This makes tracking macros the perfect fit for anyone that is chasing a more flexible, maintainable diet structure.

Don't look at that 5 minutes per day that you have to spend tracking your food as restriction, look at it as a mere 5 minutes to create exponentially more freedom in the rest of your life:

→ Freedom from the pain of never feeling confident in your body.

→ Freedom from guilt associated with eating certain foods. Tracking macros teaches you how to make foods you used to consider "bad" work in your diet. Once you realize you can be lean, healthy, AND eat ice cream, guilt is replaced with happiness and more flexibility in social situations.

→ Freedom from worrying that you over-ate or under-ate. Tracking your macros allows you to make up for overdoing it, with no harm done to your progress. (More on this in a bit.)

Regardless of if you want to...

a.) Keep getting leaner

b.) Maintain your current body composition

c.) Build a stronger body while staying lean.

...THIS GUIDE will help you establish the proper calorie goal.

→ Protein - Protein intake will be relatively high, at 1 gram/lb of body weight, daily.

As mentioned in 4 Nutrition Strategies For Faster Fat Loss (Without Cutting Calories), protein is much less likely to be stored as fat.

Liquids will digest much quicker,
meaning you’re hungry again sooner. If you’re using milk as a protein
source, swap it for cottage cheese or greek yogurt. 

Use a whole food protein source instead of protein powder. Protein powder DOES make hitting your protein goal much easier. It also digests VERY quickly, and doesn’t do near as much to keep you full. 50g of whole-food protein (e.g. 8oz chicken) is MUCH more filling than two scoops of protein powder.

→ Eat protein at every meal.

Since you know that protein is the most satiating food, it makes sense to try to spread it fairly evenly across your day to keep yourself full. Eat ~25-40g protein at every meal.

Try to avoid foods that are high in multiple macronutrients.

Example: you could eat...

a.) 6oz ribeye for 493 calories (36 pro/39 fat)

-OR-

b.) 8oz sirloin (51 pro/9 fat) + 1 large avocado (10 carb/24 fat) for the same amount of calories, but more protein.

Generally avoiding foods high in multiple macros will make eating lots of food volume on your diet much easier.

→ Find lower calorie versions of oils, dressings, and condiments.

- Swap olive oil for calorie-free cooking spray.

- Find a lower-calorie BBQ sauce or use steak sauce.

- Swap salad dressing for fat-free vinaigrette's.

Often a few easy swaps here (that you won’t even notice) can give online clients hundreds of extra calories to work with in a day.

→ Meal Prep

Being prepped ahead nearly guarantees you'll be successful at sticking to this style of eating 80-90% of the time. You'll never "not have the right food available" or "run out of time".

All my online clients that get the best fat loss results meal prep ahead. I can't emphasize enough what a difference maker is.

I highly recommend you check out The Meal Prep Guide.

FOOD CHOICES: 10-20% If It Fits Your Macros

When it comes to fat loss - meal prep is the closest thing to a "hack" you'll find.

The difference in your ability to stick to your diet when you have meals prepped ahead vs. when you don't is crazy.

I push ALL of my online clients - no matter their experience or goals - to prep ahead.

No matter what you're trying to accomplish, meal prep makes hitting your nutrition goals 100x easier.

Something I strongly believe and, tell all of my online clients during our check-ins if they didn't hit their macro goals for the week:

"If you're not hitting your macro goals, it's a planning issue."

When you have all your food prepped ahead in accordance with your macros (a.k.a. you've meal prepped), the easiest thing to do is just grab your food out of your tupperware and eat it. The choice that takes the least effort is simply staying on plan.

This makes hitting your nutrition goals - the SINGLE biggest struggle new online clients have been having for years before we started working together - nearly automatic.

For most of us, the idea that you'll be able to find 1.5 hours every day of the week to cook up 3-4 meals that match your goals is just unrealistic. You NEVER have as much time in a week as you'd expect.

Plus, when Wednesday night rolls around, and you're crazy stressed and exhausted from work, the LAST thing you'll want to do is take 30-40 minutes to cook a meal. Times like these are when you're most likely to simply order a frozen pizza - it's the easiest thing to do a.k.a. the path of least resistance.

The awesome thing about meal prep is, it completely changes the path of least resistance. Since you're already prepped ahead for your high-stress/low willpower situations, the new path of least resistance is simply throwing your prepped meal in the microwave, and eating ON TRACK for your goals.

We ALWAYS eventually fall back to the path of least resistance during times of high stress. Trying to be more motivated isn't nearly as effective as simply changing the path of least resistance.

The most push back I get on meal prep is from clients that think it's too "time consuming".

