I’m going to keep this one short and sweet like Danny DeVito eating a Cinnabon: one day, in the not too distant future, a human’s worth will not judged by their kindness, achievements or accolades, but by the strength and shape of their glutes. I don’t even want to begin on the social life-killing stigma of being the only one in your peer group NOT able to turn a piece of coal into a diamond with one flex of your butt cheeks.

If you’re looking for specific exercises to add to your arsenal, make sure to check out Bret Contreras’ page. He’s like King Midas of the fanny – everything he touches turns to glutes instead of gold (which will be worth far more in the future, anyway).

I care too much about you to see you suffer booty ostracism.

Rog’s Rump Revival Rules

1. The 40 Year Old Virgin will teach you everything that you need to know about glutes

The great sage Steve Carell once asked the greatest question known in the history of the world: is it true that if you don’t use it, you lose it?

When it comes to the glutes, this is the absolute truth.

For a variety of reasons (constantly sitting on them all day, never really learning how to use them in the first place, etc), most of our backsides are just plain ‘ol weak and inefficient. The problem doesn’t correct itself when we load up the barbell and expect the glutes to get their act together without being properly taught how to. This would be similar to taking  a 6 year old away from their coloring books and snacks and throwing them into an advance physics class – they’re just not ready.

If you don’t use ’em, you will lose ’em. Friend’s don’t let friends lose their glutes.

2. Work your glutes all day every day

The following exercises take less than a minute to do, but will help take your booty development to the next level. You can do them in the morning after you wake up, at night before you go off to dream land, or as part of  warm up before lifting. The more you turn your glutes “on” and actually FEEL them working, the easier it will be to call upon their awesomeness when you need it.

Create that mind-muscle connection and you will be handsomely rewarded.

Do 1-2 sets of 10 reps each side for these exercises.

Now for some real life bonus tips that you can do without throughout the day.

• When you’re walking, focus on extending your hip back and really feeling your glutes squeeze with each step. Think “walk like Robocop”.
• Stand up every now and then and just squeeze your butt together for 10 reps. If you really want to spice it up and feel them working, hold each rep for 5 seconds.
• While sitting, flex each cheek individually, which will rock you from side to side a bit. For added flair and style points, squeeze both glutes together to bounce up and down and your chair. Yes, this does look as hilarious as it sounds.

3. Get ’em strong!

Now that you’ve woken your buns up, it’s time to integrate them into your lifts. Get strong at exercises like the deadlift and squat variations, hip thrusts and lunges. If you’ve been doing these with weak, non-functioning glutes (like I was for years), prepare to have your lifts skyrocket now that you have the strongest muscle in your body on your team. You might even shed a tear or two.

Remember to lock out with your glutes and NOT your lower back on all of the above exercises. Here is a video of how you want to approach it, especially if you have a history of low back pain like I do.

Questions? Concerns? Want some more tush talk? Leave a comment below – I’m more than happy to help you get to the bottom of this.

Remember: If you don’t squeeze it, no one else will.

Your training split sucks. Sorry, I don’t make the rules. But training is the easy part. What’s difficult, however, is recovering.

You wouldn’t know that though. You have no care for recovery. No care for logistics. No care for anything other than training.

What happens when you miss a day? Do you just skip it? Shift days around? Scream bloody murder?

Do you consider the effects of a workout done the day(s) prior to your current workout? Do you make sure a squat workout isn’t impacting your bench workout?

Don’t worry. We can fix it.

All of it.

Here’s how.

THIS AIN’T UPS

It’s all about logistics. The fine balance between stress and recovery. We pay taxes. We go to work. We do things that stress us out more than we probably should. But it’s all good because we relax on the weekends. We take vacations. We do things that help us recover, albeit less than we probably should.

Somehow, it all evens out. Somehow.

As long as it does, few of us care how.

Training is no different. We’re all relying on that somehow.

But it all comes back to logistics.

WHY YOU’RE VOLUNTARILY STRESSING OUT

Pretend public speaking curdles your pants, and you’re a businessman that’s forced to give presentations. Given the choice to schedule your presentations, would you: give one every day –or– batch them on one day.

The right choice here is getting them all done on one day. Otherwise, you’re laying a brick in your pants every morning during your commute.

Logistics.

