Below is my training schedule. 3 days a week, in and out of the gym in under 40 minutes (warm up included) as long as I don’t spend too much time chatting between sets with co-workers and gym members.
Day A (Sunday):
A1) Trap Bar Deadlift – 3 x 3
A2) Weighted Chins ups – 3 x 5,6,8
B1) Gluteham Raise – 3 x 10
B2) Weighted Hyper Extension – 3 x 15
Day B (Tuesday):
A1) Weighted Dips – 3 x 2-8
A2) Weighted Hyper Extension – 3 x10
B1) Trap Bar Row – 3 x 8, 1 x 10-15
B2) Ab Wheel Rollouts – 3 x 10
C) Cable Face Pulls – 3 x 15
Day C (Thursday):
A1) Front Squat – 3 x 5
A2) Weighted Pushups – 3 x 10
B1) Band Hip Thrust – 3 x 15-20
B2) Seated Cable Row – 3 x 15-20
Diet first, training second.
Think of your diet as a box. How much, or how little, you’re eating, will determine the boundaries of the box; how big or small it is. The bigger the box, the more stuff you can put inside without it spilling over into the streets and having people point in your general direction while laughing as you scramble to pick up your unmentionables.
Now that “stuff” I talked about earlier, that’s the training. When eating at maintenance or above, you can get away with a lot more training wise without getting run down or halting your progress than you would while dieting. My diet-determined box is small, which doesn’t leave much room for a lot of sets and reps, so I’ve only included big lifts that will give me the most training bang for my time & effort invested, with enough accessory exercises to add a little extra emphasis to areas I want to focus on (upper back, booty and core strength).
Maintaining (or increasing) your strength while on a diet is an ideal situation, since doing so is a pretty solid indicator that you’re not losing muscle mass. To keep it as simple as possible, I give myself a number of reps to hit on the big compound lifts and if I hit that number and feel good about it, I increase the weight by 5-10lbs during the next session, staying there until I hit that rep number again. Since I’m eating like a baby bird, my strength gains are nowhere near where they would be if I were eating well, but I’m cool with that. Strength maintenance is my goal, so any gain is icing on the delicious cake of Sexification.
For cardio, I do nothing but walk 45-60min on my off days (or a random game of Dance Central), and I only do this because I love reading and being on the treadmill for an hour gives me some quiet time to do just that.
So far I’ve had a nice increase of strength on all my exercises, but the workouts have definitely become more taxing in terms of effort. I’m not run down by any means, but nor am I super excited for a set of heavy chin ups and deadlifts like I was pre-dieting. In light of that, this weeks training will be the last where I increase the weight in any of the exercises, and going forward I’ll just keep everything the same and ride those numbers out until I’m done dieting.
Here are some take away points for YOU:
1 – Focus on the big training rocks. Nothing wrong with included other exercises, but make sure you have your basis covered to a certain degree.
2 – Less is more. Your recovery is already compromised to a degree on a diet, so do less while making sure that the work you do in the gym is meaningful. I recommend training 3 days a week max. Use the extra time this saves you to enjoy your life outside of the gym.
The next Sexification update won’t be until April 1st, but starting next Sunday I’ll be undergoing a more strict diet for 2 weeks to finish off this phase, so I’ll be talking all about that.
Weight: 196.6
Looking good man! How much are you down?
Yo Sirena!
Down 13.4lbs down so far. 15lbs away from my goal!
where are you losing another 15 from? You look great now! 🙂
A little from everywhere – mainly the legs, lower abs and back I’m thinking. I might lose a little muscle towards the end to make that happen, but I’m ok with that (not something I’d suggest for others out there, just a personal risk).
Your abs look fabulous!!!!! 🙂
Haha, why thank you =)
Thanks for posting this article Rog. Its great timing as I was planning out the remainder of my training for the weeks ahead.
Thanks for reading, Brad. If you want, pop in here with your training so I can take a look.
Hey Rog, my drafted program is below. I’m thinking about RPT for A1/B1 movements, and C1 will be a normal rep scheme. I appreciate any feedback.
