If you find yourself reading this and thinking, ”Wait, I’ve read this before”. It’s because you have. This is a repost to my alt account and i took down all my old posts on my main account so they are no longer accessible. Some guys were asking me in my other post, "Year in Review, 9 months of TRP" what my workout regiment was so here it is reposted.

I'd like to state quickly that sleep is a huge factor on gains. I only talk about it a little but in this very long thread. But is should be up there with getting form right on day one.

The whole focus of this post is on intensity level more than specific routines or lifts. When I'm cutting, I'm boarderline about to throw up pretty much the entire time I'm lifting. I'm not the guy that does a lift and chills for 2 minutes. That's fine for bulking but when you cut, you need to be killing yourself if you want to get sub 10%.


Summary

First thing you need to know about me is I'm lazy as fuck. We'll actually I'd call it efficient. Part of my day job is to make shit run faster, smoother and better, that's what I do. I find the easiest way to do the most work possible. I bust my ass in the less amount of effort required. I love and hate hard work. This guide is not bruce Lee levels of intense or going to get you jacked like a navy seal. But It will get you stronger and bigger with very little focus on having to counting your caloric intake and macro-nutrient and all that other bullshit most newbies are clueless about anyways. It's a very straight forward approach to lifting for new guys and I'd call it more of a game plan rather than a regiment or routine. I wrote this into 3 separate evolutions of my workout through the 6 months so you can probably take away something from this whether you found TRP last night or have been lifting for a while.

The key to my workout is intensity. The most efficient way to get big and strong in a short time frame is to work your ass off as hard as possible, as long as you possibly can go. I love supersets and burnouts.


I'm 6'2"

Me at 175

190-195 6 months later. 25 years old

My Background

Roids, never done them.

Mom was an all state sprinter, Dad was an all state swimmer. I grew up in manual labor and only received a desk job about 4 years ago. 7 years ago I was capable of 10 dead hang muscleups and was in the best physically shape of my life. I attribute a lot of this weight gain to muscle memory and the fact that I kill myself when i hit the gym. While i believe genetics play a role, my dad was 165 6'2" till he was about 30. for the past 10 years I have been 175 without fail. I fluctuated from ripped, Olympic-gymnast-motherfucker 175 to that pathetic 175 top photo you see up above. But i never dropped below 170 or above 180 in 10 years.

Lifting is not something foreign to me.

Diet

Started reading TRP, was in a bad place in my life. I immediately cut out all sugars, pops, candy and fast food and went and got a gym membership the first week. No fast food, it will kill your gains. I can't even eat things like Taco Bell anymore without feeling sick. McDonald's will legitimately make me throw up now.

Started eating as much lean meat as possible, chicken, rabbit, duck, fish, lots of fish. My wallet really dictates my diet but I my last resort is beef. I rarely eat steak.

Stop eating white bread or rice. High grains and brown rice.

Water, tons of water, that's all you should ever drink.

The only things I added to my diet when I started lifting was a 12oz shake of Serious Mass in the breakfast, I use to never eat breakfast. I also started eating a protein bar around 10am and if i could afford it i would bring in fish or a burger for lunch with veggies and rice. Other than that, my daily eating is something like this.

Breakfast

Serious Mass 12oz shake, with a little chocolate syrup cause I'm still a fatty at heart. In the rare occasion i eat cereal it's usually a high fiber, low sugar kind. I can't fully give up sugared food but I severely restrict myself from them.

10am Some kinda fruit, protein bar

Lunch If i eat fast food, it is only ever chick-Fil-A anymore and it's a grilled, not breaded sandwich. I can't help it, their waffle fries at the shit.

Other than that I cook my own burgers, fish or chicken to take in with a veggie, rice or potato

Dinner The exact same as lunch

I just recently bought a juicer and have started making my own juice, however it's been too soon to take note if it's doing anything for me.

Counting Calories and Macronutrients

I don't really count calories or macronutrients. I'm to lazy for that, I know my body and what it's capable of and needs and I adjust it for that. If you have already made the basic cuts to your diet like i have then you probably have a good understanding of what your body needs. From there you can set your baseline of whether you want to gain weight or lose weight.