On common training splits, the rage is to focus on one “big” exercise every session. The most common one is a four day split with one squatting day, one benching day, one deadlifting day, and one overhead pressing day.

But this is like presenting every day.

We don’t want to buy new pants frequently, so let’s rethink it.

WHY YOUR PROGRAM ISN’T IDEAL

Although we’re using the four day split as an example, this applies to three day templates too (although to a lesser degree).

In most programs, the “meat” is spread out. And by meat I mean the “big” lifts like squats, presses, and pulls. So every day you have to bring your “A” game.

This does two things.

First, it impairs your lifestyle. Who has time to date, mate, and get their hair cut when you gots to get your train on? Your life becomes a mix of “training days,” and “stuff needed taken care of that you don’t want to do on your training day because it throws your rituals out of whack.”

Second, it impairs recovery. Just like Mr. Presentation Man, batching makes for a less stressful life. After all, Goku took care of the Ginyu Force in one swoop. No rain checks.

It’s best to do damage when you’re prepared to do damage. If you’re up and ready, you might as well finish the job.

HOW TO DO DAMAGE WHEN IT COUNTS

Constructing a damage producing routine starts with opening your heart and choosing a few big lifts you love doing. This is very “Pareto,” in that we’re estimating 80% of your results to be determined by 20% of your lifts.

So limit yourself to four “big” lifts. For myself, a former skinny-fat dude, I’d go with the front squat, snatch grip deadlift, incline press, and chin-up. Although, if you’re a current skinny-fat dude without much experience, you’re better off with the conventional deadlift.

Whatever four you choose, they are your 20%. Most of your results will come from simply “practicing” these lifts regularly. Not always with gut busting, mind wrenching intensity either. Sometimes it will be hitting a few light sets. Other times it will be a spirit bomb of an effort, RPT style. The scheme you use doesn’t matter. Focus on progressively overloading them in some fashion over time. More weight. More reps. Less rest. Whatever.

HOW TO NOT PROGRAM HOP

80% of your results come from practicing the lifts chosen above. But the sad truth is that most people don’t even make it that far. They program hop before making consistent progress.

Face it. We, as a human race, have bad attention spans. Sentencing yourself to just four lifts for the rest of your existence, won’t end well. Most programs control every variable. Often times, trying “new things” leads to throwing “old things” away. But some of these “old things” could be one of your 20% lifts. We don’t want that.

Failure to plan for this, once again, comes down to logistics.

You’re going to try different exercises from time to time. Don’t ignore the urge. Just plan for it.

ENTER THE 242 METHOD

The 242 Method is a box of logistics. It originally stood for “2” lifts being done “for” “2” days of the week, after a look back at my training showed only two lifts being responsible for most of my progress.

The purpose of the 242 Method is to keep your focus on the lifts that matter most while condensing them into two days, which is unlike most templates that spread them over three or four.

Using the example already started, these exercises are the front squat, deadlift, incline press, and chin-up. So two days, every week, do these lifts with some semblance of structure with the goal being both practice and progressive overload.

Don’t worry. You can train more than two times per week. Three or four days if you want to, actually. Use these trips to the gym to have fun. Get caught up in bodybuilding pump work. Do your curls. Toy around with magazine exercises. Get jacked all around with low(er) intensity exercises, machine work, and isolation movements.

Don’t worry about training the same muscle on back to back days. You can actually increase your recovery as you’re flushing the damaged muscles with blood.

Here’s a template:

Monday: Damage Day / front squats, incline presses, deadlifts, chin-ups

Tuesday: Bodybuilding Day / arm exercises, back extensions, experiment with new things

Thursday: Damage Day / front squats, incline presses, deadlifts, chin-ups

Friday: Bodybuilding Day / arm exercises, back extensions, experiment with new things

Or if you’re a classic M-W-F person, use Wednesday as your bodybuilding and exploratory day.

WHY THE 242 METHOD IS SEXIFICATION INCARNATE

The 242 Method is fool proof. It’s pure sexification. You can try new exercises without program hopping. You can customize it with any popular progressive overload scheme. You can miss a day here and there, as bodybuilding days are easily sacrificed as. As long as you’re hitting your damage days consistently, you’re good to go. Compounded onto all of that, you only have to align the stars twice per week, not three or four.

