Building stronger glutes is a necessity for not only an aesthetic physique, but for a more powerful, fast, and athletic body.

The problem? 

Most glute workouts focus only on the "bridging" and "pumping" movements. That’s because doing a lot of those exercises will make you feel the burn... but don’t be fooled into thinking that means it’s a great workout. 

 You need to create overload over time, and get enough volume to create a change. A bunch of donkey kickbacks and lying leg lifts may feel hard... but you won’t be able to add much resistance over time. 

In this blog, you'll learn the smartest way to train to finally build the glutes you've always wanted.

Key Terms You Need To Know For Better Glutes

Before we dive into how to program for better glutes, let’s define some terms you'll see in this blog. Knowing these will help you understand how and why we program the way we do for online clients.

Key Term #1: Progressive Overload: In order to make progress, you’ll need to make sure you are incorporating progressive overload. Progressive overload means you’re working harder over time. You can use a variety of different methods to overload. 

You can make your training harder by:

 - Adding weight

- Adding reps

 - Adding sets

- Increasing time under tension

- Increasing range of motion

- Decreasing rest time

- Improving form

- Lifting the weight faster

Key Term #2: Volume: Volume is sets x reps x weight. 

For example: 

If you lift 50 pounds for 2 sets of 10 reps, your volume for that exercise on that day is 1000 pounds. 

When you hear something referred to as a “high volume” exercise or set, it’s usually in a rep range of 8-12, which used to be classified as a hypertrophy (muscle growth) rep range. That’s because the reps are low enough you can use a good amount of weight, but not so low that you don’t accumulate a lot of volume on the set.

Key Term #3: Intensity: Intensity refers to how heavy a set is. A high intensity lift is usually very low reps, but very high weight, relative to your strength.

Glute Anatomy & Function

Before you can build a great backside, you need a basic understanding of the different muscle groups of your glutes, and how they work.

The glutes are a group of 3 muscles: the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and  gluteus minimus. 

Here's how they work.

1. Gluteus Maximimus (Glute Max):

2. Gluteus Medius (Glute Med):

3. Gluteus Minimus (Glute Min):

Why Proper Glute Training Is Key For Function + Aesthetics

The glutes are an important group of muscles. They have a role in walking, running, climbing stairs, squatting, hinging, and balance. 

 When you look at an athlete, one of the main aesthetic giveaways is strong looking glutes. That’s because a strong set of glute muscles means you have more power and speed.

The opposite is also true. 

Priming Your Glutes For Growth

The first thing most online client do before priming the glutes, is stretch the hip flexors. 

The hip flexor muscles are an antagonist (a muscle that contracts while another relaxes) to the glutes (in this case, hip flexors relax as glutes contract), and can get shortened and tight if you're spending too long in a sitting position. Stretching them out first can allow you a better range of motion without over-arching your back during your glute work. 

 A half kneeling hip flexor stretch for 2-3 sets of 3-5 reps per side works really well here:

Once you have your hip flexors stretched and are able to get a good glute contraction without hyperextending (think: arching) your lower back, then you can move on to priming movements. These get your glutes firing and ready for the main workout.

Priming Movement #1: The Glute Bridge - 2-4 Sets x 15-25 Reps

Priming Movement #2: Band Monster Walks - 2-4 Sets x 10-20 Reps/Side

Priming Movement #3: Band Pallof Press - 2-4 Sets x 8-12 Reps/Side

Science-Based Training For Better Glutes

Now that you’ve sufficiently primed your glutes and can feel them working, it's time to actually start training them for growth. If you’re doing a training program with a full body or upper/lower split, you'll be working much more than just your glutes in your training session. That means you need to know how to program them into your split.

To do that you need to know the different types of glute exercises.

You can divide your glute-developing movement patterns into 4 categories:

1. Hinge

2. Bridge

3. Squat

4. Abduct

To adequately work the glutes in each plane of movement you need to include each of these four movement patterns across your training week.

So, to put this all together in a sample training program...

 Let’s say you came to us for coaching and want a program designed for you. After going through a detailed call and questionnaire we determine your goal is aesthetics, and you especially want to focus on growing your glutes. 

You have four days a week to train, so we will give you an upper/lower split, but with the main focus of growing glutes we give you some extra glute work on your upper body days as well.  

 A full week’s training might look like this:

 Day 1: Monday - Lower Body

Lower body primer, 2 rounds:

- Spiderman lunge w/ rotation x5 each side

- Banded Hip Thrust x15

- Side Plank Rotation x8/side

- Explosive KB Swing x8

a1.) Sumo Deadlifts 4×5. 3 RIR. 2 minutes rest.

b1.) Goblet Squat 3x10. 3 RIR. 2 minutes rest.

c1.) Step back lunges 3×10 1 RIR. 2 minutes rest.

d1.) Clamshells 3 x 25 each way 1 RIR. 1 minute rest

d2.) Leg Extensions 3x15. 1 RIR. 1 minute rest.

Day 2: Tuesday - Upper Body

Upper body primer, 2 rounds:

-Cable Face Pull x10

-Cable Pallof Press x8/side

-Bent Over Chest Throw x5

a1.) Bench Press 4x8. 3 RIR. 2 minutes rest.

b1.) Barbell Row. 4x8. 3 RIR. 2 minutes rest.

c1.) Dumbbell Overhead Press. 4x12. 3 RIR. 2 minutes rest.

d1.) 1 arm Dumbbell Row. 3x12 each. 3 RIR. 1 minute rest.

e1.) Glute focus back extensions 3x15. 1 RIR. 30 seconds rest.

e1.) Monster walks 3x30. 1 RIR. 30 seconds rest. 

Day 3: Thursday - Lower Body

Lower body primer, 2 rounds:

- 1-Leg Bridge x10/side

- ½ Kneeling Cable Row x8/side

- Side Plank + Reach 3x5/side

a1.) Low bar squat 4×8. 3 RIR. 2 minutes rest.

b1.) Barbell hip thrust 4×8-10. 3 RIR. 2 minutes rest.

c1.) Bulgarian Split Squat 4x8 each side. 3 RIR. 2 minutes rest.

d1.) Cable kick backs 3x15 each side. 1 RIR. 30 seconds rest.

d2.) Frog pumps 3x30. 1 RIR. 30 seconds rest.

Day 4: Friday - Upper Body

Upper body primer, 2 rounds:

-Feet Elevated Glute Bridge x15

-Band Resisted Dead Bug x 8/side

-Banded Wall Slides x3

a1.) Barbell Z-Press 4x8. 3 RIR. 2 minutes rest.

b1.) T-Bar Row 4x10. 3 RIR. 2 minutes rest.

c1.) ½ Kneeling Dumbbell Shoulder Press 3x10 each side. 3 RIR. 1 minute rest.

d1.) Meadows Row 3x10 each side. 1 RIR. 1 minute rest.

e1.) Cable Pull Through 3x12. 1 RIR. 30 seconds rest.

e2.) Kettlebell Swings 3x15. 1 RIR. 30 seconds rest.

e3.) Seated Abductions 3x30. 1 RIR. 30 seconds rest.

In your training program, you've worked each movement pattern in a variety of rep ranges across the week. There are high volume/low intensity exercises, as well as high intensity/low volume exercises. 

- Higher volume exercises are things like the step back lunges where you’re getting 20 total reps, and you are lifting for high enough reps that you’re shaky and tired after the set. 

- High intensity exercises are things like the sumo deadlifts, where you’re lifting very heavy for each rep, but only lifting 4 reps per set. Including both in your training program will help you build strength and grow the muscles.

What I recommend for overload in this program, is decreasing RIR each week. (RIR stands for Reps In Reserve - this means the reps you have left in the tank after your set.)  

Let’s say you’re doing a set of squats and your all-out-failure point with 115 pounds would be at 12 reps. That means if your workout calls for a 2 RIR, you’ll use 115 pounds and do 10 reps. 

 Most of the big compound movements in this program have a 3 RIR listed. As a client, you would start Week 1 by doing 3 RIR, before adding either weight of reps to progress to a 2 RIR in Week 2. Week 3, you repeat the process by increasing reps or weight again to progress to a 1 RIR.

And that’s how you grow strong and powerful glutes. Prep for the movement first, then use the correct frequency and intensity for each type of movement, and train your glutes in each different movement pattern.

Need a fully customized training + nutrition plan and expert coaching through the process of building your best body composition ever? Click here now to apply for online coaching with our team.

Mini Cut: A short, aggressive diet phase. The goal is to lose as much body fat as possible across 3-6 weeks without losing muscle mass.

Mini cuts are a tool that I use often within Online Coaching, for clients in a building phase.

Now, counter to what you would think... the primary goal of a mini-cut isn't fat loss... it's actually to allow you to build lean muscle longer/more productively.

We use mini cuts to keep your body partitioning nutrients most optimally (more calories are being partitioned towards building muscle, less towards fat storage).

If you're chasing your best body composition ever, mini cuts are an important tool to have in your belt. 

Today's blog is your complete guide to properly implementing mini cuts for rapid fat loss and more lean muscle. 

