Your daily workout is as follows:

Warmup:  5-10 minutes on an eliptical or treadmill.  Get your heart rate up some, break a light sweat.

Mobility Warmup

A = Deadlift =  1×5 @ 55% Working Max, 1×5 @ 62.5%, 3×10 @ 67.5% No more no less.  Hips down, drive through your heels!

B = Deficit Romanian Deadlifts = 3×8 - Use a double overhand grip (no mixed grip).  Stack two 45 lb plates on top of each other and stand on it.  This should create about a 3 inch platform and will give you a great stretch at the bottom.  Try and use the same weight as last time.

C = Barbell Hip Thrust = 4×8 - Might want to get the pussypad (thing you see people put on squat bars because “their neck hurts without it” - side note get some muscle on your back and it won’t hurt) to put on the bar so as to protect your pelvis, especially if you’re bony.  Focus on squeezing your butt cheeks together as hard as possible and getting your hips high.  If you can’t get it to where your pelvis and stomach is parallel to the floor, you need to go down in weight.

D = Lat Pull Downs = 5×12 - Never behind your head - that’s a great way to give yourself some shoulder impingement. Focus on retracting your shoulder blades.  Imagine someone has a string that is attached to your elbows and is pulling you backwards.  You want to focus on pulling through your elbows instead of pulling with your forearms and biceps.  This will help place emphasis where it should be - on your back.

E = Barbell Shrugs = 3×8 - okay you can finally use some straps, go heavy as you can on these.  It really helps stability in your bench, as well as increases your ability to lock out your deadlift.  Shoot for more weight this week.

F = One Armed Farmer Walk = 3 x 20 meters (3 for each arm) - focus on staying upright as much as possible and resisting the weight (KB or DB) pulling you down.

Cool-down = 15 minutes walking on an incline treadmill or take a walk outside.  Focus on slowing your breathing and reducing your heart rate.

Note*:  If you see me leave the reps/sets the same in a workout compared to last week, that means try to up the weight if possible.  We’re always striving to lift more, either via reps, sets, or actual weight.  Remember only do the prescribed reps/sets, no more, even if you may be capable of more.  If you’re capable of A LOT more than up the weight.

Seek yourself, find it, improve it.

Mobility Warmup - Yes this is important.  It’ll keep you healthy, your joints will thank you as will your soft-tissue.  No skipping it, even if it isn’t the most fun thing to do.

A = Deadlift = 5×10 = 60% of working max - Don’t use wrist straps.  If your grip isn’t up to the par, this is the first day of the rest of your life of having a stronger grip.  Focus on getting your hips down!

B = Romanian Deadlifts = 3×8 - Use a double overhand grip (no mixed grip).

C = Barbell Hip Thrust = 4×15 - Might want to get the pussypad (thing you see people put on squat bars because “their neck hurts without it” - side note get some muscle on your back and it won’t hurt) to put on the bar so as to protect your pelvis, especially if you’re bony.  Focus on squeezing your butt cheeks together as hard as possible and getting your hips high.  If you can’t get it to where your pelvis and stomach is parallel to the floor, you need to go down in weight.

D = Lat Pull Downs = 5×10 - Never behind your head - that’s a great way to give yourself some shoulder impingement. Focus on retracting your shoulder blades.  Imagine someone has a string that is attached to your elbows and is pulling you backwards.  You want to focus on pulling through your elbows instead of pulling with your forearms and biceps.  This will help place emphasis where it should be - on your back.

E = Barbell Shrugs = 3×8 - okay you can finally use some straps, go heavy as you can on these.  It really helps stability in your bench, as well as increases your ability to lock out your deadlift.

F = One Armed Farmer Walk = 3 x 15 meters (3 for each arm) - focus on staying upright as much as possible and resisting the weight (KB or DB) pulling you down.

Cool-down = 15 minutes walking on an incline treadmill or take a walk outside.  Focus on slowing your breathing and reducing your heart rate.

