Spring Training

Spring is the Time for Getting Serious, Losing Some Bodyfat, and Looking Good

     Winter is done.  Spring is upon us.

     As I type these words, sitting in front of the window in my office, looking out upon the sunny skies, it’s the first day of Spring.  A couple of months ago, on a cold, decidedly wintry day, I wrote an article on winter bulk-building.  In it, I mentioned the idea of training seasonally, especially for the casual lifter who doesn’t have a competition of some sort.  If you have a bodybuilding competition in January, my ideas wouldn’t really apply, but for lifters that don’t compete in some kind of physique show, strength competition, or athletic event of some sort, here are my ideas—mentioned first in that article—on how one should train seasonally:

• Winter: basic, brief, hard workouts.  Train like a madman, then go home.  Eat like it’s winter-time, as well, the way a bear does when he is preparing for hibernation.

• Spring: start training more outdoors.  Enjoy the sunshine.  Prepare yourself for the coming summer months when you want to look good in a pair of swimming trunks or a bikini.

• Summer: Now it’s time to really enjoy the sun.  Go to the beach—heck, train on the beach.  This is the time when you should have fun.  Experiment with new workouts.  Play in the gym.

• Fall: Just as it’s time to return to school for kids, it’s time to get serious about your workouts.  Have a plan.  Get regimented.  You can still train outdoors, and, in fact, this is the best time in my book for outdoor training.  (It’s also my favorite time of the year.)  It’s the time for basic workouts that include a lot of loaded carries.  Train more than you do at any other time of the year.  Come winter again, you’ll be ready for those hard, heavy, and brief sessions after the Autumn volume.

     If you were to break it down even further, you could say that the Winter and Summer seasons are time for play while Autumn and Spring are the times for getting serious.

     I have written before on Fall training, the season I love the most, but here I wish to discuss Spring and some various training ideas, especially if you follow my seasonal plan, which I think many lifters just naturally gravitate towards, even without really thinking about it or planning it out.  As humans, we are naturally seasonal creatures, after all, unless you live in a place without seasons, the far north or along the equator.  I spent a summer in Thailand one year for work, for instance, and the only “season” there was the rainy season, but all year it’s hotter than a summer here in the American Deep South, where I call Alabama home.

     If you train for aesthetics, then you probably want to look good in the Summer, which means that Spring is the time to start buckling down and losing some bodyfat, while still preserving that hard-earned muscle mass you built during your winter bulk.  It’s also the time when you can start training outdoors.  Enjoy the sun and start doing some training in it.  If you train in a commercial gym, where it’s nice and comfy all year-long, do at least some of your training outdoors, even if it’s just a walk in the park.  My dogs, Kenji and Kiko, love the Spring because we go for daily evening and/or morning walks and enjoy the trails of our state and county parks, filled with the scent of flowering shrubs and plants that they sniff on and around constantly, and meeting other dog lovers and their canine companions.

     Start doing some “metabolic training.”  Train faster, use more sets, more reps, or just take less rest between sets.  Do some density training.  If you want a specific training program that would be great for this time of year, something like my Metabolic Muscle-Building program would work wonders.  But let’s spend the rest of this essay looking at some various options for my above suggestions that you can apply to various other workouts.

     Many lifters, when they think of higher-frequency training, think that must mean split training.  It most certainly could mean split training, but it doesn’t have to.  If you were doing full-body workouts beforehand, you can continue to do so.  If you were training on a fairly low frequency program, such as a 2-days-per-week, whole-body routine, I would increase your training to 3 days per week at least.  But you could also go to a routine where you train 4 to 6 days a week.

     One of the “secrets” of old-school bodybuilders who used full-body workouts 3 days a week was to simply increase the number of workouts per week during their pre-contest phase.  I discussed Clancy Ross’s method for doing this in my recent article on Ross’s Mr. Universe training program.  Let’s say that you were training Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during your bulking phase.  To start stripping away some bodyfat and getting in better all-around condition, go to a 4 days per week program to start.  You can now train on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.  Keep your M-W-F workouts the same as before, and on Saturday do a “light” session with half the workload of your other days.  Slowly increase your Saturday workload until it matches your other training days.  At that point, you can then go to a 5-days-weekly program, training, say, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.  That will probably be plenty of training for most mere mortals, but you can eventually go to 6 days of training if you have built up the work capacity to handle it.  That’s what Ross did.  It works then.  It will still work now.