Why Implement Mini Cuts?

Basically, mini-cuts allow you to spend more time in a productive building phase... a.k.a. what 99% of you who can’t achieve the lean, strong body composition you’re chasing are missing. 

For women and men alike, spending 6-12 months focused on fueling your training + recovery properly and building lean muscle will make a BIG difference in your body composition. 

For example: 

Let’s say you just got super lean for the first time ever with the help of Online Coaching, and have 20lbs of fat left on your body.

The problem?

You still don’t look as lean or strong as you want... but your hormones & energy levels are zapped. You can't realistically lose any more body fat and expect to sustain that level of leanness. We know that at this point, your physiology is strongly pushing back against you getting any leaner.

So, we decide it's time for you to start your first building phase. 

You go through 8 months of building —> 8 weeks of cutting —> end up back near where you started, with 20lbs of fat left on your body.

But, now (thanks to the building phase) you have an additional 8lbs of lean muscle on your frame. 

So even though fat mass is the same as before, your body fat percentage is lower, and your body composition is much different.

My online client Kathy is a great example of the changes that can happen here:

The picture on the left isn’t long after a photoshoot we got her super lean for.

After this, she spent months focused purely on eating more and maximizing performance in the gym, with a special emphasis on glute gains. This means she was consistently dialed in on:

—> Consistently eating in a slight calorie surplus, and gaining ~.25-.5% of her body weight per week

—> A higher carb approach to optimize training & recovery

—> Improving on a set-by-set basis weekly within her training

—> Training 5x/week

After months dedicated to building, she was feeling a bit too fluffy, and it appeared that her body fat percentage might be drifting outside of the optimal P-Ratio (more on this shortly). 

So we dropped her into a mini-cut, where she quickly dropped 6lbs in 4 weeks.

As you can see, in both pictures she's the same weight, but body composition is much different.

This is exactly why I’m always convincing online clients to commit to building phase. “Convincing”, because the thought of seeing the scale increase is scary for most (I get it!),  but this is 100% necessary for anyone chasing their all-time best body composition.

But anyways, mini-cuts = more successful building phases due to something called...

The P-Ratio

Your Partitioning Ratio or P-Ratio is the ratio of muscle to fat gained when your body weight increases. Within a certain body fat percentage range, your body will be shuttling more of the calories you take in towards building muscle, and less towards fat storage.

On the flipside, outside of these ideal body fat percentage ranges, your body will be gaining exponentially more fat than muscle with every pound that you gain.

I've found that (like everything within Online Coaching) there is lots of individual variability here. But in general, the most optimal body fat ranges will be:

—> 10-15% for men

—> 18-30% for women

Too far below or above these marks, and a much greater percentage of the overall weight you gain will be fat.

So aside from the fact that most of us don't want to feel overly fluffy during a building phase... excessive body fat will actually make the process of achieving your best body composition ever less efficient.

Mini-cuts are a tool that we intersperse into building phases to allow you as an online client to maintain an optimal P-Ratio, without killing the overall momentum of the building phase.

Determining Rate Of Loss

One of the most important things to consider here is how fast you're losing weight.

Again, we're pushing you to lose as quickly as possible without losing muscle mass.

But, how quickly you can lose here really depends on how lean you are currently. The leaner you are, the smaller the percentage of body weight lost per week needs to be. When you're already leaner, you're at a higher risk of muscle loss, as your body has less stored energy (a.k.a. fat) available to burn, making muscle a more likely candidate than for an individual with more body fat.

I like Revive Stronger's general recommendations here:

—> Men at ~10% body fat | women at ~18% body fat should aim to lose ~.5% of body weight per week during a mini cut

—> Men at ~15% body fat | women at ~25% body fat should aim to lose ~1% of body weight per week during a mini cut

—> Men at ~20%+ body fat | women at ~30%+ body fat should aim to lose ~1.5% of body weight per week during a mini cut

So once we determine your ideal rate of loss, we'll need to determine...

Determining Size Of Deficit

This really goes hand in hand with your rate of loss, because the size of your calorie deficit 100% determines how quickly you lose fat. 

So now that we know how quickly you should be losing per week, we use that info to determine how many calories you need to eat to achieve the desired rate of loss.

We know that generally, creating a calorie deficit of ~3,500 calories will lead to ~1lb fat loss. So, eating 500 calories below your maintenance calorie intake every day for 7 days, should lead to about a pound of fat loss (500 x 7 = 3,500).

For example: If you weigh 150lbs, and are aiming to lose 1% of body weight per week (1.5lbs/week), you'll need to be in a weekly deficit of ~5,250 calories.

So first, you need to know your maintenance calorie intake (the intake you maintain your current body composition at).

If you're already tracking macros, (something all of my online clients in building phases do), we'll already have a but idea of where your maintenance calories are. 

But if you're not sure, you have a few options here:

OPTION 1: Use this calculator.

OPTION 2: Multiply your bodyweight by 13-17. (13 would be a sedentary office worker, 17 would be an extremely active construction worker.)

OPTION 3: Start tracking everything you eat in MyFitnessPal (don't change your diet from the norm), and take the average of the total calories you eat for 4-6 days.

Regardless of which method you used, you should now have a number that is roughly you maintenance calorie intake.

Using the example above: If you're aiming to lose 1.5lbs per week (which requires creating a weekly deficit of ~5,250 calories), and your maintenance intake is 2,300 calories - then we know that to hit your weekly deficit goal, you need to be eating ~1,550 calories per day.

Determining Macros

While calories are king if you're strictly chasing fat loss... any time you're looking to build or preserve as much lean muscle tissue as possible, your macro intake becomes just as important as your calories.

Without the proper macros, it's much less likely that your mini cut will go well - which is why my online clients undergoing mini cuts always follow specific, individualized macro prescriptions.

PROTEIN TARGETS:

—> Set protein intake between 1 - 1.5g per lb of body weight (multiply body weight x1-1.5).

When you're in a mini cut, adequate protein is essential to maintaining muscle. Plus, it keeps you full, and has the highest thermic effect (calories burned during digestion) of all the macros.

1g/lb of body weight will ensure that you hit your protein needs for maintaining your muscle. You can push closer to the 1.5g/lb mark to help reduce hunger (if needed).

FAT TARGETS:

—> Most should set fat at .3 grams/lb (multiply body weight x.3).

For optimal hormonal function and health, most of us need at least .3g fat/lb of body weight. Dipping below this point for too long can potentially cause hormonal issues, and fatty acid deficiencies. 

But past this point, fat isn't as satiating for most as lean protein or fibrous carbs. It's also the most calorie-dense macro, coming in at 9 calories per gram. Plus, it doesn't have the training performance or recovery benefits of carbs... so it makes sense to keep fat lower in this scenario.

CARB TARGETS:

—> Fill your remaining calories with carbs. 

Carbs from whole-food sources will help keep you full, improve your performance in the gym, give you more energy, and speed up your recovery from training. Since your ability to train intensely is helpful to maintaining your muscle during the mini cut, keeping carbs high here is smart.

Nutrient Timing

How you time your nutrients has a big impact on your training performance and recovery. Over the course of a 6 weeks, a lot of shitty training sessions + sub-optimal recovery VS. a lot of well-fueled workouts + optimal recovery = a big difference in your body composition at the end of the mini-cut.

So, for online clients like you entering a mini cut, here are my recommendations:

—> Protein Timing Across The Day - It's true that calories are the primary driver of weight loss or weight gain. But for optimal lean muscle growth, you need to consider muscle protein synthesis (MPS).

Muscle protein synthesis is basically the process of your body turning dietary protein into actual lean muscle.

Consuming protein (with the most optimal amount being 25-50g) increases muscle protein synthesis for ~3-6 hours.

So, to maximally stimulate muscle protein synthesis through your day, it's most optimal to spread your protein (and meals) across 4-6 meals, with 25-50g protein at each.

—> Pre-Workout Meal - What you eat pre-workout is key for kick-starting the recovery process, and helps fuel your body through intense training.

To prevent as much muscle protein breakdown (the opposite process of muscle protein synthesis - muscle protein is being broken down) as possible, and create optimal circumstances for recovery/growth, you should consume ~25-50g of protein in this meal. If you really don't have the option to eat a pre-workout meal (e.g. you workout super early), I'd recommend at least drinking a protein shake before hand. This will digest very quickly, and shouldn't give you issues.

If you have time to allow the meal to digest pre-workout (>1 hour), adding ~25-50 grams carbs to the mix is smart. A mix of carbs from starch and fruit gives you a combo of faster and slower releasing carbs to fuel you through the workout.

We want to avoid too much fat in this meal, because it will slow digestion, and have you feeling sluggish during your training.

A solid pre-workout meal could look something like:

- Greek yogurt (slow digesting protein)

- Whey protein (fast digesting protein)

- Oatmeal (starchy carb)

- Berries (carb from fruit)

Typically, you'll feel best eating this 1-2 hours before you workout. I like to split the difference here and go with 1.5 hours pre-workout. Eating this meal too close to your workout will have you lifting with food still digesting in your belly, making you feel sluggish.