In reality, meal prep will save you HOURS during your week. A simple meal prep should take you 1-2 hours. That's your total cooking time for the week.

Compare this to the time it takes to cook 4 healthy meals per day.

If you're VERY efficient, you can cook 4 meals at 15-minutes each, for a total of 1 hour per day.

That's seven hours per week cooking time.

Most of us just straight up don't have that much time to cook, and thus fall off our diet mid-week. Prepping ahead will actually FREE UP a lot of time for you.

Ok, enough gushing about meal prep. Let's break down how to speed up YOUR fat loss with an effective and efficient meal prep.

The Meal Formula

1 Protein (25-50g/1-2 palm-sized portions) + 1 Veggie + 1 Herb/Spice

↑ This is your foundation. It’s a good idea to include this in every meal.

From here, depending on your macros and meal-timing needs, you can add in:

1 Carb (25-50g/1-2 cupped hand-sized portions) 

- AND/OR - 

1 Fat (5-25g/1-2 thumb-sized portions)

The machine are isn't just for old dudes who are insanely comfortable with their locker room nakedness.

There's a place for machine work in your training program as well.

You'll hear a lot of people say...

“You
only need to do squat, bench, deadlift, and chin-ups to build muscle.
Don’t waste your time with isolation work and machines.”

I was that guy for a long time.

Back then, the idea of swapping a barbell back squat for a leg press would have been blasphemy - like saying Katy Perry makes better music than Taylor Swift. Pure blasphemy.

The mindset shift came at the same time as what I discussed in mistake #1 - when I realized how important being able to feel a muscle work is for generating tension in said muscle.

Here’s how I see things now:

→ In defense of compound barbell/dumbbell movements: These are great for training lots of muscle groups at once - you get lots of bang for your buck. In terms of creating growth stimulus for multiple muscle groups as efficiently as possible, these rule.

Plus, these movements have MUCH more carryover to real life and functional strength, as you’re NOT working in a fixed path, and are forced to recruit many more stabilizing muscle groups. It would be ridiculous (for most people) to NOT include these in their training. Yes, even you naked old guys in the locker room.

→ In defense of machines: The fact that you’re not training tons of different muscle groups at once allows you to focus on creating tons of tension in the specific muscle group you want to focus on.

Anecdotally from my work with clients and my own training, this is especially invaluable when it comes to lower body training.

Movements like squats and deadlifts are GREAT, and should be the foundation of your training, don’t get me wrong.

The problem is, the limiting factor (the “weak link” that causes you to have to end the set) often ISN’T your lower body - it’s your core stability.

They also allows you to more effectively target specific weak points (e.g. the ability to work the hamstrings in isolation.)

If your goals are to get stronger and build muscle - it makes sense to train both the compound barbell movements AND incorporate machine work.

Although I build online clients training programs very specific to their needs, I would guess I generally program about 70% barbell and dumbbell work, 30% machine work.

Every time I would push my lower body training - or even do a bent over movement - I would get shooting pain in my lower back, and have to lay off anything that stressed my back for the next few weeks.

Obviously, this was hindering my progress.

I refused to believe a weak core could be the issue.

“I do hanging leg raises all the time. My abs feel thick. I DON’T have a weak core.”

This is the most common confusion I see when it comes to core training. People spend A LOT of time training the rectus abdominis (what you think of as your "ab muscles"), which is basically training the ability to flex your spine.

The problem is, very little time is spent training your core to be better able to resist movement (which is exactly what you NEED it to be able to do to stay pain-free on movements like squats or deadlifts.)

As a result, people can train their abs a lot (e.g. me)… and still have a very weak core and back pain.

50%+ of the new online clients I onboard report back pain. It's almost always gone within the first month of following a well-designed training program that gets the focusing on core stability and fixing any other imbalances.

On a similar note, you’ll hear a lot of people say...

“All you need to do is squat and deadlift. Your core will get plenty strong.”

From my experience with hundreds of online and in-person clients, that’s almost never the case.

Anti-movement work helps a TON.

This is exactly why I always program at least 2-3 anti-movement exercises into my online client’s training programs. 

I went pretty in-depth on this in “The Movement Hierarchy”, but here’s a basic structure of how to effectively train your core:

Recommendations:

→ You can train anti-movement a lot without any recovery issues. Try to work at least one of each of the following categories into your program weekly. 3-4 sets of each. 8-10 reps OR 30-45 seconds of work.