     Back in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, if Hollywood needed one of their actors to get in top shape for a role, the star was sent to Vince Gironda, who famously whipped them into shape in record time.  His secret?  6 days per week of full-body workouts.  These weren’t “all-out” training sessions.   Gironda’s method involved between 8-12 exercises per workout, done for only one set the first week.  You didn’t go to failure, but, rather, simply stopped once the set got “tough.”  In the 2nd week, you increased your training to 2 sets per exercise.  And in the 3rd week, you increased it to 3 sets per movement.  After that, depending on how the trainee was progressing, he may have had them switch over to just 3-days-per-week.  Reps for each set were typically 10 to 12.

     If you would like to give this a try, I recommend the following program.  For the first week, do each exercise for 1 set of 10-12 reps.  The 2nd week, 2 sets for 10-12 reps.  The 3rd week, 3 sets for 10-12 reps.  In the 4th week, go back to just 1 set of 10-12 reps.  If you want to continue after the 4th week, then repeat the 4-week training block, but add weight to each exercise, or switch over to some different exercises.  If you choose the latter route, just remember to think same but different when selecting new movements.

1. Dumbbell incline bench presses: 1-3 sets of 10-12 reps

2. Wide-grip chins (or lat pulldowns): 1-3 sets of 10-12 reps

3. Behind-the-neck presses: 1-3 sets of 10-12 reps

4. Triceps pushdowns: 1-3 sets of 10-12 reps

5. Barbell curls: 1-3 sets of 10-12 reps

6. High-bar, Olympic-style squats: 1-3 sets of 10-12 reps

7. Stiff-legged deadlifts: 1-3 sets of 10-12 reps

8. Calf raises: 1-3 sets of 10-12 reps

9. Ab exercise of your choice: 1-3 sets of 10-12 reps

     Want to continue training full-body but only have time for 3 workouts weekly?  No problem.  Do the same workout that you have been doing—same movements, same weight, same sets, same reps—but slowly cut down the amount of rest between sets.  If you have read much of my writing, you know that I don’t give “blanket” rest times because of how individualistic they can be, especially when mass and power are the primary goals.  However, in this case, the first thing you should do is track your rest time.  Once you know your rest time between sets, begin to slowly decrease your rest time from week to week until you are using as little as 20 to 30 seconds between sets.

     You can also utilize the same workout you have been doing but start doing it in a “circuit” fashion.  Instead of doing all of your sets for one movement before moving on to the next, go from exercise-to-exercise without rest.  At the end of the circuit, then rest for a few minutes and begin the circuit again.  Let’s say that you were training squats, bench presses, chins, military presses, and barbell curls for 4 sets each.  Stick with those same movements, but do all 5 of them back-to-back for 1 circuit, then repeat for 3 more circuits.  You’re still doing 4 sets each, but you’re finishing the workout in a much quicker time by really picking up the pace.

     I doubt I have ever created an “original” workout program in my life.  Most of my programs are ones that I have borrowed from others.  I may have made my own alterations and other changes to different programs—often ones that I do believe to be better than the original(s)—but my various routines, nonetheless, stand on the shoulders of other strength-coaching giants.  However, if there is one program that I have never read about from others, it’s my “add-one” program.  It can also be used for getting in shape quickly.  Here’s how my Add-One workout works: let’s say you were to use the 5 movements mentioned above—barbell squats, barbell bench presses, chins, barbell overhead presses, and barbell curls.  Start by doing a set of squats.  Rest a little bit and then do a set of barbell squats followed by a set of bench presses.  After another rest, do a set of squats, followed by benches, and then chins.  Once again, after resting, do a set of squats, a set of benches, a set of chins, and a set of overheads.  Rest once more, then do all 5 in a row.  When I use this for mass and power, or have others utilize it, I take plenty of rest between each set, but you could also use it by training in a circuit and moving quickly from one exercise to the next.  What I like about this is that you can start with the movement, or the muscle group, that needs the most work and finish with the one that you need the least work on.  Most guys should probably start with a leg movement followed by a back movement, and so on, since those muscle groups tend to get neglected by your average gym-goer, but if it’s your biceps that need the most work, you would start with the barbell curls, and then proceed with whatever is your next-to-weakest. If you're training purely for aesthetics, and your "weakest" (from an aesthetics standpoint) bodyparts are your shoulders, your upper chest, and your calves, followed by your hamstrings then you might do this workout: behind-the-neck presses, incline dumbbell bench presses, standing calf raises, stiff-legged deadlifts off a block, front squats, wide-grip chins, barbell curls, and skull crushers.