How You Gaining or losing Weight

It's really this simple, I'm quoting /u/JonKnowsSnow here

Exercise determines body composition, while calories determine weight

That is it. Well I'd submit that to the 80/20 rule actually but we'll get to that in a minute.

/u/GayLubeOil can back me up on this because I've seen him say it time and time again. I don't give a flying fuck if you are a gravedigger for 10 hours then go train to be an Olympic strongman for another 14. If you don't eat more food today than your normal amount you've been eating for a while, you will not gain lbs, simple as that.

Oh Clint_Redwood but I... No, shut up, eat more then come talk to me.

I had to force myself, and i mean force myself to eat more food for the first 2 months or so of my regiment. My stomach would hurt it was so full. You have to do it. You will not gain weight if you do not eat more than your usually, period.

Every person is different. My diet sustains me at 190-195, it might put you to 230 or your metabolism might be so crazy that you can barely break 165 with what I eat. I know a guy who lifts more than me and eat more than me and he struggles to maintain 175. Everyone is different. All you need to do is take note of your normal daily intake and either add something or subtract something to change how much you weigh. It's that simple. You shouldn't even worry about macro nutrients or counting calories till you hit your weight goal and want to start cutting below 10% BF, which is where that 80/20 rule comes back into play. We'll get to that later.

TL;DR How to lose weight

Stop eating as much

The Gym

This is where shit gets real. When i hit the gym I don't fuck around. I have a gym bro i go with but we don't really talk. My regimen changed every 2 months in the 6 months I've been lifting so we will start with month 0-2.

Month 0-2 Gettin my bitch ass into shape (1 hour workout, Monday, Wednesday, Friday)

Gym Rule #1: know your limit. The gym is not a foreign domain to me. I've been lifting since I was 15 and knew my body very well before I started back up 6 months ago.

I however have not done shit for the past 5 years and have become a weak ass bitch. I knew this so my goal starting out was simply to not hurt myself because as much as I miss doing muscle ups, I can't do that shit now without serious risk. During this time I mostly focused on bringing my cardio back up, gaining weight through my extra food intake and building back some of my old strength. I mostly did calisthenics and machines. I rarely did free weights and no benching, squats, presses, deadlifts, etc. No bars of any kind. This is partially because back in my peak I only ever did body weight workout so it was something I was familiar with. Other than that I probably could have done some free weight stuff.

warmup

20min treadmill run 5min walk/5min jog/5min walk/5min jog/cooldown

Machines

Chest machines mostly. I won't name off all my shit but I tried to hit everything that worked my arms and chest. At this stage I wasn't worried about alternating a/b/a or any kind of injuries by doing the same machines. I knew my body could take this and was treating it more as my bootcamp initiation into my gym routine that I was going to be getting into from month 3-4. I would take note to the reps/weight i was doing and every week try to one up myself. That's very important, you need to push yourself harder every week. If you have trouble remembering it in your head, write that shit down and push harder. I'd do a few squat-like machines here and there but i really didn't hit legs until month 3-4. In hindsight i probably should/could have. My lower back was not worked out at all in month 1-2 and i suffered heavily on squat and deadlift form. My legs and chest could easy deadlift 200+ at month 2, but my lower back could barely bring p 155lbs.

Calisthenics

I love body weight workouts. At the end of the day I will do burnouts of dips, pullups and hanging leg raises. Do as many as you can till your bending over in pain from leg raises or your arms give out. Do Not Stop on a burnout till you physically can't do another.

Post workout

I would always end my workout by immediately going to a local bar with my friend and eating chicken wings or going home and cooking fish/chicken. I'd rarely eat beef post workout but I always, always had some kind of protein within on hour after lifting. If i was lazy I'd make a whey protein shake but food is always better.

Month 3-4 bulking (1-1:30 hour workout, Monday, Wednesday, Friday)

This is where shit starts to take off. Same diet, only thing I added here was i started C4 preworkout(1 scoop).

warmup

I started cutting my cardio down to 15min or out completely and would only run maybe once a week. I offset this lack of heart rate by starting to superset a lot of my workout to keep my heart rate up.