 Anti-Extension - The goal here is to resist extension at the spine. A few options:

• Ab Wheel
• TRX Fallout
• Renegade Row
• Hollow Body Sweep
• Hollow Body Flutter Kick
• Hollow Body Pull-Apart
  

Anti-Rotation - The goal here is to resist rotation at the spine. A few options:

• Pallof Presses/Holds
• Renegade Rows
• Swiss Ball Stir-The-Pot
• Birddog Row
  

Anti-lateral flexion - The goal here is to resist sideways bending at the spine. A few options:

• KB Bottoms Up + Farmers Walk
• Chaos Farmer’s Walk
• Suitcase Carries
• Farmer Carries

You DON’T need to do 30-minutes of mobility every day. 

Ever wonder why you can drop into a deep body weight squat... but once you apply a somewhat difficult load, you can barely hit depth?

In this situation, the common thinking is...

"I must need to do more mobility work!"

Buuuut, you just did an ass-to-grass body weight squat... so we know you have the prerequisite mobility.

So, what's really going on here?

Somewhere in the chain of muscles and joints between the barbell on your back and your feet planted on the floor, your brain sense that something in the chain isn't stable enough to safely squat this load to the full potential of your mobility.

Your central nervous system basically "puts the brakes on", and prevents you from squatting deeper.

This feels like a lack of mobility, but really...

A lack of stability often masks itself as a lack of mobility.

A groundbreaking concept that helped me understand this (and stop being mobility guy) was understanding the Mobility - Stability Continuum.

Your body’s major joints essentially live in a co-dependent relationship, critical to you feeling good and moving well.

Basically, you have mobile joints and stable joints.⠀

Mobile joints have a wide range of motion, allowing for lots of movement.

Stable joints resist undesired movement.

The dope thing is - your major joints alternate in what they need - more mobility or more stability.

A joint that needs more stability has joints on either side that need mobility, and vice-versa.

→If one of these joints is lacking adequate mobility/stability, a domino effect is created. This can surface as issues at OTHER joints, that at first glance aren’t related to the real source of the problem.

→ When there’s an issue with mobility/stability in one joint, the body shifts the movement or stability demands to the above and below joints - which aren’t designed to be mobile/stable.

This typically manifests itself as pain in the joint above or below the actual source of the problem.

Example 1: One of the most common areas I see this in - poor scapular stability manifesting itself as shoulder pain. Often the solution isn’t doing more shoulder mobility work, it’s working on stabilizing the scapula.

Example 2: Say you can’t get much movement out of your hips. So, the needed movement shifts to your knees and lumbar spine. This results in your back rounding forward as you squat. But the issue here isn’t (at least entirely) lumbar spine stability, it’s hip mobility.

Basically - if you’re having pain/mobility issues with a joint, the solution might NOT be implementing joint specific mobility work, but looking to the joints above and below.

This was a life-changing realization for me. Unfortunately, way too many of the new online coaching clients I bring on have struggled for YEARS with this false belief in the past.

When I started my fat loss journey, I was hopping from diet to diet. None were working.

So I tried a low-carb diet.

In the first week, I lost 8lbs.

“This is CRAZY. I can’t believe I lost 8lbs of fat this week.”

It wasn't fat that I had lost, but water. Your body stores carbs as glycogen. Glycogen in turn stores water. So when you stop eating carbs, you deplete your glycogen stores quickly, and in turn you lose a bunch of water weight.

This is why the Keto diet yields quick initial weight loss. It’s not fat loss.

That said, I didn’t understand this concept at the time.

Due to a serious misunderstanding of how to diet, I decided eating strictly ground beef and
avocados was the way to lose weight.

Understandably, I got pretty sick of that food VERY quickly. As a result, I ate very little, and was losing weight rapidly quickly.

At the time, I
associated the weight/fat loss with the low carb diet I was following. Really, I was simply losing a lot of weight due to
creating a huge calorie deficit from NOT eating.

For the next 1.5 years, I was terrified to eat carbs. I thought that even a small dose of carbs would make me instantly fat.

After losing most of my muscle mass due to hardly eating, and then gaining lots of the weight back after eating ridiculous amounts of fat, I decided to give carbs another try.

The result?

I felt GREAT. I built more muscle. When I focused on fat loss, it was easier and I was more satiated than before.

I've been able to lose 65lbs since the start of this journey. I've gotten shredded for photoshoots, and hit major PR's in the gym.

When I first wanted to lose fat, I did what EVERYONE does - I started doing cardio.

Battle ropes, flipping tires, the stairmill, sprints - I did it all. I worked my ass off in the gym.

...And my body DIDN’T change.

The reality is, you just can’t burn that many calories through your training.

What you do in the gym typically makes up a measly 5% of the total calories that you burn in a day… which is why planning to “burn it off” in the gym is a terrible idea.

The amount of calories you burn in an hour-long cardio session can easily be consumed in the average margarita.