—> Post-Workout Meal - As far as protein, aim to eat another ~25-50g of protein within an hour post-workout (as it will have been about 3 hours from your previous bolus of protein at this point).

With carbs, insulin sensitivity is highest post-workout. (Basically, your body will most efficiently use carbs for muscle-building purposes at this time.) So it makes sense to time lots of fast-digesting carbs post workout (e.g. white rice, spotted bananas). This is the most important time to consume carbs, as far as timing goes - so especially in a mini cut (where carbs will be relatively limited), load up here.

On a similar note, an intense training session will trigger a stress response. Basically, when you experience stress, cortisol (the stress hormone) rises and your nervous system enters a sympathetic state or “fight-or-flight mode”. In this state, your brain perceives an imminent threat, and slows or stops all bodily processes but the most vital to either “fighting or fleeing”. This means processes crucial to your recovery - food digestion, hormone production, and muscle repair itself - are slowed or essentially stopped.

So obviously, to optimize recovery, you want to get out of a sympathetic state as fast as possible post-workout, and get into the parasympathetic or “rest and digest” state. Here, your body focuses on nutrient absorption, repairing damaged tissues, etc.

The beauty of timing your carbs post-workout like this is, carbs help decrease cortisol levels. So consuming carbs post workout will help you create a better environment for building lean muscle.

Similar to the pre-workout meal, we want to keep fat low here. Fat would slow your body's ability to digest the nutrients you just took in.

—> Pre-Bed Meal - We also want your body to have some protein available throughout the night. ~1 hour before bed, eat 25-50g protein from a slow digesting source (casein powder, greek yogurt, cottage cheese).

Mini Cut Calorie Cycling Strategies

Calorie cycling is essentially periodization of your calories within the mini cut. While not a "must" per say, it’s something I've found helps online client tremendously when it comes to overall adherence and training performance/recovery in the mini cut. (Check out THIS BLOG for a complete breakdown of my favorite calorie cycling strategies to use with online clients).

—> High/Low Days - Here, your “low” calorie days are paired with off days, because energy will be much lower on these days.

Your “high” calorie days are paired with training days - you’ll have more energy (meaning you’ll be able to push your training harder), and be eating more calories when your body needs it MOST to maintain muscle (post-workout).

Typically, this equates to 3-4 high days (on training days), 3-4 low days (on off days or less taxing training days).

So taking it back to our example from before: If you're aiming to lose 1.5lbs per week (which requires creating a weekly deficit of ~5,250 calories), and your maintenance intake is 2,300 calories - so we know that to hit your weekly deficit goal, you need to be eating ~1,550 calories per day, your high/low strategy could look something like....

MONDAY: UPPER BODY

1,705 Cals | 150g Pro | 175g Carb | 45 Fat

TUESDAY: LOWER BODY

1,705 Cals | 150g Pro | 175g Carb | 45g Fat

WEDNESDAY: CARDIO

1,345 Cals | 150g Pro | 85g Carb | 45g Fat

THURSDAY: UPPER BODY

1,705 Cals | 150g Pro | 175g Carb | 45g Fat

FRIDAY: LOWER BODY

1,705 Cals | 150g Pro | 175g Carb | 45g Fat

SATURDAY: CARDIO

1,345 Cals | 150g Pro | 85g Carb | 45g Fat

SUNDAY: REST

1,345 Cals | 150g Pro | 85g Carb | 45g Fat

—> Protein-Sparing Modified Fast Days - This is a strategy that I learned about years ago from Lyle McDonald, and have seen great success implementing with my more advanced clients. We used this exact strategy extensively in my client Rachel's transformation to photoshoot lean (CLICK HERE to read the blog that gives you her exact process and strategy).

The idea here is, instead of keeping calories pretty low across the entire week, we can knock out a big chunk of your weekly deficit in a single day, and keep calories higher the rest of the week.

The goal is to keep calories as low as possible, while still hitting your protein goal. Basically, you just focus on eating lean proteins and lots of veggies.

So your day could look something like:

- 50 of whey protein + coffee in the morning.

- Meal 1: Chicken breast + lots of veggies

- Snack: Tuna mixed with non-fat cottage cheese

- Meal 2: Lean ground beef or turkey with seasoning, mixed with salsa and veggies

- Meal 3: Non-fat, plain Greek yogurt mixed with whey protein

Nothing magic about this approach, but it makes the mini cut much easier to adhere to for most people. When you nutrition coach with me, we always prioritize finding a diet you can adhere to over all else. That's how we create sustainable results.

Duration Of Mini Cut

So now that you have all of the logistics down, the question is...

"How long should I do this for?"

—> No longer than 6 weeks.

Past this point, you'll be at a much higher risk of muscle loss (which is very counterproductive to the mini cut's goal of helping you maintain as much lean muscle as possible). If you have a lot of fat to lose, you absolutely can lose fat aggressively for longer periods of time - but that's outside the scope of this article, which is specific to online clients in building phases. (I'd recommend you check out The Rapid Fat Loss Protocol.) 

—> No shorter than 3 weeks.

It's nearly impossible to tell how your body is changing on the first two weeks of a diet. That's exactly why it's incredibly rare that I adjust an online client's nutrition plan in the first two week - we just need more time to see how your body really responds to your current macro intake, and for the deficit to compound. So short timeframes don't make much sense here.

And really, if you can achieve the amount of fat loss you want in <3 weeks... you probably don't actually need to implement a mini cut yet. Keep focusing on eating more and building. 

Making Nutrition Adjustments

Now that you understand the above, this is pretty simple.

Your protein and fat intakes are already set at "essential" marks.

So if you're not falling in line with the desired rate of loss (either losing too slow or too fast), you'll primarily be adjusting calories via carbs up or down until you reach the desired rate.

That said, if needed (e.g. you can't fathom dropping carbs any lower) you can temporarily drop fat below the .3g/lb mark (something I've had to do with online clients in the past), but I wouldn't recommend it for more than a few weeks. 

Training During A Mini Cut

The reality is, training during a mini cut doesn't change much from how it does during your building phase.

It's super important that you continue to hit your muscles with adequate training stimulus... otherwise, your body could decide that this calorically expensive tissue (lean muscle) isn't worth keep around during this period of calorie scarcity.

—> For intermediate trainees, I’d recommend training 4x/week with an upper/lower split.

This split allows for adequate volume to stimulate lean muscle growth across the week, hits your frequency needs, and will let you emphasize building lean muscle & strength simultaneously (although this is much less likely to happen during a mini cut).

For more on how I program the upper/lower split for online clients, check out this video ↴

—> For more advanced-intermediate to advanced trainees, I’d recommend training 5x/week with either a Upper/Lower/Upper/Lower/Upper split, a Lower/Upper/Lower/Upper/Lower, or an Upper/Lower/Push/Pull/Lower split. 

Your volume needs for progression will be higher as a more experienced trainee, so this split allows you to match that. 

I'd check out The 7 Training Program Templates All Coaches Need for programming templates.

Cardio During A Mini Cut

Losing fat requires eating fewer calories than you burn in a day... but calories are our body’s major fuel for recovery. 

So when you're eating less, your “recovery resources” are more limited. Meaning your can only hit your body with so much training stimulus before it becomes counterproductive.

So, to successfully mini cut, you'll want the primary stressor on your system to be your training - that’s the stress that’s going to stimulate muscle maintenance.

Aside from this, the goal should be to do our best to keep other stressors to a minimum, so they don’t “steal” recovery resources from your muscles.

This means it’s generally smart to use low-intensity cardio as a fat loss tool (rather than high-intensity variations), as it’s much less stressful on the body (and actually can help promote recovery).

Now, like everything within online coaching, my cardio prescriptions vary depending on the individual. But generally, I’ll prescribe 2-5 cardio sessions per week, 30-40 mins each, doing something like incline walking, riding the assault bike, or rowing at a heart rate of 120-140 beats per minute.

The more active you are as an individual, the less cardio you’ll need. (Some online clients don’t need any.)

However, if you’re more sedentary (e.g. you work a desk job, and average 3,000 steps per day), the reality is, you’ll likely need more cardio to achieve the fat loss you’re chasing.

Finally, it’s smart for us to track your daily movement in the form of a step goal. This allows us to factor in everything that could be affecting your body composition, and make sure you don’t accidentally decrease movement and stall fat loss.

When Shouldn't You Do A Mini Cut?

As you've likely gathered, the mini cut is a tool we use for a very specific goal within online coaching, and is not something that should be used by everyone. Especially if...

—> You've dieted recently, or are struggling with cycles of drastically overeating & under-eating.

It's easy to look at mini cuts as a way to "cheat the system" and smash food for a period of time, because you'll "make up for it later" with the mini cut. This only promotes disordered eating, and is not at all the purpose of a mini cut.

—> You've been building for <3 months. 

The reality of a building phase is, you likely will have to spend a bit of time feeling fluffier than you'd like... but long-term, it's key to adding lean muscle to your frame and achieve a body composition that's both functionally strong and aesthetic.

