Six years ago, I had a female sign up who wanted to get into the best shape possible in the four weeks leading up to her island hopping cruise. I'll never forget exactly what she said to me.

"I'm going to train with weights five days a week, do spinning classes three days a week, and then do the stairmaster five days a week at night."

All I needed was just one look at her Buddha belly and ham hockish thighs wrapped in busting-at-the-seams spandex to know that she wouldn't make it through the first day, let alone all four weeks.

I'll tell ya' what, though! This little fireball made me eat my words as she lasted a full three days before pulling a Houdini and disappearing like a plate of warm, chewy brownies at a PTA meeting.

Although, this did get me thinking: What would be the absolute best way to strip fat and, not only maintain, but build precious muscle at the same time?

What if the person was as deconditioned as a pre-Subway Jarrod, or what if they were primed and ready from my previous workouts?

I wanted to develop a program that could be performed with no more than one visit to the gym per day with at least two recovery days per week.

And do it all on a time sensitive schedule.

I'd allow for metabolic work to be performed during the same gym visit, but only after the weight training was completed.

Oh, and did I mention that each training session will only last one hour?

Drawing Up the Battle Plan

So, let's recap our plan of attack.

The objective is to burn as much fat and build as much muscle as possible over a one month period.

But there are rules to be followed:

• Only five gym visits per week.
• Only one gym visit per day.
• Each training session will last one hour.
• No cardio allowed before weight training.
• Current conditioning level is irrelevant.

Simple enough, right? For best results, I'd suggest that someone perform my total body and half body workouts before starting this routine.

If you haven't been weight training for a while, then this routine may be a bit too demanding for you. I'd rather see you perform a less demanding routine and stick with it than be thrown into the battlefield with The Total Body Assault and leave with a dishonorable discharge.

But even if you think you're ready, the warm-up is crucial. The biggest mistake I see is people performing static stretching before they train a specific muscle group. When static stretching is performed, it "tones down," or relaxes, the nervous system. That's fine if you're about to take a nap, but before a training session we want to fire up the nervous system.

I suggest a series of dynamic activation movements to prepare your body for the demands of the upcoming training session.

The Total Body Assault

Day 1

A1) Single-arm dumbbell row (alternate starting arm each set)
Sets: 5
Reps: 6

A2) Zercher squat
Sets: 5
Reps: 6

A3) V-up press
Sets: 5
Reps: 6
Rest: 60 seconds before returning to A1

B1) Sprinter sit-ups
Sets: 3
Reps: 12

B2) Medicine ball weave through legs
Sets: 3
Reps: 30
Rest: 90 seconds before returning to B1

C) Jump rope
100 reps

Day 2

Incline treadmill walk (steepest incline possible)
Speed: slow to moderate
Duration: 15 minutes
Rules: Hands never touch side rails or front panel

Day 3

A1) Stiff-legged deadlift
Sets: 3
Reps: 11

A2) Flat dumbbell neutral grip bench press
Sets: 3
Reps: 11

A3) Blast strap row
Sets: 3
Reps: 11
Rest: 90 seconds before returning to A1

B1) Overhead squat
Sets: 3
Reps: 11

B2) Half inchworms
Sets: 3
Reps: 11
Rest: 120 seconds before returning to B1

C1) Palms-out dumbbell curl
Sets: 3
Reps: 11

C2) Palms-up cable triceps extension
Sets: 3
Reps: 11
Rest: 75 seconds before returning to C1

Day 4

Off

Day 5

A1) Barbell step-up
Sets: 3
Reps: 8

A2) Plate-loaded hip pop-up
Sets: 3
Reps: 16

A3) Single-leg squat
Sets: 3
Reps: 8
Rest: 120 seconds before returning to A1

B1) 45-degree hyper extension
Sets: 2
Reps: 8

B2) Band pull-through
Sets: 2
Reps: 18
Rest: 120 seconds before returning to B1

Day 6

Upper Body

Complete all sets for each exercise before moving on to the next.