     Still want to train for strength and power while getting in shape?  You can’t go wrong with the old-school “power/pump” way.  For your power movement on a muscle group, train with lower reps and plenty of rest between sets.  Once that’s over with, then proceed with between 1 to 4 additional exercises for the same muscle group but train fast and train for “da’ pump” (read that with Arnold’s accent in your head).  Here’s a sample chest session to give you an idea, but the same method can be used for all of your muscle groups.

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 5 reps.  Use a weight where you would fail on the 7th or 8th rep if you were doing 1 all-out set.  Take several minutes rest between each set.

• Incline dumbbell flyes: 3 sets of 10-12 reps, minimal rest between sets.

• Incline barbell bench presses supersetted w/ flat dumbbell bench presses: 3 sets of 10-12 reps each.  Go immediately from the incline presses to the dumbbell presses.  Take minimal rest between each superset as well.

• Cable crossovers: 3 sets of 16-20 reps.  On your final movement, rest no more than 20-30 seconds between sets.

     You should be pumped to the max once this workout is complete.  With this kind of training, if you choose to take it up, train twice per week.  Since you’ll probably still be sore at the 2nd session—or, at least, will be until you adapt to the frequency—reduce your poundages to around 80% of what you used at the 1st session.  Remember, you’re using this for getting in superb condition, not just building strength and muscle mass.  And to get in shape quickly, you need to train more often. (Also, remember that more isn't always better but it usually is!)

     I mentioned “density” training earlier.  I think it’s a great method for getting in shape.  Select a total # of reps to use for a lift.  The number selected should be based on the number of days per week you want to train the lift.   For 3 days per week of training, for example, I think 30 would be a good selection.  Use a fairly heavy poundage for your chosen lift, a weight where you may only get 6 to 8 reps for 1 all-out set.  Now, do 2-3 reps with that weight, rest briefly and repeat.  As you get closer to 30 reps, you may drop down to only 1 rep at a time.  Once you’ve adapted to the training—if you’re not accustomed to this method, you might be quite sore at first—try to decrease the amount of time it takes to reach 30 reps.  A good schedule for a week of training might look like this:

Monday/Wednesday/Friday: squats, bench presses, wide-grip chins - 30 reps each

Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday: power snatches, military presses, barbell curls - 30 reps each

     No matter what training program you select for your Spring bombardment, just remember that you can’t out-train a bad diet.  You need to take your nutrition just as seriously as you do your training.  For quick fat loss, drop either your carbs or your fat to 10% or less of your total daily caloric intake.  Whether you select fat or carbs, just make sure that your protein intake is still high, so get at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight on a daily basis.

     As important as it is to manipulate your macronutrient percentages, you must also limit your total caloric intake, as well.  Most lifters do well by limiting their calories to around 10 times their bodyweight daily.  In other words, if you weigh 180 pounds, limit daily calories to 1,800.  Check your bodyweight every few days.  As your weight drops, so should your daily caloric intake.

     Spring is here.  Start training in a manner that allows you to show off your abs come summertime.  Once Summer gets here, you can have some fun in the sun and play around with various training strategies.  Until then, however, Spring is for buckling down and getting serious.  Use some of these tips and strategies and once Summer does arrive, you’ll be in fantastic shape.

     If you enjoyed this essay, then you’ll love my book Ultimate Mass and Power Essays.  You can find information about it and my other books in the My Books page.  Purchasing one of my books helps to support my writing and ensures that I can continue frequent posts on the blog.  So, if you purchase one of my books, thanks for the support!

     As always, if you have a question, or just want to leave a comment about some of your own Spring training, leave them in the “comments” section below.  If you prefer a more private communication, then shoot me an email.  I typically answer my emails within a couple days of receiving them.

     Until next time, stay strong, keep training, and stay at it!