Lastly, I don’t normally do this for people that aren’t paying clients, but if you need a review of your deadlift technique, film it, post it on youtube and message me the link.  I’ll critique it and give feedback on how to improve your technique so you can pull as much weight off the ground as possible in the future!

Active Recovery day in terms of lifting.  This would be a good day to do get some hard pieces in on the erg or water since you won’t be lifting, or put in some major meters in the UT2 range (60-70% maxHR).

Things to do regardless of whether you’re pushing it hard today on the erg/water, getting in lots of steady state, or simply taking a full recovery day.

• Foam Roll - Entire body with a heavy focus on your lower extremities.
• Epson Salt bath - great for promoting recovery and helping to flush toxins out of the skin and muscles.  Relax and enjoy it!

Back on it tomorrow - look forward to deadlifting!

The Secret to Success

1.  Trust yourself. But what is most important is that you have to dig deep down, dig deep deep down and ask yourself, who do you want to be?  Not what but who?  Now I’m not talking about what your parents or teachers want, but You.  I’m talking about figuring out for yourselves what makes you happy.  No matter how crazy it may sound to other people.

2.  Break the rules.  We have so many rules in life about everything.  I said break the rules, not the law.  But break the rules.  It is impossible to be a maverick, or a true original, if you are too well behaved, and you do not want to break the rules.  You have to think outside the box.  That is what I believe, after all, what is the point of being on this Earth if all you want to do is be like everyone and avoid trouble.  The only way that I ever got any place was by breaking some of the rules.

3.  Don’t be afraid to fail.  Anything I’ve ever attempted, I was always willing to fail.  So, you can’t always win, but don’t be afraid of making decisions.  You can’t be paralyzed by fear or failure or you will never push yourself.  You keep pushing because you believe in yourself and in your vision, and you know that it is the right thing to do and success will come so don’t be afraid to be fail.

4.  Don’t listen to the nay-sayers.  I mean, how many times have you heard “you can’t do this or you can’t do that and that it’s never been done before?”  I love it when someone says it’s never been done before because then when I do it, that means I’m the first one that’s ever done it.  So pay no attention to the people that say it can’t be done.  I never listen that you can’t.  I always listen to myself and say YES YOU CAN.

5.  Work your butt off.  Leave no stone unturned.  Muhammed Ali, one of my great heroes had a great line in the 70’s when he was asked, “how many situps do you do?”  He said, “I don’t count my situps, I only start counting when it starts hurting, when I feel pain, that’s when I start counting, because that’s when it really counts, that’s what really makes you a champion.”  That’s the way it is with everything.  No pain no gain.  While you’re out there partying, horsing around. Someone out there at the same time out there, is working hard.  Someone is getting smarter and someone is winning.  Just remember that.  There’s absolutely no way around hard work.  None of my rules of success will work unless you do.  I’ve always figured that there are 24 hours in a day, you sleep 6 hours and you have 18 hours left.  I know that some of you all say “but I sleep 8 hours or 9 hours” well then just sleep faster I would recommend.

6.  Give back.  Whatever path that you take in your life, you must always find time in your life to give something back.  Give something back to your community, give something back or to your state, or to your country.  Let me tell you something, reaching out and helping people will bring you more satisfaction than anything else you have ever done.

Trust yourself, break some rules, don’t listen to the nay-sayers, work like hell, and don’t forget to give something back.

The man, the king - Arnold Schwarzenegger

This is the beginning of the Viking Program for all those that will be doing this.  Refer to the Viking Project Introduction to see how to start and set up the numbers you’ll need and that I’ll be referring to.