That said, if you freak out the first time you notice your abs aren't quite as visible and start a mini cut... you can quickly fall into an unproductive cycle of constantly alternating between cutting and building, which never allows you to acquire the momentum needed to truly change your physique in a building phase.

And that is how we implement mini cuts within online coaching.

Achieving a body that's both functionally strong and aesthetic is not an easy process, which is why most people have failed without investing in a coach, and becoming extremely committed to the process.

If you’re ready to commit to a fully individualized nutrition & training strategy, click here now to apply for online coaching with me.

Working hard in the gym and kitchen, but still not seeing the results you want?

Then there's likely an issue with your exercise selection.

If your goal is to achieve a lean, strong body composition, some exercises are inherently better than others.

Today's blog gives you the complete thought process & system behind the exercises we program for our online clients. 

If you're chasing a better body composition and want to get MORE out of each training session, this blog is a must read.

1. Target Muscle Group Is The Rate Limiter

When the goal is building lean muscle, you want the "rate limiter" (the thing that forces you to eventually stop a movement) to be the specific muscle group(s) you're targeting. 

Let's say you're doing heavy Farmers Carries to train your core, and refuse to wear wrist straps. As a result, your grip always gives out long before core fatigue would cause you to stop the movement.

Thus, this has become a pretty shit exercise for actually building a stronger core... but if the goal was building grip strength, it'd be a great fit.

Some common examples of rate limiters on exercises that are stopping you from building lean muscle:

—> Grip strength - See example above.

—> Unstable exercises - The classic example of doing squats on a bosu ball applies here. You don't "fail" the movement because of fatigue in your quads, you fail due to a lack of stability.

—> Core strength - Let's look at the Birddog Row:

Great movement for core stability? Absolutely.

But if you were programming this as one of your primary rowing variations, it just wouldn't make sense. The rate limiter is your core, not your lats or rhomboids.

—> Cardiovascular Fatigue - The most common example of this is simply cutting rest periods too short between sets, or stringing together too many exercises in a row with inadequate rest (this is a big part of why I always prescribe specific rest periods for my online clients).

2. Compoundedness

Credit to Menno Henselmans for this term (which I'm pretty sure isn't a real word).

Basically, compoundedness means that a movement works multiple muscle groups & joints simultaneously... A.K.A. compound movements. 

Compoundedness is important because it leads to more "bang for your buck" & efficiency when it comes to building muscle.

To illustrate, let's compare Leg Extensions vs. High Bar Squats. 

To get the same magnitude of training stimulus from 4 sets of High Bar Squats, you would have to do MANY more sets of Leg Extensions. So from an efficiency perspective, programming at least some or the High Bar Squats makes sense.

(*Note: I talk a lot about the High Bar Back Squat in this blog, but realize that you could plug in any variation of the squat pattern here the meets the Exercise Selection 101 criteria... Hack Squats, SSB Squats, Leg Presses, etc.)

Now, this isn't say that you shouldn't do isolation exercises. They're an important part of a program designed to help you build lean muscle. But most of us simply don't have the time required to build the body composition we want through a program composed purely of isolation work.

When you start online coaching with us, your program is build primarily around compound movements (check out this blog to learn the framework we use). This allows you to efficiently accrue the volume (number of hard sets) needed across a training week to progress your entire body. 

From there, isolation movements are the "icing on the cake", to add a bit of extra volume to weak point or body parts you want to build.

3. Range Of Motion

Typically, the greater the range of motion an exercise allows, the more effective it will be for stimulating muscle growth.

Let's again use the High Bar Back Squat as an example:

The High Bar Squat is a movement we program for online clients to target the quads.

The role of the quads in the squat is knee extension... a.k.a. straightening your legs/standing up from the bottom of the rep.

The more knee flexion (bending at the knee) you can achieve on the way down (which will also equal a lower squat), the more quad stimulus you'll get from every single rep, because your quads are being forced to work through a greater range of motion. 

So let's say you could either...

Option 1.) Squat just to 90 degrees with 225 lbs on your back for 8 reps at 1RIR (rep in reserve).

- OR -

Option 2.) You could squat well below parallel with 185 lbs on your back for 8 reps at 1RIR.

Option 2, despite being less load, would still stimulate more muscle growth in your quads due to the greater range of motion.

As an added bonus, a movement with a greater range of motion (again, consider the example of deep squats vs. squats to parallel) will also be less taxing on your joints and nervous system, because you're using a lighter load (but achieving the same or better stimulus). Thus, the "stimulus-to-fatigue" ratio of a movement with a larger range of motion is better.

4. Eccentric Component

The eccentric portion of a movement is typically thought of as the "lowering" part of a movement, whereas the concentric portion of a movement is the actual "lifting" portion of the movement. 

It's pretty rare that most movements are missing the concentric focus... but many movements are noticeably missing an eccentric, OR many lifters aren't intentional about controlling the eccentric portion of the movement.

The problem here is, we know that muscle damage has a strong correlation with muscle growth. We also know that the eccentric portion of a movement is where a large degree of muscle damage is happening. So movements without a controlled eccentric will be much less conducive to muscle growth.

To illustrate this point, let's compare two movements that appear very similar, but would create different outcomes as far as muscle growth - the Conventional Barbell Deadlift vs. The Romanian Deadlift.

—> Conventional Deadlift: Likely your strongest lift - it allows you to pull A LOT of weight, and is also very fatiguing. 

That said, the muscle building stimulus provided from the amount of fatigue generated isn't that high (a Barbell Deadlift from the floor is essentially an isometric for your upper back, your hamstrings never reach their fully stretched position, and there's no "eccentric" component, as most people just drop the weight).

So, a lot of fatigue, but not that much stimulus as far as building muscle goes.

—> Romanian Deadlift: You achieve a much greater range of motion, and a maximal stretch on the hamstrings with this movement. There's also a strong focus on the eccentric portion of the lift. 

But, the weight you lift + the load on your spine is much less. So the movement has a lower "fatigue cost" but likely creates more "stimulus" for most.

If you've done both of the movements, you'll know - your glutes and hamstrings straight up just feel much more "disrupted" after a Romanian Deadlift.

So specific to hamstring and glute growth, we know that the Romanian Deadlift is likely a better option.

On another note, many trainees simply fail to focus on the eccentric portion of a movement as much as the should. It's smart to focus on controlling the eccentric of each rep for 2-4 seconds. 

5. Ability To Overload

Finally, we know that the ability to progressively increase load on a movement over a long period of time is essential to stimulating continuous growth from said movement.

One problem with many movements is simply how difficult they are to add load to over time.

Consider the Push-Up vs. the Barbell Bench Press.

The Push-Up is harder to load in small increments (or much at all outside of weight vests), whereas the Barbell Bench Press can be loaded in very small increments, and thus is easier to progress long-term.

This is especially important for online clients that fall into the intermediate+ category, as microloading (increasing load via very small increments) is often the only realistic way to add load.

Application

Now that you have a good understanding of the keys to smart exercise selection, let's get into a bit more real-world application.

Let's say you're trying to build your quads, and are trying to decide between....

A Goblet Squat vs. a Box squat vs. a High Bar Squat.

Remember, you're looking for a movement that ticks these boxes:

✅ Target muscle group is the rate limiter

✅ Compoundedness

✅ Solid range of motion

✅ Eccentric component

✅ Ability to overload

If we look at a goblet squat, 4/5 of the components are there... but upper back strength is almost always the rate limiter when loads are held in the goblet position, rather than quads.

If we look at the box squat, right away we see that range of motion is severely limited by the box... so again, probably not the best option specific to building lean muscle. 

If we look at the High Bar Squat, we see that it effectively ticks all of these boxes, and is likely the best option of the three.

Apply this methodology to the movements you program going forward, and you will see drastic improvements in your ability to build lean muscle and improve your body composition.

If you're ready to take the guesswork out of achieving your best body composition ever, click here now to apply for Online Coaching with us. You'll get fully customized training + nutrition protocols fit to your specific goals & lifestyle, and expert guidance through every step of the process.

Chris Barakat literally wrote the book on body recomposition (use the code LEAN15 for 15% off) with Jeff Nippard, and is a pioneer spearheading the new research on losing fat & building muscle simultaneously.

Today, we walk through EXACTLY how to make your own body recomposition happen - macros, nutrition, cardio... no stone goes unturned.

Check out Chris' content HERE.

Need customized training & nutrition, and 1-1 coaching through your own body recomposition? Apply for online coaching with me HERE.

Building great shoulders is key to achieving a body that looks lean, strong, and aesthetic. This is true for women and men alike.

Problem is, you've been misguided on how you ACTUALLY need to train to achieve the physique you want. 

Today's blog is a deep dive into how to train your shoulders for both functional strength and aesthetics.

Let's get into it.

Shoulder & Upper Back Anatomy 101

The first step to building better shoulders?

A quick understanding of anatomy.