Day 1:
A1) Conventional Deadlift – 3 x 3-5
A2) Wall Ankle Mobs – 3 x 8/side
B1) Weighted Chins – 3 x 4-6
B2) Cable External Rotation at 90° – 3 x 10/side
C1) Pendlay Row – 5 x 3
C2) Pallof Press Iso Hold – 3 x 10/side
Day 3:
A1) Flat Bench – 3 x 5-7
A2) Side-Lying Internal-External Rotation – 3 x 8/side
B1) Weighted Dips or Close Grip Bench – 3 x 6-8
B2) Weighted Pullup – 3 x 8, 1 x 10-12
C1) Feet Elevated Push up (w/ band) – 3 x 8-10
C2) Ab Wheel Rollouts – 3 x 8-10
Day 5:
A1) Back Squat – 3 x 5-7
A2) No Money Drill – 3 x 8
B1) Overhead Press – 3 x 6-8
B2) Pronated Grip Inverted Row – 3 x 10
C1) Natural Glute Ham Raise – 3 x 10
C2) Stir the Pot – 3 x 6/direction
Looks good to me! Maybe on Day 3 differ the rep range of A1 so that it’s not so similar to B1 (aka drop the reps to 3-5 as a suggestion).
Looking like a beast with the iron Rog nice work
Thanks, Travis!
Damn, you are SKRONG! Those dips are impressive as hell.
Two questions about your Training Day A video:
1) What is that song?
2) Have you ever tried doing hypers with the weight *behind* your head? Because that made it approximately 47 times more difficult for me.
Keep up the great work.
Thanks, Ross!
1) Jay-Z: Takeover
2) I have a history of low back problems, so behind the head would definitely put undue strain on my back (it wouldn’t allow me to keep the rounded posture at the bottom), plus it seems awkward to me. The DBs at my gym go up to 120, so I’ll give that a try this week and after that I’ll start using dumbbells plus resistance bands behind my neck
1) How is it possible that I didn’t recognize “The Takeover”? I’ve had that album since it came out! I guess the instrumental threw me. OOF.
2) And yeah, if you have lower back issues, then that makes perfect sense.
Love the progress updates! Love the insight on what to expect with strength while in a deficit. Heading that direction soon myself.
🙂
Welcome to the world of Sexification!
Thanks for stopping by, and once you head into deficit land, don’t hesitate to shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions or want to shoot ideas off of someone.
Are you training in your bare feet? I cringe…
Looking really good. How many weeks has it been? You are crushing it.
Thanks, Nancy!
Yep! I remember how good I felt training barefoot at CP and I wanted to get back to it – feels great though.
This week will be wrapping up week 4, then after week 6 I’ll be taking a diet break.
This is so much easier to understand with a real-person example like yourself, using specific foods/macros/exercises/weekly setups. I can see why it works for you personally and what things would work in general for most people. Thanks so much for putting this together!
Thanks, Michael! That was the whole purpose of this – to show people how they could do it for themselves – so I’m glad you’re taking some helpful tips away from this.
Similar to what I’m Doing (kinda). I’m attempting something of a “recomp” and training 4 days a week. The sessions are crazy brief.
Sun-A1)
Chin 3×4/5/10
Dead Lift 3×2/3/4
Face Pull 3×12-15
Mon-B)
Dip 4/5/10
One Leg Press 2×15
Incline Dumb bell Press 3×8-12
Wed-A2)
Chin 3×4/5/10
Squat 2×12-15
Face Pull 3×12-15
Thur-B)
Dip 3×4/5/10
One leg Press 2×15
Incline Dumb Bell Press 3×8-12
Still trying to get the exact numbers right but eating maintenance on work out days and about 700 calorie deficit on none training days is the goal. I know most everyone is doing 3 days a week but I find I tend to stall and even back slide if I don’t revisit a movement more than once a week. Is this a ok setup or recipe for complete disaster?
It looks fine to me man! Let me know how it all works out over the next few months.
Rog,
Great/informative stuff, as usual. I chuckled at reading your dieting/training tips since I tried doing EC’s Show & Go while “dieting” last summer. It was pathetic.
Tony G. gave me a polite tap on the wrist for that one. I knew better.
The stuff you’re writing here is really helping a lot of folks.
RS
Thanks man haha. I remember the month I tried to do an unmodified version of 5/3/1 while in a pretty big deficit. Needless to say that didn’t go well at all!
@Roger Lawson II – What jam’s are these?? Could you list them please??
Rog, absolutely love the glimpse at your training. Any way you could throw in your warm-up / mobs for these workouts? I always like to see potentiation/activation and exercise / mob pairings. Thanks man!
Hey Robert,
Thanks for stopping by – and I already beat you to it =)
Check this out for that and more: http://www.roglawfitness.com/the-minimalist-guide-to-mobility/