Premise of the next 4 weeks:  Getting you ready to train hard.  You may think you’re in shape, you may think you can handle the training, but most of you won’t be able to.  Sure you might be able to make it through the workout and get the sets and reps done but the quality of it will be diminished.  This is something that all people can benefit from, regardless of training age or skill.  This is what is termed GPP:  General Physical Preparation.  Every 4th bloc or so I do a phase of GPP to help increase my own work capacity and my ability to make it through more intense sessions with a higher quality of work output.  GPP is getting you ready to train, don’t underestimate it’s value - this is a huge issue in club sports at the youth level, way too much SPP (Specific Physical Preparation) and not enough GPP.  This leaves athletes (with the exception of the most genetically gifted) unable to get quality work in.  Even those with exceptional genetics are limited by their GPP at times.  In short, it’s time to get you ready for the real training.

Your daily workout is as follows:

Warmup:  5-10 minutes on an eliptical or treadmill.  Get your heart rate up some, break a light sweat.

Mobility Warmup

Go through all the exercises done in that video.  Great warmup there (courtesy of the Diesel Crew).

A = Box Squat = 60% Working Max = 5×10 (5 sets of 10)

B = Romanian Deadlift = use a weight you can get for 4 sets of 6-8 (4×6-8)

C = Reverse Hyperextensions (45 degree back extensions are also a pseudo appropriate substitute here) = 100 reps, do in as few sets as possible - bodyweight to start.

D = Side Bends = 3×8 = Use as heavy a weight as you can so you still hit your reps.  Side bends are great for resisting rotation and helping with the squat and deadlift.

E = Step Ups = 3×8 = for the new trainee use your bodyweight, for those with a bit more training under your belt feel free to use dumbbells held in each hand, heavy as you can go and still get 8 reps.  Focus on driving through the elevated foot (foot should be up on a bench) and not kicking off the back foot which is on the ground.

Cooldown - 15 mins walking on a treadmill, preferably an incline.  Focus on your breathing and bring your heart rate back down to a lower level.

Foam Roll your lower body if you have a foam roller (I encourage all to have one).

Notes:  For box squats, find a box that when you sit results in your knee joint being higher than your hip joint.  For those who are taller, typical gym benches may work, those of us who are shorter (me - 5’8”) should use 25 lb plates stacked up to an appropriate height.  I use six 25 lb plates stacked for my depth.  When box squatting, focus on coming down under control and not crashing into the box.

Train Hard, Train Smart.

The Viking Project Ever just get frustrated with your training?  Not sure what to do?  Want to have more muscle, less fat, be faster and stronger?  Don’t we all?

I’ll be putting up a daily workout so to speak (or at least pseudo-daily) for those who just don’t have much of a clue about their training or what to do.  It will be relatively generic with the goals of strength, fat loss, and building muscle.  Obviously your nutrition will determine if you are gaining muscle or losing fat.  A philosophy of mine is to train for strength and performance (i.e. like an athlete), and eat for aesthetics (what you want to look like).  So feel free to follow me, get a guideline to your workouts for the week and start seeing some results.  Obviously this differs a good bit from my paid services where the programs (both training and nutrition) are tailored specifically to the client, their strengths, their weaknesses, and their goals.

Day 1 Viking Project

Test Day

To know where you want to go, you need to know where you are.

Time to test in the big exercises.  Get your 1, 3 or 5 rep max in the following exercises:

Squat

Deadlift

Military Press

Once this has been done we can start the program.  For those of you going for a 3 or 5 rep max (however much weight you can do for 3 or 5 reps) use the following formula to determine an estimated 1 rep max:

Weight x Reps x 0.0333 + Weight = Estimated 1 Rep Max (Formula courtesy of Jim Wendler).

Example:  You test using 225 lbs for your squat.  You do 3 reps.  Your estimated 1 rep max is:  (225×3x.03333)+225 = 247 (round to the nearest 5 for the sake of simplicity) = 245 lbs.

Once you have a true 1 rep max or an estimated 1 rep max we can proceed.

Working Max = 90% of your estimated/true 1 rep max.

Day 2 tomorrow.  Tomorrow the process begins, you will walk through the Halls of Valhalla and we will make you into a Viking….because Vikings kick ass.