Machines

I pretty much cut out all machines except for the pec and chest row machine. Row's are very important, I wish i did more in 0-2 than i did, you'll find out why in a bit.

Free weights

This is where you build compound strength. Free weights work all those micro muscle and stabilizers and all that jazz that you won't get out of just using machines. Don't be surprised if you switch from machines to free weights and all of the sudden can't lift as much as you did on the machine or your arms shake like crazy. The machine use to take care of all that muscle micromanagement you're now feeling. You've essentially taken off the training wheels to your weights. That is all those little muscle you don't even think about being worked out trying to keep the weight balanced. You more than likely will see a dip in performance for a week or two but it will come back hard.

I started doing dumbell shoulder workouts. Any of them will do, I change them up in any kind of set I try.

5x5 Stronglifts

I fucking love stronglifts. This is the bread and butter of my workout right now. I never heard of 5x5s till TRP but I'm damn glad i started them. I'm not going to cover them as there is a ton of material on them out there already but this is my core workout now. In between sets I will superset dumbells or a machine or something. Again, I do very high intense workouts. If i'm not dripping sweat and about to throw up then I'll have a weight in my hand till i do. Don't stop and shoot the shit with your gym bro. Keep lifting.

This is where I hit a hard wall really quick though. I haven't worked out my lower back in 5 years and have been behind a computer for 4. I couldn't squat 135 my first day and my lower back felt like I had been hit with a baseball bat. I seriously fucked up 0-2 by not working my lower back, it set me behind a lot. Month 3-4 was me mostly trying to strengthen my lower back via 5x5's and building my chest up more.

Calisthenics

Same shit as before, burnouts till you die. You should walk out of that gym like you just ran a marathon without ever setting foot on a treadmill. The only thing I changed here is I started to count my leg raises. I started at 4x 25 then add 5 reps or an extra set every week or two. currently I'm at 5x 35. My core workout will start to get really intense from 5-6. I love having a strong core, a lot of lifters neglect it.

Month 5-6 Cutting and strength training (1:30-2:00 hour workout, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Sometimes Sunday)

I guess I should stop lying to you all right about now. I'm sorry brothers but I have a confession. I actually hit 195 in 3 months with this workout. I was so fucking happy after 10 years of 175 that I took a pic the day the scale hit 195(I was aiming for 200 :/ )

3 Months progess at 195

Warmups

By this time I completely cut cardio out of my workout. I’m able to keep up my intensive lifting enough now that it keeps my heartrate at a respectable rate for endurance. About month 5 I started biking but we’ll talk about that in a minute.

This whole 6 months was my intention to just bulk up to 200. I reached 195 in half the time I expected so I decided to reap some of my rewards for the summer and call it good and begin cutting.

If you haven’t been gradually increasing the weights you lift via 5x5 and the intensity level via supersets. Now you're in for an asskicking. At this point my back was strong enough to squat 235 5x easy. I went from 135lbs bench to 205 on my last set for 5x5s(Max 1x 235). All of my 5x5 increased by at least 35lbs. I spent 3-4 doing nothing but upper and lower back. You can actually tell as my chest in the 3 month progress pic looks a bit stronger than my 6 month progress because I focused so heavily on lower and upper back. This is also very important for proper posture. I should note that from day 1 I was doing back workouts, using lumbar supports at work and constantly correcting my posture wherever i was. Good form is critical when lifting, you should do a lot of research on the correct ways to lift. Correct form breeds correct posture.

Diet

At this point you can actually start paying a bit more attention to your carb and calorie intakes. If you haven’t already, you need to start cutting back severely on sugars. Pop should be non existent, you should eat 1 piece of candy a day if that. Cut out as much grease as you can, little to no pizza, cook with olive oil or better. I try to cut back on the amount of bread and potatoes. At this point you only want to be eating enough carbs to get you through the day. You may also read into intermediate fasting to cut a few extra BF%. I currently am not doing IF but i did do it back in high school during my peak and it gave me a very noticeable cut. When cutting I basically just remove about 250-500 calories a day. Aka my breaktime snack or a portion of my meal. I just hit the gym harder to cut off the fat that built up from bulking.