Your shoulder muscles or "deltoids" ("delts" in bro-speak) can be divided into three distinct muscle groups:

1.Your Anterior Delts a.k.a Front Delts

2. Your Medial Delts a.k.a. Side Delts

3. Your Posterior Delts a.k.a. Rear Delts

Training Each Of Your Delts

The Keys To Completely Reshaping Your Shoulders

1. Presses

As far as "bang-for-your-buck" movements go, pressing movements are where it's at - they allow you to accrue a LOT of "stimulus" for muscle growth per each rep.

Horizontal pressing variations do stimulate the front delts (and should make up 1/2-2/3rds of your total pressing volume), but vertical pressing will work your delts to a much greater extent. 

So if you have the shoulder mobility to press overhead, a variety of shoulder presses should be staples of your shoulder training.

You're best served to choose a few "bread and butter" shoulder pressing variations, and focus on progressing these across multiple mesocycles (training phases). A few of my favorite options to program for online clients here...

Dumbbell Seated Shoulder Presses:

Barbell Overhead Presses:

1-Arm Shoulder Presses:

Barbell Z-Presses:

Viking Presses:

A few things to consider here:

1. While presses are great, too much pressing and your shoulders will very quickly start feeling beat up, so you do need to limit pressing frequency, and be smart about how you work your vertical pressing into your week. Most do best with 6-10 hard sets of vertical pressing per week, at most.

2. Your horizontal presses AND vertical presses use the front delts. So whenever you're overhead pressing before you're pressing horizontally, you're reducing the amount of weight you'll be able to bench (because you've fatigued your front delts). This makes the delts much more likely to become the limiting factor when benching instead of the chest.

Thus, for a strong chest and shoulders, it makes sense to at least have one day where you bench first, one day where you overhead press first. If you're concerned about chest + delt development equally, it makes sense to always put your horizontal pressing first.

General Recommendations For Pressing:

—> Sets: 6-10 per week

—> Reps: 5-15

—> Frequency: 1-3x/week

—> Tempo: Explosive press, 2-3 sec lowering phase

2. Adding Side And Rear Delt Volume

As we've established, your front delts will already be well trained from your pressing work.

That said, your side and rear delts are not, and will need to be hit with much more training volume to catch up to your front delts. This is where online clients incorporate lots of different lateral raise and back fly variations.

The approach we take within your programming here is almost completely the opposite of your approach for presses:

—> While your shoulders can likely only handle so many heavy presses per week before getting banged up, you can handle TONS of volume from lateral raises and the like, without hindering your recovery. So it makes sense to take full advantage of this by training these movements with a lot of frequency (up to 6x/week).

—> These movements are also better suited to the higher rep ranges, as trying to go too heavy typically causes you to compensate too much with other muscles, cut range of motion short, and turn it into a less effective delt exercise.

—> Being aware of proper form here is VERY important (like always). It's easy to cut the top half of a fly variation short. While this is an easy way to tell yourself you got stronger from last week (you could do more weight or add a rep due to cutting range of motion short/making the movement easier), you're just shortchanging the amount of stimulus your delts receive per rep by cutting range of motion short. The "start" and "end" point should be uber consistent, from your first rep to your last.

A few excellent side delt movements to progress across a mesocycle...

Dumbbell Lateral Raises:

Cable Lateral Raises:

Dumbbell Leaning Lateral Raises:

Dumbbell Upright Rows:

Incline Side Lying Lateral Raise:

And, a few excellent rear delt movements to progress across a mesocycle...

Dumbbell Back Flys & Chest Supported Back Flys:

Cable Facepulls:

Dumbbell Facepulls:

Dumbbell Thumbs-Up Raises:

Rear Delt Rows:

Finally, a few spicy combo exercises that hit side & rear delts simultaneously...

Incline Butterfly Raises:

Cable Y-Raise + Lateral Raise:

3D Band Pull-Aparts:

General Recommendations For Side & Rear Delts:

—> Sets: 10-20 per week

—> Reps: 10-30

—> Frequency: 2-6x/week

—> Tempo: Explosive raise, 2-4 sec lowering phase

3. Putting It All Together

Hypothetically, let's say you started online coaching with the goal of building your best body composition ever, and improving your shoulders specifically.

After working through the intial strategy call, questionnaire, and movement screen like all my online clients do, we determine that the best split for your goals is a 4x/week upper/lower split + 1 conditioning day per week

First, we'd simply see how there shoulders responded to a bit of extra emphasis just 2 days per week. So their upper body days would look something like...

Day 1 (Upper):

a1.) Dumbbell Bench Press 4x5-10

b1.) Barbell Bent Row 4x5-10

c1.) Dumbbell 1-Arm Shoulder Press 4x10-15/side

c2.) Lat Pulldown 4x10-15

d1.) Dumbbell Leaning Lateral Raise 3x15-20/side

e1.) Chest-Supported Back Fly 3x15-20

f1.) Barbell Curl 3x10-15

f2.) Cable Overhead Extension 3x10-15

Day 3 (Upper):

a1.) Dumbbell Seated Shoulder Press 4x8-12

b1.) Pull-Up 4x5-10

c1.) Dumbbell Low Incline Bench 4x10-15

c2.) Dumbbell Chest Supported Row 4x10-15

d1.) Cable Upright Row 3x15-20

e1.) Dumbbell Facepull 3x15-20

f1.) Dumbbell Incline Hammer Curls 3x10-15

f2.) Med Ball Push-Ups 3xAMRAP

If this is your first time following an individualized, well-structured training program, you'll see great results for quite some time from this alone.

From here, if/when shoulder progression stalls, our order of operations will look like:

—> Add 1-2 sets to your current side and rear delt exercises OR add 1-2 more side/rear delt exercises to the end of each upper body training day.

If/when progress stalls again...

—> Add 1 side and 1 rear delt movement, 2-3 sets each, to the end each of your lower body training days. Gradually increase this to 3-4 total movements as needed.

From here you're getting a TON of volume, but if you hypothetically needed more, we'd eventually ramp up to...

—> Add 1 side and 1 rear delt movement, 2-3 sets each, to the beginning of the clients conditioning day.

You get the idea.

And that's how you build amazing shoulders. Get strong at pressing 2x/week in the 5-15 range. From there, add volume as needed through delt fly variations.

Need a fully customized training + nutrition plan and expert coaching through the process of building your best body composition ever? Click here now to apply for online coaching with me.

You're reading this because you haven't been able to achieve the body composition that you want.

You've already ruled out "not working hard enough" as the issue... because let's be real. You work your ass off in the gym. Consistency and effort aren't the problem.

If this sounds like you, the gap between where your body is at and where you want it to be can be bridged by fixing a few simple nutrition mistakes you're undoubtedly making. 

Ready to learn the nutritional keys to building your best body composition ever?

Let's dive in.

#1: You’re Under-Eating Carbs

Like we've already talked about, you train hard. 

I work with many online clients coming from the exact same situation as you...

Many start coaching following a higher intensity modality of training (e.g. Crossfit). They're working their asses off, but the results aren't reflected in the mirror.

The most common mistake new clients like this are making?

Under-eating carbs.

The paleo diet has really rode CrossFit's wave of popularity, and become the go-to nutrition approach for many CrossFitters, along with many non-CrossFitters but health-seeking/hard training individuals.

And look, eating most whole foods is smart.

The problem is, the paleo diet is usually one that's relatively low carb. 

To understand why this is a problem, you need to gain a quick understanding of your energy systems...

So, if you look closely at the energy system that creates energy for the majority of intense activity from ~15-60 seconds (the anaerobic-lactic system), you'll see that it's fueled by carbs.

If your goal is to build your leanest, strongest body composition, a good amount of your training will be fueled by this energy system.

A lower carb approach means that this energy system will essentially be "short on fuel" - you ability to train intensely will suffer. As a result, you'll continue to struggle achieving the levels of performance & adding the lean muscle needed for the physique you want.

This is a common mistake made by both women and men, and is exactly why most of my online clients undergoing the body recomposition process are typically following a higher carb approach.

Not only are carbs are your body's preferred fuel source for training, but they also aids your recovery and ability to build more lean muscle.

Carbs stimulate the release of the hormone insulin in your body. Insulin has an inverse relationship with cortisol (the stress hormone), meaning that as insulin increases, cortisol decreases.

Cortisol is a catabolic hormone - it's primary role is breaking things down for energy. Now, while cortisol isn't "bad" (like all things, it's very context dependent), spending too much time in a catabolic state will of course hinder your ability to build lean muscle.

Due to the insulin and cortisol relationship, adding more carbs to your diet can help get your body out of a catabolic state, and recovering better/quicker.

#2: You’re Overeating Fat

To clear up any confusion that could arise from this headline...

You absolutely need some fats for health. 

Most of us should be chasing at least .3-.4g/lb of fat daily.

But here's the problem... 

With the paleo movement came a fixation on healthy fats... but many of us have forgotten that even healthy fats still contain calories.

No matter how clean and/or full of healthy fats your diet is, you still have to control calories to lose fat.

If you’re eating clean, but still struggling to lose weight, you’re probably making the same mistake I've made in the past - forgetting the importance of calories.