A) 60-degree dumbbell incline press
Sets: 7
Reps: 4
Load: 6RM
Rest: 60 seconds

B) Chin-up
Sets: 7
Reps: 4
Load: 6RM
Rest: 60 seconds

C) Dips
Sets: 7
Reps: 4
Load: 6RM
Rest: 60 seconds

D) Reverse-grip barbell curl
Sets: 7
Reps: 4
Load: 6RM
Rest: 60 seconds

Metabolic Circuit

A1) Sideways bear crawl
Sets: 5
Reps: 8

A2) Super burpee
Sets: 5
Reps: 8

A3) Rollover to stand up
Sets: 5
Reps: 8

A4) Inchworm
Sets: 5
Reps: 8
Rest: 90 seconds

Boost Your Recovery into Hyperdrive

One thing we all need to get on the same page with is correct workout nutrition. I've seen firsthand the post-workout monstrosities that are dolled out to college athletes, Figure girls, and the female who just wants to look sexy at the beach.

I'm talking about chocolate milk, rice cakes, and in some cases, your favorite high-fructose corn syrup cola, all of which apparently impress the naïve populous when on the recommendation of a guru trainer or juiced up pro.

"Oh please, Wet Wolf. If you took four of the octuplets and fed them Mountain Dew and caramel rice cakes post-workout and the other four had SURGE® Recovery, you wouldn't see much difference at all eight weeks later."

Au contraire!

We're all well aware of the anabolic effects of exercise:

• Increased skeletal muscle blood flow, which improves nutrient delivery.
• Increased anabolic hormone release, such as growth hormone, Testosterone, and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1).
• Acute phase response, which means that after you lift weights the muscle is rebuilt with improvements.

However, not many people are aware of the catabolic effects of exercise. Let's examine them for a moment:

• Muscle glycogen depletion, which is the reduction of muscle carbohydrates.
• Decreased protein balance, which is the net loss of protein when subtracting protein synthesis and protein breakdown.
• Increased cortisol concentrations, and yes, cortisol is a catabolic hormone.
• Decreased insulin concentrations, and yes, insulin is an anabolic hormone.
• Acute phase response, which also causes the breakdown of damaged and some undamaged muscle tissue.
• Increased metabolic rate, which leads to more nutrient depletion.
Dehydration, which can occur when training in the heat.

As a consequence of these adaptations, a failure to quickly bring the body to recovery mode can result in the following problems:

• Prolonged muscle soreness and fatigue
• Poor subsequent performances in the gym
• Symptoms of staleness leading to overtraining
• Minimal gains in muscle mass despite a smart training program
• Loss of muscle mass
• A secondary lowering of metabolic rate

In fact, after a weight training session, it takes 24 hours for the muscle protein balance to become positive. Once this occurs, those precious muscle gains start to arrive.

Wanna know a little secret to speed things up? How would you like to bypass that 24-hour window of muscle loss?

For starters, you need to leave the chocolate milk and oatmeal cream pie in your Cabbage Patch Kids lunch box and move on to something, well, a little more potent.

You need something in liquid form that can jump in like a bunch of gangbusters and push back the corrosive armies of catabolism. This means focusing on two important things:

1. Rapidly replenishing the low glycogen stores in our muscles.

2. Rapidly decreasing the muscle protein breakdown that occurs with exercise and further enhancing muscle protein synthesis.

In order to accomplish all of this, we need something that contains glucose polymers, whey hydrolysates, and the key animo acids leucine, valine, and phenylalanine.

SURGE® Recovery delivers on all counts.

So, the next time someone tries to convince you that your post-workout nutrition really doesn't matter, you can back it up with some hardcore information.

In the meantime, you're going to need it to illicit some shock and awe results from your rapid results program.

About the Author

Wet Wolf specializes in physique transformation, contest prep, eating patterns, and sports performance training for clients in real life and online.

Reference

Scrawny to Brawny by Dr. John Berardi