Brief and Basic Workouts

 Brief, Basic, Intense, and Frequent Workouts for Monstrous Muscle Gains!

Mike Mentzer was a fan of brief, hard workouts (and he even trained fairly frequently in the '70s before going "nutso" with very infrequent workouts!)

I'm currently working on Part Twos of my "Eight Point Program" and "Intense and Infrequent Workout" series of articles.  In the meantime, I thought I'd write something short and to the point, just like the workouts I'm about to recommend.

I just finished a brief workout myself consisting of squats, thick bar deadlifts, dumbbell bench presses, dumbbell curls, and sandbag carries.  Sometimes it's good to get back to the basics.

Come to think of it, it's always good to do basic, intense workouts centered around the big lifts.  But, typically, in my observation, most lifters do these sort of workouts too infrequently.  I used to recommend hard, intense, infrequent workouts myself years ago in articles for Ironman Magazine and MuscleMag International.  I still think those kind of workouts are awesome, I just think they should be done 3 to 4 days per week (for each muscle group) instead of only a couple days per week (as I used to recommend).

First off, center your workouts around what I will now call the Big Four!  Squat something, pick something off the ground, carry something for distance or time, and press something overhead.  You don't have to do all 4 at each workout, but you do need to do all 4 during the course of the week, multiple times per week.  If you look at my brief workout today, you'll notice that the only thing missing is an overhead press of some sort, but I will be sure to do that at the next workout.

Usually, for the neophyte trying to pack on as much muscle and strength as possible, I also recommend eating as much calorie-dense, nutrient-rich food as possible, too.  And that's a great suggestion, but for older lifters such as myself, it's not necessary.  In fact, I currently am following a form of intermittent fasting, and I just did the workout above with only about 800 calories in my body today.  In an hour or two, I will have a small meal consisting of about 250 to 300 calories, and that's it.  I'll do the same thing tomorrow before following it up with a "re-feed" day on the day after.

Back to the workouts, here is what my workout consisted of today (minus warm-ups):

Squats: 2 sets of 6 to 8 reps

Dumbbell Bench Presses: 2 sets of 15 reps

Thick-bar deadlifts: 2 sets of 6 reps

Alternate dumbbell curls: 2 sets of 8 reps (each arm)

Sandbag carries: 2 sets to the top of my steep driveway

When I was finished, I felt great - better than how I felt before starting the workout.  That's one of the keys to making these kind of frequent workouts work: You should always feel better after the workout than beforehand.  If you feel drained or tired-as-hell, you've simply done too much work.  Take a day or two off if that's the case before repeating with a similar workout session.

In summary, if you want to gain a lot of muscle mass, strength, and power, do the following:

1. Train your entire body 3 to 4 days per week using the "Big Four".

2. Do no more than 2 to 3 sets per lift, working a couple reps or so shy of muscular failure.

3. Repeat the workout - or something very similar - as often as possible.  Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday workout days would be a good example.

4. If you're trying to get as big as possible, eat as much calorie-dense, nutritious food as possible.

5.  If you're an older lifter just trying to stay in shape and feel great - while still looking good - then simply eat a "good diet".  I - for the most part - combine intermittent fasting with a low-carb, high-fat diet.  At other times, I follow a whole-food, plant-based diet.

Now, stop reading this blog or anything else on the internet, and get your ass in the gym.