So while keeping fat in your diet is essential for your health, it’s important to understand that eating LOTS of fat-dense foods will rack up the calories quickly, as fat is the most calorie-dense macro.

Often people struggling to lose fat will be eating lots of things like:

- Grassfed butter

- Natural nut butter

- Almonds

- Olive oil

- Fatty grassfed beef

- Grassfed, pasture raised, preservative-free bacon

Again, there’s nothing wrong with these foods. They are a great source of healthy fats. But... healthy fats or not - you still have to control calories to get lean.

#3: You're Neglecting Nutrient Timing

Nutrient timing is something that's been looked down upon in the fitness industry as "unimportant".

And look, it's straight up NOT as important for changing your body composition as your overall macros and calories. 

But, how you time your nutrients does have a big impact on your training performance and recovery. Over the course of a few months, a lot of shitty workout + sub-optimal recovery VS. a lot of well-fueled workouts + optimal recovery = a big difference in your body composition.

So, for online clients like you with calories, macros, and food quality on lock, here are my recommendations:

—> Protein Timing Across The Day - It's true that calories are the primary driver of weight loss or weight gain. But for optimal lean muscle growth, you need to consider muscle protein synthesis (MPS).

Muscle protein synthesis is basically the process of your body turning dietary protein into actual lean muscle.

Consuming protein (with the most optimal amount being 25-50g) increases muscle protein synthesis for ~3-6 hours.

So, to maximally stimulate muscle protein synthesis through your day, it's most optimal to spread your protein (and meals) across 4-6 meals, with 25-50g protein at each.

—> Pre-Workout Meal - What you eat pre-workout is key for kick-starting the recovery process, and helps fuel your body through intense training.

To prevent as much muscle protein breakdown (the opposite process of muscle protein synthesis - muscle protein is being broken down) as possible, and create optimal circumstances for recovery/growth, you should consume ~25-50g of protein in this meal. If you really don't have the option to eat a pre-workout meal (e.g. you workout super early), I'd recommend at least drinking a protein shake before hand. This will digest very quickly, and shouldn't give you issues.

If you have time to allow the meal to digest pre-workout (>1 hour), adding ~25-50 grams carbs to the mix is smart. A mix of carbs from starch and fruit gives you a combo of faster and slower releasing carbs to fuel you through the workout.

We want to avoid too much fat in this meal, because it will slow digestion, and have you feeling sluggish during your training.

A solid pre-workout meal could look something like:

- Greek yogurt (slow digesting protein)

- Whey protein (fast digesting protein)

- Oatmeal (starchy carb)

- Berries (carb from fruit)

Typically, you'll feel best eating this 1-2 hours before you workout. I like to split the difference here and go with 1.5 hours pre-workout. Eating this meal too close to your workout will have you lifting with food still digesting in your belly, making you feel sluggish.

—> Post-Workout Meal - As far as protein, aim to eat another ~25-50g of protein within an hour post-workout (as it will have been about 3 hours from your previous bolus of protein at this point).

With carbs, insulin sensitivity is highest post-workout. (Basically, your body will most efficiently use carbs for muscle-building purposes at this time.) So it makes sense to time lots of fast-digesting carbs post workout (e.g. white rice, spotted bananas). This is the most important time to consume carbs, as far as timing goes - so if your carbs are limited on a diet, putting most of them here is smart.

On a similar note, an intense training session will trigger a stress response. Basically, when you experience stress, cortisol (the stress hormone we talked about earlier) rises and your nervous system enters a sympathetic state or “fight-or-flight mode”. In this state, your brain perceives an imminent threat, and slows or stops all bodily processes but the most vital to either “fighting or fleeing”. This means processes crucial to your recovery - food digestion, hormone production, and muscle growth itself - are slowed or essentially stopped.

So obviously, to optimize recovery, you want to get out of a sympathetic state as fast as possible post-workout, and get into the parasympathetic or “rest and digest” state. Here, your body focuses on nutrient absorption, repairing damaged tissues, etc.

The beauty of timing your carbs intra/post-workout like this is, carbs help decrease cortisol levels. So consuming carbs post workout will help you create a better environment for building lean muscle.

Similar to the pre-workout meal, we want to keep fat low here. Fat would slow your body's ability to digest the nutrients you just took in.

—> Pre-Bed Meal - Now, sleep is a crucial part of your body actually being able to make build muscle & burn fat. Eating too close to bed will slightly disrupt your sleep quality, but we also want your body to have some protein available throughout the night. ~1 hour before bed, eat 25-50g protein from a slow digesting source (casein powder, greek yogurt, cottage cheese).

So to wrap all of this up simply:

Once you have calories, macros, and food quality of point, you can focus on making the meals around your workout are high protein, high carb, and low fat. The meal(s) further from your workout are still high protein, but higher fat and lower carb.

#4: You're Focusing Too Much On Specific Foods, And Not Enough On Calories/Macros

Look, you only need to check one box in order to lose fat...

✔ You must be eating fewer calories than you're burning.

So while calories aren't the only thing that matter... if you're eating more calories than you burn in a day, you won't be able to lose fat.

The biggest mistake most people who can't achieve a great body composition are making?

Focusing on eating all of "the right foods" associated with a specific diet, supplements, etc... but forgetting to account for how many calories they're eating.

Am saying that calories are all that matter?

Nope.

Consume adequate protein, fats, and carbs (the macros) is also a vital part of building a great body. 

And food quality is important for obtaining the nutrients that you need for health + appetite control.

That said, if you're only focusing on eating "healthy foods", but forgetting to account for your calories & macros, you'll struggle to achieve the body you want.

#5: You're Not Leaving Room For Flexibility In Your Diet

On the initial strategy call with new online clients, I have a conversation weekly that goes something like this...

Prospective client: "Yeah, I've been trying to follow  ____ diet. It works great for me. Every time I follow it I lose 20lbs."

Me: "So why do you stop following it?"

Prospective client: "Oh it's hard to sustain. I normally start to miss ___(food the diet doesn't allow), so I fall off the wagon, before eventually restarting after gaining back the weight."

Me: "So is ____ diet it really 'working for you', or is it just failing you over and over?"

Prospective client:"..."

Look, I'm definitely not part of the crowd that thinks that any form of pushing yourself, being disciplined, or creating restrictions for yourself is "bad".

But the reality is, diets that put too many foods "off limits" are impossible for most of us to stick to long-term.

Now, don't get it twisted - the reality of the society we live in is, it’s way too easy to overeat.

There's a reason you don't see thousands of people walking around with lean, strong bodies every day. Most of the highly-processed food we eat is designed to be hyper-palatable. It's engineered in a lab to make us crave more.

Pair this with the fact that most highly-processed foods are also very calorie-dense and low on nutrients, and you have a combination that makes stay lean quite a challenge.

This is why I suggest that my online clients make 80-90% of their food whole foods.

In the simplest terms, 80-90% of your food should have either:

a.) Grown from the earth

b.) Had a face at one point

These are packed with nutrients that will make your body feel amazing, and aid your training performance and recovery. They'll also keep you full much longer than their highly-processed counterparts.

Essentially, eating 80-90% whole foods makes building and maintaining a lean, strong body MUCH easier.

People make dieting A LOT harder by choosing foods that do very little to fight hunger. My online clients focus on chasing more satiating, higher volume foods, and it makes a big difference for getting and staying lean.

But with the other 10-20% of your food intake, it's SMART to enjoy some "flexible foods".

As long as you're eating mostly whole-foods, you won't have a problem with insane cravings or constant overeating. Your fat loss will come much easier, and you'll feel great.

This means you can use an if it fits your macros (IIFYM) approach the other 10-20% of your diet, without hurting your results, or your health.

10-20% IIFYM means that you can use these calories and macros to eat and drink whatever you want. Beer, ice cream, chips and queso... seriously, whatever.

As long as you still make these foods work in your calorie and macro goals, your results and health won't be affected. 

This is a big part of what I do within nutrition coaching to help online clients create a sustainable lifestyle for the first time ever, instead of temporary results. One of the coolest things ever is helping clients realize they can still enjoy the foods they want, and maintain a great body composition.

If you want to learn more about a lifestyle-focused approach to nutrition, I highly recommend you check out my ebook The Lifestyle Diet.

#6: You Don't Have Anyone Holding You Accountable To Your Nutrition

Story time...

A few years ago, I was the fat personal trainer.

Despite countless hours in the gym, I still didn't even look like I worked out.

I was already a personal trainer at this point, and I felt like a fraud. How could I expect my programs to get my clients good results? I couldn't even get myself in shape...

Now, the reasons behind me not looking the part were multifaceted. But the main cause...?

I was inconsistent with my nutrition.

My macros would be on point Sunday - Thursday.

But Friday and Saturday, I would cut loose a bit (a lot). 

I wouldn't track my drinks, or most of the food I ate on Friday & Saturday evenings.

This had me in a very frustrating place... I felt like I was dieting all week, but was never able to get as lean as I wanted. 

This frustration was actually what led me to hiring my first nutrition coach.