And since you’re going to ask, I’ll let you in on a little secret. If you want to alternate your damage day exercises, go ahead. So do rows one day and chins the other. Do incline presses one day and overheads the other. Deadlifts and squats can be swapped too.

STILL A LITTLE CONFUSED?

The entire structure of the 242 Method is exposed in an eBook so aptly titled “The 242 Method: The Anti-Program Hopping and Injury Reducing Strength Solution.” Since Rog was nice enough to let me violate his home, I’m going to give all of you sexy readers a direct link to download the eBook. It’s totally free. No strings attached. No e-mail bartering. Just the goods. To get to the download page, click this link. And make sure you shoot your questions below. Tell Rog thanks. And most of all, keep it sexy.

Anthony Mychal exists at the crossroad between fitness and athleticism. As a professional, he’s a writer appearing on the likes of T-Nation, LIVESTRONG.com, STACK, and Greatist. As a dude, he’s a self-proclaimed performance junkie that practices martial arts tricking. He splatters his ideas about building a body that matters on a weekly basis at his blog.

 

For those new to the series, make sure to check out last weeks entry where I nearly experienced the true death.

In each release, I’ll be performing a new workout designed by some of the world’s best trainers and strength coaches in an attempt to…well, break me. This is just a way to add some variety and fun to my sessions (and give you something to laugh/cringe at) while giving all of you Sexified readers out there some ideas to inject into your own workouts every now and then.

Today’s entry is brought to you by the one of a kind Nia Shanks.

Don’t let the smirk, amazing posture and incredibly cool t-shirt fool you, because somewhere out there in the world Nia is warming up with your max.  As a personal trainer, writer (check her out here) and author, Nia is committed to empowering women both mentally and physically through strength training, but she was kind enough to take time off from her noble cause to crush me.

Here’s the workout:

Squat 225lbs for as many reps as possible.

Rest 10 minutes

Deadlift 315 for as many reps as possible.

When Nia sent this to me I figured it wouldn’t be all that bad, but the smiley face at the end of her message should have tipped me off.  I actually liked this challenge…for the first 10 reps, and everything after that was just stupid mean.

The first thing that kicked in was my lack of conditioning, which I expected, then on the 11th rep my quads started to realize that they’d exceeded their 10 rep norm and start yelling at me to stop.  By rep 20 they were just rolling on the ground in gasoline soaked underwear on fire, and by 25 they were just dead.

I see why she said rest 10 minutes, because the quad pump was incredible, and as an added bonus my glutes decided to speak up and express their disdain for Nia about 5 minutes into the rest period, twitching like a psycho killer. Lovely.

The deadlifts sucked right from the first rep. My quads still hadn’t truly recovered from the squats, and each time I locked out my butt felt like it was being tazed. Eventually my grip started to give and I was finishing some reps without my glutes and started to feel some low back pain, so I called it before my form got too ugly.

The only good  thing about this challenge is that it was over in less than 2 minutes per exercise, but as any gift that keeps on giving I cursed Nia Shanks by shaking my fist angrily at the sky every time I tried to stand up for a few days afterwards.

I won’t feel truly Sexified until I get 30 reps on everything, so until then…

Status: Broken

Next week we’ll have a challenge from the illustrious Marianne Kane of MyoMytv and possibly a guest victim to suffer alongside me!

Could you eat (insert a delicious food that makes your stomach go “WEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”) everyday?

Could you eat (insert a food that burns your buttcheeks and you wish that you could wipe it from the face of this Earth) everyday?

I don’t know many things, but I do know that I’d fight a bear and a tiger at the same time for a Cinnabon and could eat one everyday. Ask me to do the same with arugula or beets and eventually I’d end up trying to jump off a cliff. I imagine the scenario might play out similarly for you, minus the whole bear and cliff thing.

We do what’s fun and what we enjoy.

We avoid what sucks.  As flawed as that can be at times, that’s how we roll.

But what if we applied this same mindset to our training and diet?

What if we did we did more of what we liked & loved and less of what we didn’t?

A Case Study In Fun

Kimberly Mills is one of my favorite Facebook friends. She’ll randomly update me with her progress and life happenings, but the reason why I dig her so much is because I can tell that she is living one hell of a life. In her messages she rarely uses periods, only exclamation points ranging from 1-18 depending on how excited she is.

