Training Program 2

Here is the second program I’ll share with you. First download is PDF, second is MS Office / Libre Office:

This program is for the busy or advanced man, who profits from lower frequency and who can properly contract his muscles. For women, this probably isn’t the right program, as they can’t contract as hard, recover faster due to their lower muscle mass as well as the first factor, and because they can handle more volume.

Again, take a week off before and after this program to reduce the negative effect of fatigue. If you don’t take these breaks and then wonder why you’re feeling like crap, then fuck you because you deserve it.

I know some people claim to workout every day, but those people either train like suckers, barely progress, and have chronically low testosterone levels, which are common in athletes who train frequently as well. If they have amazing genetics, and only in that case, they will avoid injuries and put on some muscle in their lifetime.

I would not recommend training more than 4 times a week, except to shock your body for a short while, such as Phase 1 of my last program.

You will be doing a 2 training days per week routine, consisting of an A workout and a B workout, both full-body days, though with different exercises and a different focus.

The more experience I gain in training, the more I realize that training is not the biggest factor to muscle growth. I would say that the more you rest (abstain from stressful activity and anything that tires your nervous system out), the more you will gain, assuming, of course, that you do in fact train once in a while with adequate intensity.

Think about the most muscular animals, they couldn’t handle constantly moving around. Instead, they have very brief maximal activity followed by enough rest. I once watched a lion and a tiger fight and after 2 minutes of something surpassing a Tyson fight in intensity, both were so tired they had to lie down without even being able to walk away from each other. After resting, they probably went to eat something.

Crocodiles and alligators do something similar, elephants don’t count as they are herbivores and carry mostly fat. Horses and cows don’t count as they were bred for millenia and are fed specific unnatural and unhealthy diets, but in the wild, both wouldn’t move around constantly, either.

So, let’s get to the program:

Day A

I – Bent Calf Raise – 3 sets

M – Hip Warmup
M – Spine Warmup

I – Deadlift – 3 sets
V – Bulgarian Split Squat – 2 sets/

M – Shoulder Warmup
M – Elbow Warmup

I – Deep Rotating Pullup/Chinup – 3 sets
V – Shoulder Raise – 2 sets

V – Trapezius Row – 2 sets

Day B

I – Straight Calf Raise – 3 sets

M – Hip Warmup
M – Spine Warmup

I – Leg Curl – 3 sets
V – Zercher Squat – 2 sets

M – Shoulder Warmup
M – Elbow Warmup

V – Face Pull – 2 sets
I – Deep Rotating Dip (on a straight bar) – 3 sets

V – Serratus Cable Press – 2 sets

Suitable rep ranges would be:

I – 3-6 reps, RPE of 8/8/9, tempo of 1-0-2

V – 7-10 reps, RPE of 9/10, tempo of 1-2-3

M – Anything that warms up your joints and prepares you for a difficult set.

Points to clear up:

1. I stands for intensity, meaning you go heavy. V stands for volume, so you do slightly more reps. M stands for minimal, so you just warmup and stay away from failure.
2. You can split up the training within the day, perhaps doing legs in the AM, upper body in the PM. Or don’t do legs at all, if you already use them in your work or cardio, I don’t care.
3. Rotating Deep Pullup means that you pull the bar all the way to your stomach, which will require not just pulling upwards, but also rotating around the bar a little bit, like in a muscle up. This movement trains the lats in a massive range of motion and the rotation involves the traps more.
4. Rotating Deep Dip does not mean that you go as far into the stretched position as possible on a parallel dip, that could be risky. Instead, you should rotate around the (straight) bar in the stretched position, increasing the range of motion, also like in a muscle up.
5. The overhead press is in my opinion not a natural movement pattern and is overrated. I have put it into programs before, but this one definitely doesn’t need it.
6. The extensive warmups are due to the lower rep numbers used in this routine and because the workout would be over too fast for most people’s taste. It is also a chance to activate weaker muscle groups that help prevent injuries.
7. I personally might do Abductor and Adductor Plate Pushes as a hip warmup and high rep crunches and back extensions as spine warmup. My fucked up knees are taken care of by the hip warmup, the calf and the hamstring exercise.
8. Furthermore, I do light band extensions and curls as elbow warmup and as a shoulder warmup I do some overhead shrugs or lateral raises (theoretically the Face Pull takes care of the side delts, I actually don’t believe in training them) and upper chest activation exercises, see my article about the Monk Pushup.
9. Rest periods should be rather long, except between and after warmups, naturally.
10. You can replace some exercises, if you feel the need to, but make sure you train all muscle groups properly, I made sure nothing is left out when I wrote the program.
11. For some reason my forearms grew more on this routine than on anything else I’ve ever done, although there were no exercises included for them. Guess they don’t necessarily require direct training. And that’s from someone with long arms, who always had shitty forearms and weak wrists.
12. Every intensity exercise is done for 3 sets, not going to muscular failure, the volume exercises are done for 2 sets, with the second one going to failure. Choose either 1 or 2 exercises for every warmup category, maybe superset them so you don’t waste too much time. You should do just one set of every M exercise to warm your joints up, e.g. doing 30 reps. This means you will be doing 15 working sets per workout.
13. In order to progress, you will at first use linear periodization, so add weight when you can do all sets for the number of reps specified as the top of the range. Once the linear gains stall out, which should be around 3-6 weeks, I see 2 conflicting ways of continuing:
14. Change the exercises and lower the frequency at which you do these workouts. Instead of 2 workouts a week, do 2 in 8 days, or 2 in 9 days etc, trying to get closer to failure or beyond. This is the HIT route.
15. Increase the number of reps per set gradually by say 3 reps per set total, then add sets and apply linear progression again, add sets again etc. This is the HVT route, choose whichever will probably work better aka. which one you haven’t done in longer.

If the program is not working for you, here’s a list I copied from my last Training Program Article you can find below:

1. Use a calendar the next time someone tells you to wait a week before doing something.
2. If you did rest a week before starting the program, consider resting a month, maybe you´re really stressed out.
3. Learn how to sleep properly, that means catching up on sleep, darkening the room, no sounds, maybe even turn off electric devices. Don´t eat big meals before bed or high-fat meals even hours before bed. Note that 8 hours after drinking coffee 50% of the caffeine is still active in your body.
4. Learn how to eat properly, that means make sure you eat enough calories and protein (you don’t need a gram a pound, though!) and that your muscles are filled with glycogen before working out and that you´re filling the glycogen stores after training by eating carbs.
5. Note that you should not be doing intense strength training if you have depression. You can´t expect any gains if you ignore that.
6. Get your testosterone levels tested, preferably by a doctor.
7. You might be going either too hard or not hard enough on the sets. Be honest to yourself about this.
8. Add a rest day into the training cycle, or even 2. Simply postpone the workouts.
9. If all else fails, consider removing yourself from the gene pool.