I was ready to learn "the secret" to getting lean.

To my surprise, he prescribed me nearly the EXACT macro targets that I had set before we started working together.

I was skeptical... but actually started losing fat rapidly over the next few weeks. 

The difference here?

He held me accountable to planning ahead + tracking all of my food daily. Plus, I'm the type of person that HATES letting my coach down. So knowing that I would have to drop my macros into an accountability tracker daily made me 100x more adherent to the plan.

Since then, I always have a coach to structure my training and nutrition, because I know I thrive with the constant accountability.

I've coached a long list of other coaches online since (swipe through to see a few of their results)...

...and every time the same lesson rings true, whether you're a coach, or someone that just loves training:

Most of us know what we SHOULD be doing to get the results we want, but we're missing the accountability & structure needed to make it happen.

It's time to get more structured, more consistent, and finally achieve your best body composition ever.

Click here now to apply for online coaching with me.

Want to start making real progress in the gym again?

It starts with you taking a smarter approach to programming movement.

You could train all-out for years, and never achieve the body composition you want.

The problem?

You never took the time to understand how to program the right movements, at the right times.

On the flipside, with a solid understanding of the 5 foundational movement patterns you should be building your training program around, you suddenly have a simple, effective framework for a functionally strong + aesthetic body. 

Ready to learn the framework you need to start seeing change in the gym again?

Let's dive into it.

Understanding The System

These five patterns you're about to learn are always the foundation I build my online clients training programs around. They're essential to helping you achieve your most functionally strong, aesthetic body composition ever.

The beauty of this approach is, as long as you're training...

1. A knee dominant movement

2. A hip dominant movement

3. An upper body push

4. An upper body pull

5. A core movement

...you've trained every major muscle group in your body.

So building your training days around this framework ensures that you're distributing volume as needed to truly create your best body composition ever. (For templates on exactly how to program these patterns into different training splits, check out this blog.) 

Pattern #1: Knee Dominant

Here, you're training patterns primarily centered around movement at the knee joint. 

These are primarily going to be quad-dominant, but will also work some glutes & hamstrings, and often some core. 

Most often, this will be a squat or lunge pattern. 

—> Important Consideration: Unilateral Work

There are tons of different variations we can program here, both bilateral (using both legs at the same time) and unilateral (using only one leg at a time).

One of the biggest issues in most people's knee dominant movement selection is a glaring lack of single-leg work. 

I've found this to be especially true for online clients coming from a CrossFit style of programming...they'll back squat and front squat multiple times per week but spend very little time (if any) working on single leg strength.

To build a body composition that's both functionally strong & aesthetically pleasing, you need some single-leg work programmed into your training. 

From the functional standpoint - most people develop imbalances training bilaterally too often (one leg becomes stronger than the other) which leads to pain and an inability to train intensely enough to build the strength or aesthetics you want.

Plus, if you're aiming to build a body that's truly a weapon, the ability to do things with one leg is a must. 

This is exactly why my online clients always get a steady dose of single-leg work in their training programs... it's just too important to skip.

—> A few knee dominant variations it'd be smart to build your program around (choose 1-2 bilateral, 1-2 unilateral to progress for multiple mesocycles/training phases):

Bilateral

- High Bar Back Squat

- Front Squat

- Safety Bar Squat

- Landmine Squat

- Machine Hack Squat

- Landmine Hack Squat

- Foam Roller Hack Squat

- Cyclist Squat

- Leg Press

Unilateral

- Dumbbell/Barbell Walking Lunge

- Dumbbell/Barbell Bulgarian Split Squat

- Dumbbell/Barbell Front Foot Elevated Split Squat 

- Safety Bar Bulgarian Split Squat

Pattern #2: Hip Dominant

Here, you're training patterns focused on movement at the hip joint. 

These are primarily going to be glute and hamstring dominant, but train some quads, and often core as well.

This will most often be a "hinge" pattern. 

In comparison to the squat/knee dominant movement pattern, the hip dominant movement pattern often gets neglected. Many have been misled to believe the knee dominant movements are good glute builders (e.g. back squats for glutes), which really isn't often the case... but leads people to neglecting the movements that are actually great glute and hamstring builders (hip dominant movements). 

—> Important Consideration: Low Back Stress

One of the main issues most run into with hip dominant movements? 

Many create a relatively large amount of stress on the lower back. Anecdotally, most online clients have a pretty limited tolerance for movements that put a lot of strain on the lower back, before running into issues with low back pain. 

So this is something we want to take into consideration when creating your program. More on this below.

—> Important Consideration: Stimulus-To-Fatigue Ratio

Similar to the above, it's important to realize that some hip dominant movements are very fatiguing.

If your weekly dose of these very fatiguing movements is too high, you'll hit a "fatigue ceiling" before being able to apply enough weekly stimulus to the muscle to grow... your body will feel smashed, but you also won't have created enough muscular fatigue to encourage your body to grow.

To illustrate this point, let's compare and contrast a Conventional Barbell Deadlift vs. a Barbell Romanian Deadlift.

- Conventional Deadlift: Likely your strongest lift - it allows you to pull A LOT of weight, and is also very fatiguing. 

That said, the muscle building stimulus provided from the amount of fatigue generated isn't that high (a Barbell Deadlift from the floor is essentially an isometric for your upper back, your hamstrings never reach their fully stretch position, and there's no "concentric" component - which is very important for muscle growth - as most people essentially just drop the weight).

So, a lot of fatigue, but not that much stimulus as far as building muscle goes.

- Romanian Deadlift: You achieve a much greater range of motion, and a maximal stretch on the hamstrings with this movement. There's also a strong focus on the negative portion of the lift. 

But, the weight you lift + the load on your spine is much less. So the movement has a lower "fatigue cost" but likely creates more "stimulus" for most.

If you've done both of the movements, you'll know - your glutes and hamstrings straight up just feel much more "disrupted" after a Romanian Deadlift

Now, this isn't at all to say that you shouldn't do conventional deadlifts, but it's important to think about the fatigue costs you're racking up when programming them.

For example, let's say you're following a 6x/week Upper/Lower/Upper/Lower/Upper/Lower split. 

High fatigue, low stimulus programming for your main hinge pattern would look like:

- Lower Day 1: Conventional Deadlift

- Lower Day 2: Sumo Deadlift

- Lower Day 3: Conventional Deadlift

Smart fatigue management for your hinge pattern would look something like:

- Lower Day 1: Conventional Deadlift

- Lower Day 2: Barbell Hip Thrust and/or Glute Dominant Back Extension

- Lower Day 3: Romanian Deadlift

This is another thing that many modalities of training like CrossFit often get wrong, and it absolutely kills your ability to change your body, while leaving you feeling smashed in the process.

—> Important consideration: Many lunge patterns can be made into a hip dominant hybrid

By focusing on intent, many of our lunge variations become great movements for glute/hamstring development. 

For my online clients chasing functional aesthetics, this is one of my favorite ways to kill two birds with one stone, as you're now training the oft neglected glutes/hamstrings + adding in more single leg work.

Cues to think about here:

- You want to achieve a bigger stretch on the glutes and hamstrings. A forward lean + focusing on initiating the movement by pushing your hips back is helpful here.

- One the way up, focus on driving your weight through your front heel + extending at the hips (think: pushing your hips up/forward towards your knee) instead of extending at the knee (pushing your knee back toward the hips). Since your glutes and hamstrings are primarily responsible for hip extension, this will make the movement more hip dominant.

—> A few hip dominant variations it'd be smart to build your program around (choose 1-2 bilateral to progress for multiple mesocycles/training phases):

Bilateral

- Sumo Deadlift

- Barbell Deadlift

- Barbell Elevated Deadlift

- Trap Bar Deadlift

- Barbell/Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift

- Barbell Hip Thrust

- Glute Focused Back Extension

- Landmine Romanian Deadlift

- Glute/Ham Raise

Unilateral

- Rear Foot Elevated Romanian Deadlift

- Single Leg Romanian Deadlift

- Single Leg Landmine Romanian Deadlift

- Staggered Stance Romanian Deadlift

- Dumbbell/Barbell Reverse Lunge

- Dumbbell/Barbell Deficit Reverse Lunge

- Dumbbell/Barbell Bulgarian Split Squat

- Glute Dominant Lunge

Pattern #3: Upper Body Push

Here, you're training patterns focused on movement at the shoulder joint, and pushing a load away from your body. These are primarily going to be training your chest, shoulders, and triceps.

We can split your upper body push movements up into two variations:

1. Horizontal presses - These will be more "chest dominant", but will also train your front delts (the front of your shoulders) and triceps.

2. Vertical presses - These will be more shoulder dominant, but will also train a good amount of triceps, and some chest (varying depending on your torso angle). 

It's incredibly unlikely that you're not including some upper body pushing in your training, and for good reason. If you're chasing an aesthetically pleasing body composition, a strong chest and well-developed shoulders are a must.

—> Important Consideration: Ratio Of Horizontal To Vertical Pushing

Here's the thing when it comes to pressing... most of us can horizontal press with ease. But, many of us are lacking the prerequisite mobility to press vertically too often. 