So, focusing on controlling your calorie intake, as well as focusing on movement is a much more practical plan for fat loss. (I have yet to see anyone actually get lean without following a well structured nutrition protocol.)

Until you get your nutrition dialed in, cardio won’t make a difference for your fat loss.

I do recommend everyone include some type of aerobic work (as it’s super important for your overall health and recovery from training), but it’s always kept at the minimal dose until online clients have their nutrition on point.

Cardio is like the cherry on top.

Does it help fat loss? Yep. You burn calories via cardio, which puts you in a larger deficit.

Does it make that much difference? Nope.

Now, while eating more calories WILL equate to increased calories burned via digestion (simply because you're eating more), thus technically increasing your metabolism - it’s not NEARLY enough to make up for the calories you consumed. (You likely burn ~15% of the calories you consume in a mixed-macro meal, cheat meal or not.)

Basically, a cheat day, or even single cheat meal does nothing but slow your progress.

Let's break it down:

In a moderate sized calorie deficit, you’re eating about 500 calories below maintenance per day.

Eating here 7 days per week creates a deficit of 3,500 calories, or roughly 1lb of fat loss.

Problem is, it is CRAZY easy to eat 3,500 extra calories in a cheat day... or even a single cheat meal.

For example, let's say you decide to take your significant other out to Italian for your cheat meal. You eat:

1/2 a bottle of wine (~300 calories)

1/2 bruschetta appetizer (~425 calories)

2 pieces of French bread (~400
calories)

Caesar salad (550 calories)

Spaghetti and meatballs (1300 calories)

Tiramisu (500 calories).

The grand total? 3475 calories.

This effectively erases all the hard work you put into dieting the last 6 days of the week.

With multiple "cheat meals" like this in your week… you’re probably still gaining fat, despite spending 6 days of the week being hungry and "dieting". I've been stuck in this diet purgatory for way too long in the past - outside of your cheat day, you're miserable, and getting no results.

Call it quits on the cheat meals.

When I finally started losing weight, I dieted for 6 months straight.

I lost 45lbs.

I also lost a ton of muscle, felt like balls, and had zero energy to devote to my job, training, or enjoying life.

To avoid a similar fate, all of my fat loss focused online clients take diet breaks.

A diet break is a 10 day to 4 week maintenance phase. We return your calorie intake to maintenance, or even a slight surplus. You’re NOT losing fat at this time.

“But you just said NOT to take a cheat day... if my goal is fat loss, why would I take a diet break?”

First, while a cheat day is typically just an excuse to eat everything possible, a diet break or refeed is very well structured. You'll know exactly how many calories you're eating, and what sources the calories should be coming from.

Whereas a cheat day sets back your fat loss, diet breaks and refeeds actually help it.

See, when you diet, you experience something called metabolic adaptation.

Basically, your metabolism downregulates as a response to you eating fewer calories and your body getting smaller/lighter.

Since your body is smaller, it requires fewer calories to fuel basal functions. Thus, your Basal Metabolic Rate is lower.

Moving your smaller body requires less energy, so you burn fewer calories via exercise. The Thermic Effect of Exercise is lower.

You're eating less food, so you burn fewer calories during digestion. The Thermic Effect of Food is lower.

You’re hungry and lethargic. In a subconscious effort to maintain homeostasis and prevent fat loss, you'll move less. As you take in less energy (calories), you’ll naturally expend less energy. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis is decreased.

When calories are reduced, levels of the hormone Leptin decrease. When leptin drops, your body reduces energy expenditure, and levels of Ghrelin (the hunger hormone) rise. Obviously, this makes you hungry, making dieting more difficult. The increased hunger signal is another mechanism your body uses to try to maintain its body fat. Evolutionary, it makes sense for your body to want to hold onto body fat, as periods of food scarcity could be in the near future.

Cortisol levels rise. Cortisol is the “stress hormone”. While some cortisol is good, the devil is in the dose. Since dieting is a stress, dieting is associated with increased levels of cortisol. Constantly elevated levels of cortiosl lead to MORE ghrelin release, poor training recovery, and poor sleep (which leads to even more hunger, and even fewer calories burned.)

The longer you diet, the more pronounced all these adaptations get.

To add to all of the physiological adaptations, dieting is just very hard psychologically.

Honestly, this is the BIGGEST problem that stalls people fat loss - you're just sick of dieting, and not able to adhere consistently enough to make progress.

Enter: Refeeds and diet breaks.

These are GREAT tools for increase adherence, and actually following through with your diet until you're as lean as you set out to be.

Refeeds: Refeeds are typically 2-3 days in length. When an online client takes a refeed, we return their calorie intake to maintenance levels, almost entirely though carbs.The increased intake is a nice psychological break. Leptin levels also increase after 48 hours of carb overfeeding. This means that after a refeed, hunger is reduced, and energy expenditure is higher than it was previously - making your fat loss easier.

