Overview:Training

Welcometo my Eight-week Muscle-building Trainer program, a carefully designed system that has many different components. It’s going to require your commitment to consistency and your focused attention because I’ll be changing and adding principles to help you break through plateaus. I’m warning you now that the workouts will be heavy and extremely intense, but that’s crucial when you want to gain a significant amount of muscle in a relatively short time without risking injury.

This program is going to challenge every type of muscle fiber and energy system you have. Here’s a brief overview of what you can expect over the next eight weeks: During the first four weeks, we’ll begin with overload principles that include rest/pause reps, supersets, drop sets and other advanced principles. This will prime your connective tissue and neuromuscular pathways to ensure you don’t plateau. This phase will also prime your body and brain for the next four weeks.

During this second phase, we’ll put our muscle-building into overdrive by implementing my customized program that includes hybrids of my Dramatic Transformation Principle (DTP) and DTPXtreme. DTP commences and concludes with high reps and short rest periods to target slow-twitch muscle fibers. Within the same workouts we drag that muscle group into the lower rep depths and drown the fast-twitch muscle fibers in a sea of lactic acid. DTP leaves no stone unturned by targeting both sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar hypertrophy.

The workouts are intense, but you can follow them whether you’re a beginner or advanced; male or female; or, young or old. The key is to choose weights that are comfortable for you and that will allow you to reach failure by applying the intensity that’s right for you.

If you have followed any of my other Video Trainers, then you’ll be familiar with the intensity that DTP brings. It even makes me nervous when I write out my programs because I know all too well the pain that they inflict, but the results are worth it. Regardless, you can follow this program whether you’re a beginner, advanced, male, female, young, or old. The key is to choose weights that are comfortable for you and that will allow you to reach failure by applying the intensity that’s right for you

The training-split won’t change over the eight-week program, despite the fact that I’ll mix up exercises, strategies and sets-and-reps schemes from one week to the next. Make sure to watch every video before you train every day so you know exactly which exercises, sets, reps and schemes to include:

TRAINING SPLIT

MONDAY: Back and calves

TUESDAY: Chest and abs

WEDNESDAY: Legs

THURSDAY: Arms and calves

FRIDAY: Shoulder and abs

SATURDAY: Active rest

SUNDAY Active rest

CARDIO OVERVIEW

You’ll perform high-intensity interval training (HIIT) sessions every day. On the weekends—your active rest days— you’ll do your HIIT cardio in the morning and steady-state cardio in the evening. It’s essential you split your two cardio sessions on the weekend—make sure you space them with at least six hours between. This double-spikes your metabolism, helping to boost muscle protein synthesis (MPS). This is the process through which the protein you consume is converted into increased muscle tissue.

It’s also important that you don’t perform your HIIT cardio sessions immediately before your workouts on training days. That’s because they sap your energy, burn muscle glycogen and reduce your ability to add muscle mass. Performing HIIT after weight training, though, supports MPS and bodyfat reduction.

For a more detailed explanation of how to perform HIIT, take a look at my daily training videos. I provide detailed instructions on what to perform in every session.

CARDIO TRAINING SPLIT

Here’s how I recommend you build your cardio schedule into your eight-week program:

DAY	Morning	Length	Later in the day	Length
Monday	none		HIIT *	4 minutes steady, 1 minute sprint. Repeat for 15 minutes.
Tuesday	none		HIIT	4 minutes steady, 1 minute sprint. Repeat for 15 minutes.
Wednesday	none		HIIT	4 minutes steady, 1 minute sprint. Repeat for 15 minutes.
Thursday	none		HIIT	4 minutes steady, 1 minute sprint. Repeat for 15 minutes.
Friday	none		HIIT	4 minutes steady, 1 minute sprint. Repeat for 15 minutes.
Saturday	HIIT	4 minutes steady, 1 minute sprint. Repeat for 15 minutes.	Steady state	20 minutes
Sunday	HIIT	4 minutes steady, 1 minute sprint. Repeat for 15 minutes.	Steady state	20 minutes

* Can be performed right after weight training or later in the evening.

Keep in mind that you can choose any type of cardio you want to perform for any of these workouts. You can vary it from workout to workout. The key is to perform the types of cardio you like best while varying these from one workout to the next for better results.