I've also found that many online clients simply can't handle more than 6-8 hard sets of vertical pressing per week before their shoulder joints start to feel beat up. Most of our bodies just can't hold up to lots of vertical pressing every week.

Plus, we have to consider that while horizontal presses do a great job of stimulating both the chest and front delts... vertical presses do a pretty shit job of stimulating the chest. 

So, if you're doing lots of vertical pressing, the "rate limiter" for your horizontal presses will be your delt fatigue... NOT chest fatigue, like we would want. (Basically, too much vertical pressing can hinder your ability to stimulate your chest, but lots of horizontal pressing won't hinder your ability to stimulate your shoulders.)

All of this means that it's likely a good idea for most of you to devote the majority of your pushing volume (number of hard sets) to horizontal presses, and keep the vertical presses limited to ~4-8 sets/week. 

—> Important consideration: Dumbbell work

In my opinion, dumbbells are the single best training tool for someone like you, who's chasing functional aesthetics. 

Barbells are great for adding load (and don't get it twisted, they're a big piece of many of my online client's programs), but they also keep you locked in one specific position as you press. This becomes a problem, because this position often causes irritation or pain for online clients with banged up shoulders (a.k.a. 90% of us). 

The beautiful thing about dumbbells is, they allow much more customization in your pushing. You have more free movement, and can experiment with which positions feel best for your unique anatomy and injury history.

For most chasing a functionally strong, aesthetic physique, limiting barbell presses to 1-2 variations per week, and devoting the rest of the pushes to dumbbell work is a good rule of thumb. 

—> A few upper body push horizontal push variations it'd be smart to build your program around (choose 1-2 to progress for multiple mesocycles/training phases):

Bilateral

- Barbell/Dumbbell Bench Press

- Barbell/Dumbbell Low Incline Bench Press

- Barbell/Dumbbell Incline Bench Press

- Barbell/Dumbbell Floor Press

- Dips/Weighted Dips

Unilateral

- 1-Arm Dumbbell Low Incline Bench

- Dumbbell Alternating Incline Press

- 1-Arm Floor Press

—> A few upper body vertical push variations it'd be smart to build your program around (choose 1-2 to progress for multiple mesocycles/training phases):

Bilateral

- Barbell/Dumbbell Standing Overhead Press

- Barbell/Dumbbell Seated Shoulder Press

- Barbell Push Press

- Dumbbell Arnold Press

- Barbell/Dumbbell Z-Press

- Viking Press

Unilateral

- ½ Kneeling 1-Arm Dumbbell Press

- ½ Kneeling Landmine Press

- Dumbbell Standing 1-Arm Shoulder Press

- ½ Kneeling Filly Press

Pattern #4: Upper Body Pull

Here, you're training patterns centered around movement of the shoulder blades and shoulder joint, and pulling a load towards your body/pulling your body towards a bar (e.g. a pull-up bar). These are primarily going to be training your back and biceps.

Similar to pushing, you can split your pulling movements into two different variations:

1. Horizontal Pulls

2. Vertical Pulls

—> Important consideration: Execution

Your back is made up of a plethora of muscles. But generally with your pulling work, you're focusing on targeting either your Lats or your Rhomboids...

Both vertical and horizontal pulls can be both lat focused or rhomboid focused, depending on your execution of the movement.

For example...

- A pulldown will be more lat focused if you stay relatively upright, and focus on driving the elbows low to the hips (if you look at the picture above, you'll see that this would lead to the lat muscles shortening).

- A pulldown will be more rhomboid focused if you lean back, flare your elbows, and focus on driving your elbows back + squeeze your shoulder blades (if you look at the picture above, you'll see that this would lead to the rhomboid muscles shortening).

- A dumbbell row will be more lat focused if you focus on driving your elbow low to your hip as you row the weight up.

- A dumbbell row will be more rhomboid focused if you allow your elbow to flare more, and focus on pulling your shoulder blade back as you row.

...you get the idea. 

Now, while the specific ratio of rhomboid to lat focused pulling movements depends highly on you as an individual, most will build their best physique with a relatively balanced blend of both.

—> Important Consideration: Most Have Neglected Training Their Backs

Similar to our conversation earlier about how most people have spent significantly more time time training their quads (accidentally or not) than glutes and hamstrings, most individuals have also spent more time training the more visible muscle of the upper body - the push muscles (chest, delts), and neglected their back. With online clients, I've found this to be very true for both men and women alike.

This can lead to some imbalances, and often pain when pressing. The cure for most is a steady dose of lots of pulling movements.

—> A few horizontal pull variations it'd be smart to build your program around (choose 2-3 to progress for multiple mesocycles/training phases):

Bilateral

- Barbell Bent Row

- Dumbbell Chest Supported Row

- Dumbbell Seal Row

- T-Bar Row

- Smith Machine Row

- Trap Bar Row

- Head Supported Dumbbell Row

- Helms Row

Unilateral

- 1-Arm Dumbbell Row

- 1-Arm Barbell Row

- Meadows Row

- 1-Arm T-Bar Row

Pattern #5: Core

Here, you're training patterns focused on movement at the spine or resisting movement at the spine.

—> Important Consideration: Proper Programming

It takes a special type of programming achieve functional core strength and stability along with the looks. We want to move and feel just as good as we look.

Because you're chasing both aesthetics and performance.

Now, if your training is anything like most online clients before starting coaching, you’ve probably done lots of crunches and leg raises… and not much else.

The problem?

While this focus on strictly spinal flexion movements (think: crunch & reverse crunch or leg raise variations - you're "flexing at the spine") is fine for building up your "6-pack muscle" (the Rectus Abdominis, which is the visible layer of muscle we consider our “abs”) - your core is many more muscles than just the Rectus Abdominis.

So by only training spinal flexion, you're not training most of the muscles that help resist movement.

As you see, only training your Rectus Abdominis leaves a lot on the table when it comes to developing a truly functional core.

Neglecting the rest of the core manifests itself as trouble stabilizing your trunk, and often low back pain when doing movements like squats and deadlifts. This leaves you unable to get functionally strong and build the lean, athletic body you want. 

To feel your strongest and most confident, you need to follow a smarter core programming protocol.

—> Important consideration: Training Your Core For Aesthetics

Let’s start by breaking down how to train your abs for looks. When we talk of building you a strong and aesthetic core - this is primarily the aesthetics portion of your training.

You’re focusing on spinal flexion, which means the aesthetics portion of your training consists of:

- Leg Raise, Knee Raise, and Reverse Crunch variations

- Sit-Up and Crunch variations

Like every other muscle group, you’re best suited to stick to the 5-30 rep ranges most of the time when training abs, and pursue "effective reps" (most of your sets need to be within a few reps of failure).

—> A few spinal flexion variations it'd be smart to build your program around (choose 1-2 to progress for multiple mesocycles/training phases):

Crunch Variations

- Cable Crunch

- Weighted Crunch

- Decline Crunch

- Weighted Decline Crunch

- V-Ups

- Reaching Sit-Up

- Sicilian Crunch

Reverse Crunch Variations

- Reverse Crunch

- Decline Reverse Crunch

- Hanging Knee Raise

- Hanging Straight Leg Raise

- Strict Toes-To-Bar

—> Important consideration: Training Your Core Performance

Now, we’re training your core for strength and performance.

This portion of your training takes you from just looking good, to a truly weaponized body. Your core is geared up for functional strength and performance. 

We're using the term anti-movement training to encompass all of the other core movements and muscle groups you don’t hit when you’re training your rectus abdominis. 

—> A few anti-movement variations it'd be smart to build your program around (for your strongest, most function core, progress at least one variation from 2/3 of the categories below across a mesocycle):

Anti-Extension (Here, you’re working to resist extension at the spine)

- Ab Wheel

- TRX Fallout

- Renegade Row

- Hollow Body Sweep

- Hollow Body Flutter Kick

- Hollow Body Holds

- LLPT Planks

- Modified Candlestick

- Slider Body Saws

Anti-Rotation (The goal here is to resist rotation at the spine)

- Anti-Rotation Dead Bugs

- Pallof Press Holds

- Renegade Row

- Swiss Ball Stir-The-Pot

- Birddog Row

- ½ Kneeling Push/Pull

- Landmine Bus Driver

Anti-Lateral Flexion (Here, you’re working to resist bending sideways at the spine)

- KB Bottoms Up + Farmers Walk

- Chaos Farmer’s Walk

- Suitcase Carries

- Farmer Carries

- Zercher Carries

- Side Planks

- Side Plank + Row

Putting It All Together 

From here, you can add in accessory work and variation as needed depending on your current goals, weakness, or specific muscles you want to build. But consider these 5 patterns, the "foundational staples" you should always be focused on progressing weekly. 

You have the framework, now it's time to apply what you've learned, and go build an absolute weapon of a body, that looks great as well.

If you'd rather take the guesswork out of the process, and have a coach build you a customized, science-backed program based on the principles in this blog, click here now to apply for online coaching with me.