Clients typically take refeeds weekly or bi-weekly.

Diet breaks: Again, the length of a diet break can vary A LOT. Typically 10 days to 4 weeks. 10 days is the minimum amount of time it takes to most of the physiological benefits of a diet break. It often takes longer (up to 4 weeks) before you'll feel mentally ready to diet again.

Just like with refeeds, diet breaks are returning the hormones leptin, ghrelin, and the thyroid hormone T3 to more normal levels.

The rules are very similar to a refeed. Return calories to maintenance, increase carbs.

The main thing to keep in mind here - you still need to control calorie intake.

Unlike cheat days, you have very specific targets to hit to allow your body to return to normal without gaining fat in the process.

Tier Two trains muscles opposite of the Tier One muscles. You’re going to be smoking the anterior muscles:  chest, back, shoulders, quads, etc.

These are super fun movement patterns to train. Just make sure you’re hitting you’re Tier One patterns more than Tier Two.

SQUAT

A strong squat is one of the most well-respected feats in the gym because truthfully, it’s a damn hard movement.

That said, with the brutality that is an intense squat session comes some major changes to your body.

Now, the squat has a somewhat undeserved reputation as a glute builder. It’s really a much more quad-dominant movement for most people. For those with a quad > hamstring imbalance. This is a common cause of low-back pain, and squatting more will make the issue worse, so just make sure you’re prioritizing your posterior work.

Recommendations:

→ Choose one squat variation to train weekly with a focus on progressive overload. Use 3-5 sets in the 5-10 rep range.

You’re best served when you don’t switch this up often. These barbell squat variations especially are very technical and take a lot of skill to master. So if you switch up the movements too often here, you’ll never master the skill enough to effectively apply progressive overload. So again, just vary the rep ranges and loading schemes.

Good options here:

• Barbell Back Squat
• Barbell Front Squat
• Bulgarian Split Squat
• Landmine Squats

→ From here, choose 1-2 more squat patterns to train for 3-4 sets in the 8-12 range. Lunge variations (see Tier Three) work best here for most people.

Similar to the deadlift, you don’t have to force feed convention barbell back squats into your training program. Find the variation that works the best for your anatomy, injury history, and goals, and get really damn strong at it.

HORIZONTAL PUSH

“How much do you bench ‘bro?”

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably spent an unproportionate amount of time training your horizontal pushes – bench press, push-ups, more bench press, bench press again, etc.

Getting strong at the bench is super fun. It’s the number one metric dudes use to compare where they’re at in the gym. Plus, getting a crazy chest pump makes you feel like a barrel-chested Viking King and is straight up one of the most gratifying feelings in the gym.

Any type of horizontal push is going to be excellent for hitting your “push” muscles: the chest, shoulder, and triceps.

Recommendations:

→ Work different angles. Your horizontal presses shouldn’t just be barbell flat bench. The different angles and equipment will hit the chest with a novel growth stimulus, and be easier on your shoulders than just constantly flat benching.

→ You’re best advised to choose 2-3 movements here to train twice per week. I’d do one movement with a focus on pushing heavy weight, with something like 3-5 sets of 5-8 reps.

With the other 1-2 movement(s), focus on lifting very intentionally, owning every bit of the movement with something like 3-4 sets of 8-15 reps. I’d also focus on working dumbbell movements into the mix frequently.

Good options here:

• Flat Bench Press
• Low Incline Bench Press
• Incline Bench Press
• Dips (bodyweight and weighted)
• Floor Presses
• Single-Arm Presses

→ Do 2-3 times more sets of rowing than horizontal pressing. The number one problem most guys run into by their late 20’s? Beat up shoulders from years of benching too much. The solution is often as simple as putting more emphasis on the rowing pattern.

→ Learn how to keep your shoulders packed. This is key to keeping your shoulders pain-free while pressing. All that back muscle you’ve built from rowing won’t do much if you’re not using it properly when benching. 3DMJ Legend Brad Loomis explains it better than I do:

You’re training your upper back here again, but this time you’re working from overhead.

These are above rows on the movement hierarchy, because many people don’t yet have the ability to move their scapulae correctly when pulling. This results in other muscles doing the work, and shoulder pain. The rowing motion is easier to be master first and carries over well to the vertical pull.

Recommendations:

→ You’re best served by training the vertical pull 2-3 times per week. 3-5 sets, 5-15 reps.

Here, I’d focus on varying weight and intensity throughout the week. Your pull-up and chin-up variations (especially when they progress to weighted) are better suited to the 4-8 rep range.