She works with a trainer, but each set and rep of her training program isn’t locked down and set in stone; she has a ton of fun both during and outside of her official sessions. In fact, and I affectionately call her a special kind of sick because of this, she joined the 10,000 burpee challenge where she does 100 burpees a day for 100 days – definitely not my cup of juice, but if fun were money she’d be making it rain 24/7/365, and that’s more important than anything else.To say that she is loving fitness would be the understatement of the century.

 A few weeks ago my friends Andrew Griffin, JC Deen and I got together and trained in a completely different way than we usually do. There was air humping. There were faux English accents, and we swung hammers  in a very manly fashion – I can’t think of a time when I’ve had more fun during a workout (I managed to hit some PRs because of all the awesome energy as well.

Since then I’ve completely revamped the way that I train, doing only exercises that I love to death or I think are cool and want to learn, because…

If you aren’t having fun, you’re doing it wrong!

No matter if you want to be ripped like old pictures after a  bad breakup or turn yourself into The Incredible Hulk, it’s gonna take awhile to get there, so why not enjoy as much of the process as possible?

Fun is a prerequisite to success.

The road is long and there will be many times when you get frustrated, pissed off and want to ragequit. Try to bypass the fun step and the odds of you giving up before making it to where you want to be are pretty high.

I just put on my Miss Cleo turban, so I can now accurately predict your future – the less fun you have, the less permanent the results. For all my gamer nerds out there, don’t grind to get to the end game without stopping to actually enjoy all the quests and people you meet along the way.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. If you don’t find some way to milk as much fun & enjoyment as you can from the delicious teat of life then you’re missing the whole point.

Some people enjoy the thrill of constantly chasing after a new strength PR. Some enjoy learning a new movement and after months of small successes finally getting it. Some enjoy getting their swole on all day every day. Then there are those who aren’t having fun unless they’re raiding Death’s refrigerator and eating all his sammiches by the end of their workout.

If you like yoga, do yoga.

If you like jogging (and can do it without hurting yourself), go do it every now and then without worrying about muscle loss or strength regression – worrying will do more harm then the running ever could.

I don’t care what you do as long as you love it. Just make sure that what you’re doing is leading you closer to your goals – it’s hard to have fun making no progress.

There is ALWAYS room for good ‘ol fashioned tomfoolery – one workout or meal will never make or break your assault upon the gates of Castle Awesome, so stop treating it like it will.

Need some ideas? Grab your spoon, because here’s an entire bowl full of ideas for you.

Workout Funjections

Homie Fun

Get a training partner or two and just let whatever madness happens happen. Everything is more fun with homies.

Procrastinator Fun

Perform 2-3 sets of 1-2 exercises at the end of your workout.

Example:

A1) Leg Press – 2 x 20
A2) Dumbbell Hammer Curls with optional bicep kiss – 2 x 10

“Oh hi there” Fun

Choose an exercise that you love and intersperse it throughout your workout, staying 4-5 reps below failure.

Example:

A1) Deadlifts – 2 x 5
A2) Tricep Pushdowns – 2 x 8
B1) Dumbbell Rows – 3 x 10
B2) Tricep Pushdowns – 3 x 8
C1) Goblet Squats – 3 x 8
C2) Tricep Pushdowns – 3 x 8

Pump Fun

Get your main strength movement (bench press, overhead press, squat, deadlift, chin up, etc) out of the way and then pump your muscles to oblivion and beyond for the rest of the workout.

Example:

A) Barbell Back Squat – 3 x 5
B1)  Barbell Hip Thrust – 2 x 30
B2) Chin Ups – 2 x AMAP (as many as possible with good form)
C1) Bodyweight Back Extensions – 2 x AMAP
C2) Dumbell Squeeze Press – 2 x 20
D1) Barbell Curl – 1 x 15
D2) Seated Row – 1 x 15

“I love everything!” Fun

Pick 4-8 exercises that you love the hell out of and do only those for your workout, varying the sets and reps for each.

“Zomgwtf!” Fun

Fill this workout with exercises that have haunted your soul since the beginning of time, or ones that you rarely do and want to get better at.