Warmup

Fuck cardio warmups. You are now getting to gym rat levels of fitness. 0 cardio at the gym. If you want cardio, go run around the block or bike(I bike). Your now at the gym for the solo purpose of lifting shit up and putting it down. You ain’t got no time to be staring at the hot chicks ass who’s on the elliptical in front of you while you do you 5 min warmup walk at 3mph.

Lifting

Nah, fuck that. You walk into the gym. Jump on that hanging leg raise make them your bitch and crank out 30 immediately. This will get your heart rate up really quick. Then walk to the first squat rack available while eye fucking it up and down. Remember, never break eye contact. Load up your first set of squats, bust those out and go into a superset of dumbbell shoulder workouts or dumbbell presses. If you didn’t break a sweat in the first 5min of being in the gym, you aren’t pushing hard enough. And you keep this intensity up the entire time.

For safety though, because I know one of you dumbasses will go try to crank out your max on the first set. Your first 10min of lifting should be light weights to warm up your muscles and avoid injury. If I’m squating on my last 5x5 235lbs. My very first squat set will be a quick 135 that i may not even count as a set or 165.

< = Superset

30 leg raises<first 5x5 squat<dumbbells

rest 1-2min

Squat<30 leg raises<dips

rest

repeat for all of your 5x5 workouts. Superset something in between. I usually do a core workout between ever 5x5 set. Keep your heart rate up and bust ass. By the end of it you’ll be walking out of the gym looking like King Leonidas.

Cardio and cutting

At this level of intensity you should be cutting your body fat % fairly well. But some tricks to get it even lower are obviously cut some calories/carbs. Also Intermediate fasting and i recently bought a juicer although i can’t comment on that yet as it's to soon to notice results. I personally just started biking about a month ago and I have seen drastic improvements on my cut from it. Now I know early I said,

Exercise determines body composition, while calories determine weight

But I also said that is subject to the 80/20 rule, and here it is.

Working out will not make you lose weight, diet will. But, once you get to this level of fitness, that 20% will come into play. you won’t be losing 15lbs from biking, but you will be able to cut a few pounds of BF. I went from 195 to currently 190 in the month I’ve been biking with the same exact diet.

I bike 2-3 times a week, 17mi each time. And it ain’t no cruise through the park either. If I’m not falling off the bike at the end of it and gasping for air while I laugh at my friend for being 2 seconds slower, then I didn’t ride hard enough.

Lessons learned

Always increase your weights every week, track your progress.

Eat more if you want to gain more.

When you finish your workout and can look back and describe it as one word,tenacious, you’ve worked out hard enough. If you can’t honestly look at yourself and describe yourself s tenacious, you aren’t pushing hard enough. You don’t get 5% BF by doing yogax or 5x5 alone. You have to be a fucking animal about it. You have to make the gym your bitch and face fuck it every time you see it.

I also want to touch on posture again as I only briefly spoke about it in this pretty lengthy post. Seriously do not underestimate bad form and neglecting your back muscles. If you don’t know how to properly squat, deadlift, row or any other workout, you need to take a few hours and watch youtube videos, practice with light weights and get that shit down. Bad form will not only kill your posture but you will increase your risk of injury a lot. You need to practice perfect form from day 0.

sleep

Sleep is also crucial thing I haven't touched on. Once you get to the fitness level of my 5-6 months, you will start noticing that some days you just can't get up that 205 5x5 bench. You either didn't eat right the past few days or you stayed up playing video games and only got 4 hours of sleep. You need 8 hour of sleep every night or you will notice a decline in strength and a slower progression in gains. I sleep religiously for my first 5 months. I took sleep aids if needed. Don't underestimate it. If you want a monk mode, monk mode your lifting regimen first. If you can't perfect your lifting and your body, you have no business trying to perfect any other aspect of your life.

All in all i attribute most of my gain to the fact that I already know quite a bit about my body and fitness in general before going into this bulk and cut. I’ve been very in shape before so muscle memory helped but the core of it is to just bust ass and kill yourself at the gym every day. You should never have a light day at the gym. Go big or go home.