Your pulldown variations are better suited to slightly higher rep ranges (8-15), with more emphasis on the mind-muscle connection.

Basically:

• If you work a wide grip pull-up on Monday, work a neutral grip pulldown on Thursday.
• If you train a higher intensity movement on Monday (e.g. 3×5 weighted close-grip chin-up), go lower intensity, higher rep, and different grip on Thursday (e.g. 3×10-12 wide grip lat pulldown.)

Good options here:

• Body Weight And Weighted Pull-Up and Chin-Up Variations (a great test of true strength)
• Lat Pulldown Variations
• Straight-Arm Pulldowns

Truly, most people could train only the first two tiers and get great results. By mastering them, you’ll build a crazy strong foundation and pack on pounds of dense muscle.

LUNGE

From a “functional” viewpoint, the ability to do things with one leg at a time is very important.

The squat and hinge are great movements. The thing is when training both movements at the same time (bilaterally), often one leg will be doing more of the work than the other, without you realizing it. This compounds over time to form imbalances, and potential pain and injury.

On the same note, if you have back issues, training the lower body hard enough to spark muscle and strength gains becomes a challenge. All the stress put on your spine from a heavy set of back squats is a recipe for disaster for a tender low back.

This is where unilateral (single-leg) work like lunges is a gamechanger. It allows you to load the legs super heavy, while also drastically reducing the amount of stress that you put on the spine.

For example:

Say you can’t progress past 225×6 on your back squat without tweaking your low back.

You decide to load up the split squat movement heavy and find that you can rep out 70lb dumbbells in each hand for 6, without back pain.

When you squat 225, you’re basically hitting each leg with ~112.5lbs. With split squats, you’re hitting each leg with 140lbs, but with much less stress on your back. It’s a win-win. Unilateral movements allow you to create a GREAT training effect for the lower body, without loading the spine to the degree necessary with bilateral squat variations.

Most of us do have issues that spring up with squatting bilaterally too often. The movement also has“functional carryover,” meaning it improves balance and stability more than bilateral squats. So your unilateral work is really interchangeable with you squat movement pattern. The only reason the squat is lower on the movement hierarchy is. If you can’t squat on two legs, you’re screwed on one.

From real-world experience, the lunge variations (e.g. Bulgarian splits squats, reverse lunges) will often make more sense for your goals and lifestyle than bilateral squats , once you’ve developed the prerequisite balance and strength.

Recommendations:

→ If you’re doing a bilateral squat pattern, do 1-2 of these movements per week, 3-4 sets of 6-12/side. If you’re replacing the bilateral squat with one of these, obviously add a third movement.

Great options here:

• Bulgarian Split Squats
• Front Foot Elevated Split Squats
• Reverse Lunges
• Deficit Reverse Lunges
• Step-Ups
• Walking Lunges

VERTICAL PUSH

Problem is, we just don’t do things overhead much in our day-to-day life. So if you haven’t been training properly, you’ll likely be lacking the mobility you need to get overhead.

For those with past shoulder injuries or mobility restrictions, a combination of horizontal presses and lateral raise variations will still allow you to build great delts. There’s no need to force the movement if you’re not capable of training it without pain.

That said if you’re good to press overhead, get after it. My personal all-time favorite movement is the barbell overhead press. Not only is it a great way to build a powerful-looking set of shoulders, but I’d argue it’s one of the most functional movements out there. If you can press hundreds of lbs overhead, rest assured, you have strong shoulders, core, back, and even lower body.

Recommendations:

→ Train the vertical press 1-2 times per week, 3-4 sets in the 6-10 rep range.

→ Make sure at least one of your weekly movements here is a dumbbell or unilateral variation, as strictly barbell pressing wears on most people’s shoulders quickly.

→ If you’re pressing overhead twice per week, train one day where you’re pressing overhead after your bench press variation. Seated, single-arm, and ½ kneeling variations work well here. Also train  one day where you’re going overhead before benching. Barbell overhead presses work well here.

Since the front delts are involved heavily in your bench press AND overhead press, this sets you up to build strength on both patterns more evenly.

Good options here:

• Barbell Overhead Press
• Dumbbell Seated Shoulder Presses
• Z-Press
• Arnold Press
• ½ Kneeling Landmine Press
• Kettlebell Bottoms-Up Press

You’ll get 90%+ of the results sticking in Tiers 1-3. Those are always the bread-and-butter of your training. For a lifetime of gains, prioritize the first three tiers.

Tier four consists of your isolation exercises. Think of these more as a way to add volume to specific muscles, rather than movement patterns.

Thing like lateral raises, bicep curls, chest flys, leg extensions, cable crunches, calf raises.(It’s the thought that counts, right?)

