuit training you can perform more exercises in the same period of time, thus burning more fat because of better fatigue management. For example, you might do a set of push-ups, and while your chest is resting between sets, you will have moved on to your lower body work by performing a set of squats. Completing all exercises is considered one set of one circuit. In
Making the Cut
you will be performing two sets of five circuits per workout, with no more then 30 seconds’ rest between circuits (
not
between sets).

INTERVAL TRAINING

There’s been a lot of buzz recently about interval training, and for good reason. A simple definition of interval training is: short, high-intensity cardio exercise (using 90 to 100 percent of MHR) alternated with longer periods of lower-intensity cardio (70 to 80 percent of MHR). Wind sprints are a perfect example of interval training. Most people spend their workout time performing only continuous training exercises—for example, walking at 3.5 mph at a 2 percent incline for 60 minutes. Continuous training is effective, but if you are looking to take your physique to the next level, interval training is a must; it allows you to burn more calories, increase your speed, improve your power, and more. Studies have shown interval training to be more effective at burning fat while maintaining muscle mass compared with long-duration, low-intensity workouts. Additionally, during strenuous exercise, metabolic rate rises, increasing to about 15 times the basal metabolic rate (BMR) and even higher during intense interval work. This is because intense interval work utilizes a greater percent of the body’s muscles. Also, performing high-intensity work places added energy demands on the respiratory, cardiovascular, and nervous systems. More fat and glycogen are burned to support the expanding energy demands of the body during—and after—intense exercise. In short, you burn more calories. These higher-and lower-intensity periods can be switched off repeatedly to add variety and challenge to a cardio workout, or they can be worked into resistance training to maximize caloric burn and performance. You will be doing both on my program.

SUPERSETS

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a safe and natural way to build more muscle in a shorter period of time? Well, guess what: such an animal does exist, and no, it’s not a drug
or
a miracle supplement. Nor is it a newfangled piece of workout machinery. If you’ve been training seriously for any length of time, you’re probably already familiar with it but haven’t fully exploited it. What is this method for building more muscle in less time? Meet the aptly named
superset.

Supersetting is an advanced training method in which you do two exercises, one after the other, with no rest in between. Superset training has several primary advantages over the more conventional straight-set training. When you’re supersetting, you’re getting rid of the rest period between sets and adding intensity to your workouts, and as you know by now, greater intensity means better results. Supersets allow you to overload your muscles without using heavy weights—perfect for someone who wants to build muscle but doesn’t have a spotter, or someone who is especially conscious of preventing injury and doesn’t like to lift very heavy weights. Supersets come in three primary categories: same muscle group, antagonistic, and staggered sets. Let’s take a look at each category and a few examples of each.

SAME MUSCLE GROUP

The first and most common kind of supersetting combines two exercises for the same muscle group. (An example would be supersetting dumbbell flys with a bench press.) I have always found this to be the most effective supersetting method for cutting muscle and achieving sexy definition. This is the form of supersetting you’ll be doing on my program.

ANTAGONISTIC

Doing two exercises in a row for the same muscle group tends to significantly limit the amount of weight you can use because of fatigue and lactic acid buildup. Pairing opposing (antagonistic) muscle groups together can help you keep your strength up because as one muscle is working, the opposite one is resting. Common examples include pairing biceps with triceps, chest with back, or hamstrings with quadriceps. I have found that antagonistic supersetting is great for building muscle mass but not for definition. It is a technique better used for the aspiring body-builder than for you.

STAGGERED SETS

The final category of supersetting is staggered sets. A staggered set is a type of superset where you combine a major muscle with a minor and completely unrelated one. This technique is most commonly used for abs and calves. You use this principle by “squeezing in” a set of abs or calves between sets for any major muscle group. For example, you could throw in a set of calf raises between every chest set you do. Instead of resting and doing nothing in between sets, you are doing something productive—working your calves! This gets your workout finished much more quickly and spares you the monotony that many people feel from doing these small body parts by themselves.

Like antagonistic supersetting, staggered sets are great for the aspiring body-builder who is looking to bulk up in less time, but where definition is concerned, staggered sets would be a waste of your time.

COMBO LIFTING

The concept behind combination lifting (combos) is simple: combine two or more movements into one exercise. This workout technique is a sound and simple way of getting the most work into your allotted exercise time. There are three different methods of combo lifting.

STRAIGHT COMBO LIFT

In this method you perform two lifts, one right after the other. For example, you would perform a Dead Lift, then a Bicep Curl or a Squat, then a Shoulder Press. (See The Exercise Index, Chapter 3, for definitions of these exercises.)

COMPLEX

A complex is the same as a straight combo lift, but instead of doing two exercises in one movement, you do several. For example, you do a Squat, then a Bicep Curl into a Shoulder Press.

HYBRID LIFT

A hybrid lift is two or more exercises done in one single movement. It is the inverse of a combo lift. For example, you would perform a Bicep Curl while lunging, or do a Shoulder Press while dropping into your Squat.

Combo lifting has several beneficial functions. First, it allows you to maximize your allotted exercise time by utilizing a greater variety of muscle groups in a short period of time. Next, it develops and hones motor skills by forcing muscle synergy in each movement. And because these lifts are very strenuous and fatiguing, they elevate heart rate and greatly increase the calories burned during a workout, which is the main purpose of the combo lifting you’ll be doing over the next 30 days. When you isolate small muscles in a movement, like biceps in a Bicep Curl, you get a minimal calorie burn because your heart rate is barely elevated. But when you combine that bicep curl with a lunge or a squat, your heart is working because your body is trying to deliver oxygen to multiple working muscle groups. Last but not least, combo lifting is a way to add variety and freshness to your routine.

PYRAMIDS

The idea behind the pyramid technique is to get muscle by using more and more weight; the more weight you use, the stronger you become, and the stronger you become the more weight you can use.

To perform pyramids, you first need to establish your one-rep maximum, or the maximum amount of weight you can lift once and still do it properly. Then you take a percentage of that weight and start there, increasing (or in the case of the reverse pyramid, decreasing) the amount of weight you lift throughout the set. The “Pyramids” chart can help you figure out how what percentage of your one-rep maximum to use for each set, depending upon whether your workout day calls for a pyramid weight stack or a reverse pyramid weight stack. Each week you increase the percentage of your one-rep maximum for that exercise. After four weeks it’s time to recalculate your one-rep maximum. Pyramid workouts can be designed in many ways, but the underlying principles will always be the same. Warm up with a light set; then perform progressively heavier, submaximal-effort lead-in sets up to an 80 percent set; and if that goes well, add five pounds and try to establish a new one-rep max.

         
PYRAMIDS
My one-rep maximum: _________