Example:

A1) Single Leg Deadlift – 3 x 8 each leg
A2) Pullups – 3 x 8
B1) Dumbbell Walking Lunges – 3 x 10 each leg
B2) Dumbbell Military Press – 3 x 10
C1) Dragon Flags – 3 x 6
C2) Heavy Dumbbell Holds – 4 x 15 seconds

Minimalist Fun

Pick 1-2 exercises and perform 5 sets of each, varying the rep ranges.

A1) Barbell back squat to box – 2 x 3
A2) Barbell bench press – 2 x 5
B1) Barbell back squat to box – 2 x 8
B2) Barbell bench press – 2 x 10
C1) Barbell back squat to box – 1 x 20
C2) Barbell bench press – 1 x 15

Survival Fun

Set a time limit (5-30 minutes is a good range) and see how many rounds of an exercise circuit you can perform.

Example:

A1) Pushups – 10
A2) Burpees – 10
A3) Dumbbell Row – 5 each arm
A4) Single Leg Hip Thrust – 5 each leg
A5) Jumping Jacks – 15

SMASH!

Smash stuff over and over again until you feel like stopping.

Food Funjections

There can be only one!

Eat one nice, hearty meal for the day – that’s it (don’t go out of your way to try and eat as many calories as possible, though).

Treat yo self!

 Have a food that you absolutely love…everyday.

All day

Eat a food that you love…with every meal

9-5 desk jobs.

Epic back and forth commutes that are longer than a Lord of the Rings movie.

A never-ending stream of emails and messages.

Keeping up with the relationships that matter most to us.

With all that’s going on, we’re all busier than a one-armed man in a 5-on-1 boxing match – I totally get it

BUT! *waves finger in the air with much zest and vigor* that doesn’t mean we should sacrifice our health in the process.

Just a few years ago I was “that guy.” My days consisted of sitting in class for several hours, sitting at the library desk where I worked for several more hours, walking to the gym and doing a light jog on the treadmill before hammering my body, all before heading home to sit around more until bed time.

It’s no wonder that I moved like a tin man, my form on some exercises suffered, and I had the random aches to go along with it.

If this story sounds familiar and you’re finding yourself moving down the same path of movement lameness, consider this your intervention.

Movement Intervention

Below you’ll find a series of mobility drills to do at the beginning and end of each day. Simply pick one exercise from each category and perform 5-10 reps, cycling through them for 5 minutes.

If that seems overwhelming at first, just start by picking one of those times and a few less exercises. Set an alarm, turn on a movie/music, write yourself a note, or have a friend come by and slap you in the face as a reminder, whatever you need to do to make sure it gets done.

Many of these are mobility drills that I’ve added into my clients pre-workout warm up, and their experiences have been fantastic. Their form has improved, they’re moving better throughout the day and they’ve drop kicked nagging pains in the chest, all from doing them a few times a week – imagine what you’d gain from just 5-10 minutes a day (or more awesomely put, 35-70 minutes a week). The cumulative effect is oh so sweet.

 

Ankles

Rocking Ankle Mobilization (1:11)

Upper Back/Shoulders

Quadruped Thoracic Rotation (beginning of video)
Foam roller extension (1:47)
Wall Slides (2:13)
Band Pullaparts (2:28)
Sleeper Stretch (2:43) – 15 to 30 second hold earh arm
X-Band Walk (2:52)
Scap Pushups (3:50)
Band Shoulder Dislocations (4:05)

Hips

Spidermans  (0:11)
Hip Flexor Mobilization (0:22)
Rear Foot Elevated Hip Mobilization (0:35)
Reverse Lunge (0:49)
Knee to Knee Stretch (1:35) – this can also be a 15-30 second hold if necessary
Quadruped Hip Extension (1:04 – targets the glutes very well)

Full Body

Squat to Stand (1:22)
Bodyweight/Assisted Squats (3:25)

Bonus: Static Stretching

*Hip Hinge Hold (3:06)
*Hip Flexor Stretch (3:17)
*Quad Stretch (3:21)

* 30-60 second holds

You can also order the red resistance band (and others) here.

Did I miss anything? Want more mobility drills?
Let me know in the comment section or  e-mail and I’ll film some more exercises, because I love you more than a unicorn loves rainbows.