Isolation exercises won’t stimulate nearly as much growth as the movements from the first three tiers. So put these at the end of your workout.

Recommendations:

→ Choose 2-4 isolation exercises to put at the end of your workout. These movements can be specific to weak points, or whatever you want to bring up.

Do 2-4 sets of 10-20 reps. Focus on the mind-muscle connection and feeling the burn.

Supplements are far from a MUST... but again, since you're on a mission to optimize everything in your pursuit of lean gains - here are a few that'll help:

Highly Branched Cyclic Dextrin - As discussed, this rapidly-digesting carb source will give you fuel during your workout, and aid recovery. 25-50g, sipped throughout your workout.

Essential Amino Acids (EAA’s) - Mixing EAA’s in with your HBCD will again put you in a better position to recover to your absolute fullest potential and get the most gains out of each training session.

Creatine - HIGHLY studied and proven to be effective. Although its effects are far from “steroid-like”, ceatine supplies your body with slightly more ATP, which can allow you to bust out an extra rep on a challenging set - over time this adds up. 5g creatine monohydrate any time throughout your day.

Caffeine - Caffeine before your workout will increase your performance in the gym, translating to more gains.

Fish Oil - If you're not eating fish at least a few times per week, supplement with fish oil daily to get adequate amounts of omega-3 fatty acids.

Unless you're new to training and eating properly (or have been off the wagon for a bit), it’s unlikely that you’re recomping (losing fat and building muscle simultaneously). This means that as you build lean muscle, the number on the scale should be going up.

Pay attention to the scale, as this is what you'll be making a lot of your nutrition adjustments from. (Take your weight AT LEAST 3x/week, use the average to determine weekly change.)

Aim to gain .25-.5% of body weight per week.

You should also be tracking:

Ever heard of “hardgainers”? People that claim to be able to eat endless amounts of food, and not gain weight?

In reality, hardgainers either:

1. Haven’t accurately tracked their calorie intake before. They likely eat a lot - at times - and then subconsciously adapt by going long periods of time without eating. This is extremely common with new online clients that claim to be hardgainers.

2. Have an extremely adaptive metabolism. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is the daily calories you burn outside of the gym, through activities like fidgeting, pacing, doing chores, etc. NEAT is a BIG part of your metabolism.

In response to overfeeding (eating in a calorie surplus), some people will naturally (without even being conscious of it) increase NEAT. This increases your daily calories burned, and in turn prevents weight gain, despite the fact that you're eating more.

Now, how a clients metabolism reacts to a calorie surplus is highly individual (this is the beauty of having a coach - to see trends and adjust the plan specifically to YOU). But the gist of it is, some people WILL have to increase calories higher than 10% over maintenance in order to see gains.

So, if you’re NOT seeing increases in weight, body measurements (outside of the belly measurements), or strength in the gym after a week, it’s time to increase calories.

Increase your total calorie intake by 5% (via carbs). Continue this weekly until you're gaining in the recommended range.

If you’re surpassing the recommend rate of gain, bad news - you’re likely adding a lot of excess fat.

Time to dial it back.

Decrease calories by 5%. Repeat this weekly until your rate of gain falls back in the recommended range.

Again, since you’re likely coming off of a cut, your training volume likely isn't super high.

Think of your training volume as the total number of hard sets (sets completed with 1-3 reps in the tank) done weekly.

As you know, volume is the main driver of hypertrophy (muscle growth).

So, when an online client enters a lean gains phase, our goal is to gradually drive volume up more and more. If done properly, this WILL lead to more gains (but like everything else, the devil is in the dose here).

As you increase training volume, you increase the amount of growth stimulus you’re hitting your muscles with. You’re also increasing calories burned. Both of these mean your body has an increased need for recovery resources (food).

If we DON’T increase your food intake, but continuously increase training volume, you’ll eventually start to lose weight as a result of all the volume burning tons of calories. While great for fat loss, you’re likely NOT building muscle here.

On the flip-side, if we just keep increasing food intake and don’t increase training volume, you’ll start to gain excess fat.

The solution?

We gradually drive up both training volume and carbohydrate intake simultaneously. The extra food is helping you recover and grow from the extra volume. The extra volume is helping the extra food be shuttled to muscle, NOT fat storage.

Now, the thing with volume is - if you just take a MASSIVE jump in number of hard sets, your body won’t be able to adapt to the sudden increase and you’ll get worse results.

Volume needs to be increased gradually.

This process for an intermediate/advanced online client typically looks something like:

Weeks 1-8: 4x/week Upper/Lower Training Split

The upper lower split typically allows enough volume to grow coming out of a cutting phase.

At this point, clients typically aren’t ready for any more volume than this. The primary focus the first few weeks after a cut is getting your body and gym performance back to feeling normal after the diet. Training more than this would likely be counter productive.

Weeks 8-16: 5x/week Upper/Lower/Push/Pull/Lower -OR- Upper/Lower/Upper/Lower/Upper -OR- Lower/Upper/Lower/Upper/Lower/Upper

By this point, you’re feeling MUCH better post diet, and your body is in a much better place to focus on pushing the training volume in the gym, and focus on building lean mass. Increasing training from 4 to 5 sessions weekly adds quite a bit of training volume, and in turn more gains - if you're recovering well. (Note: this is describing a typical intermediate/advanced trainee. If you're newer to the gym, lifting 5x/week will likely be too much to recover from.)

By the time we hit week 16 of this process, we’ve driven up carbs and training volume quite a bit. From here, you have two options:

1. Keep training 5x/week. The reality is, most people CAN’T work training more than 5x/week into their lifestyle. Unless you have dreams of being a pro bodybuilder, you can get great results training 5x/week.

2. If you're all in on maximizing gains...

Weeks 16 - end of lean gains phase: 6x/week Upper/Lower/Upper/Lower/Upper/Lower -OR- Lower/Push/Pull/Lower/Push/Pull

This is unrealistic for 90% of online clients, as most people just aren’t willing to devote that much time to the gym. BUT, if your recovery is good, ramping volume up more is a viable option.

In any of these cases, you want to watch out for signs of doing too much:

1. Low motivation to train.

2. Strength is stagnate or regressing.

3. You feel run down/beat up

If this is the case, start by taking a deload week.

A deload is simply a week where your dial back training volume and intensity. This allows your body to drastically reduce fatigue, increases recovery, and in the long-term translates to you making more gains.

Deload Guidelines:

Lower RPE (Rate Of Perceived Exertion) on every set by 2 digits.

Drop 1-2 sets from every movement

Reduce load by 20-30%

Regardless, I’d recommend taking a deload week every 10-12 weeks.

If you STILL have the above symptoms, you’re sleeping well, and body weight is increasing (so you know you’re eating enough calories), you’re straight up probably just doing too much.

Start by decreasing each training day by a few hard sets (I would pull hard sets from movements that DON’T focus on muscles you want to prioritize.) From here, decrease training days as necessary.

For more specific details on EXACTLY how to set up:

Your training split... read THIS BLOG.

Each Individual training day... read THIS BLOG.

Getting your training a nutrition on point is crucial - but making sure you’re RECOVERING properly is where we actually facilitate growth. This is where we take everything you’re doing with training and nutrition, and actually turn it into lean gains, instead of just wasted time.

Now, I get it - this shit is boring to talk about - so I’m just going to provide you a recovery checklist, to help optimize your gains:

As we talked about last week in My 3 Favorite Movements For Each Muscle Group (UPPER BODY EDITION) - it's way too easy to get stuck in the same gym routine for years.

You know... doing the same movements, for the same reps, month-after-month.

Now, the reality of training is - a program that consists of "the boring basics" WILL get results.

When I first started coaching, ALL I would focus on with clients were the boring basics.

Clients got results... until they got sick of: squat, deadlift, squat every. single. week.

Since, I've learned a big part of creating a program that is truly effective for clients also means it will be fun and engaging programs.

When you're having fun with your program and are excited to see what new challenges await you at the gym this week - while also following a program rooted solidly in the principles of smart program design - THAT'S when you'll get amazing results.

This is a HUGE part of my philosophy for program design, and a big part of why my online clients get such great results.

Now, every program I design for clients puts a major emphasis on training all of the foundational movement patterns at least twice per week...

1. Squat
2. Hinge
3. Lunge
4. Push
5. Pull
6. Anti-Movement

The key here is to focus on flexing at the spine NOT flexing at the hips. Keep your hips fixed. Think: Pulling your ribcage towards your thighs.

The ab wheel is a crazy effective way to train anti-extension (resisting extension at the spine) AND the rectus abdominis simultaneously.

The problem?

Most people absolutely butcher this movement by letting their spine fall into extension as they roll forward.

Focus on:

1. Maintaining a slightly flexed spine as you roll out. The further you roll out, the harder this will be to maintain. You're currently training anti-extension.

2. Keeping a flexed spine and crunching your abs together as you roll the wheel back towards your knees.

Ok, so this is a combo anti-rotation (resisting rotation at the spine) AND anti-extension exercise. Sue me.

I'm also a big fan of Pallof Press Variations - but this is way more fun and versatile, as it can easily be combined with a client's conditioning work.