Transcription
Uh, and not a moment to [Applause] [Music] Freaking well, hello there, YouTube! How's it going? Coach Rob here, back with another video. It's been way too freaking long, and I feel like I say that all the time. But I've got a really good excuse. This video is number three, three… I think four, four in the Unstoppable series. I forget; that's what happens when you're an old guy trying to be cool on the internet. Anyway, um, yeah, I think it's four. I don't know. But this one's about training.
I'm not going to be that pretentious guy who pretends like my program is the ultimate program and you need to do what I do. If you're training your ass off—in a commercial gym, a home gym, or your back freaking yard—I don't care; you need to be training hard. It's far more about the grit and consistency than the actual program. You may be implementing a killer freaking program, and it may be working great for you. It's making you strong, working on your capacity, furthering your health and longevity. If that's the case, congratulations! You're on your path, and that's awesome. Maybe this video offers some insight into what I'm doing. I just want to be fully transparent. Maybe you can take something from this and apply it to what you're doing, or maybe make some slight corrections. Blah, blah, blah. There you go. Here we are.
I'm going to outline what I do for many clients, both in my gym and online. Take it for what it's worth. Maybe apply elements of it, maybe apply all of it, maybe just get some wisdom, encouragement, and motivation to propel you to continue down the path to being the best version of yourself.
When I'm looking at training, it's to be strong, to sustain as much muscle mass as possible—because muscle is life, muscle is everything. Not only to add muscle, but also to keep and sustain the lean muscle mass I have at a level that allows me to perform at the highest possible level for my age. I'm 56 years old. My goal, as I've said many times, is that as each calendar year passes and I get a little bit older, I want to be in the top 1% of men my age.
I'm not going to pretend I'm one of those perfect Instagram influencers, always carved up at 7% body fat, always attacking the day like David Goggins, some superhuman. I have my ups and downs, good periods, and moments where I let things go a bit. We're human. I think that's why my message resonates with so many people: I'm freaking real. So many people are chronically overtrained, chronically fatigued, beat up, and beat down that they never give their bodies ample time to recover, compensate, and grow, or overcompensate for the stress they're applying. It's far more about intensity of effort and giving your body the ability to recover, adapt, and grow than beating yourself into the dirt in two-hour workout sessions six days a week.
I train four days a week. When I was competing in bodybuilding, those four days were all high-intensity, low-volume, purely hypertrophy-driven training. The ultimate goal as a bodybuilder or physique competitor is to build the greatest amount of muscle mass, sustain it, and then peel yourself down to obscenely low, unnatural levels of body fat—3, 4, 5%. That's not a sustainable way to live. I no longer do that, nor do I have any desire or goal to do so. However, in the spring and summer, I do like to get myself back down to about 10% body fat. That's a level where I can still perform at a high level but be lean. It's the best of both worlds: a high-performing, high-caliber human sustaining lean muscle to the greatest degree possible, but also getting rid of unwanted body fat to keep me at that roughly 10% level.
Right now, because I'm trying to be the highest-performing human I can be, I do it like this. At the end, I'll tell you my favorite current workout, which combines strength, power, capacity, and endurance. That's one day a week. The other three days, I do traditional split training. It's still paramount to have as much muscle as possible. For instance, on Mondays—and this could change—I currently do chest and back, a push-pull. I do high-intensity, low-volume back and chest. Obviously, I'm doing heavy pulling and pressing movements. I like to do two or three movements per body part, often in supersets. I might do a heavy back movement, like bent-over rows or heavy cable pull-downs, and then immediately go into a heavy bench press, dumbbell press, or slow, strict push-ups.
Mondays are push-pull. Tuesday is my current favorite workout of the week to be the complete athlete I can be (I'll touch on that at the end). Wednesday is off—recovery is king; that's when you grow, compensate, and hopefully overcompensate (new muscle growth). Thursday is leg day—always leg day for me—a crushing, high-intensity, low-volume leg workout, maybe 30-40 minutes at most, putting in the greatest amount of effort in the shortest amount of time possible, doing big compound movements and a couple of isolation movements (leg extensions, Romanian deadlifts, hamstring curls). Friday is a big arm day. I might throw in some shoulder and rear delt work, and some abdominal work at the end. Arm day doesn't take long; you're working small muscle groups, so you can burn through a high-intensity arm day and leave some extra time for core work. Saturday and Sunday: nothing, nada, no strength training whatsoever. I really try to rest as much as possible—it's all about overcompensation, letting everything recover to stimulate growth and overcompensate, hopefully adding a little more muscle. Then I repeat the whole damn thing, beginning Monday with my push-pull session (chest and back).
All right, so pardon the interruption of this wildly entertaining and equally compelling video, but as I was editing this morning, I realized I made a glaring omission. As I'm out on my ruck, thinking about it… we're going to get to rucking in a minute, but right now, specifically about strength training, I noted that I'm a huge advocate of high-intensity, lower-volume training, but I conspicuously omitted a very important factor: when you're training, it's vitally important, if the goal is muscular hypertrophy or developing strength, to make sure you, at a minimum, take the final sets, especially the big compound movements, and work them to true concentric failure. Push those sets to total failure; that's what sets the growth mechanism into motion. You can't go at it half-ass; you have to strive for the greatest amount of intensity in the shortest amount of time possible. Especially on those final sets, you need to work to true muscular failure—push to a point where any additional reps would be absolutely impossible. That's what's going to set the growth mechanism into motion and make sure you're making ultimate progress. All right, so I needed to get that off my chest because I realized I forgot that. Back to the video. Enjoy!
Also woven in, I'm doing some cardio. It baffles me when you see people—coaches, trainers, influencers—poo-pooing cardio, saying you're not badass if you're doing it, that you only need strength training. Yeah, you can get remarkable results, especially aesthetic results, from just strength training, and you can get very lean. If your diet's on point and you're crushing it lifting weights, you can get as lean as you want without cardio. However, being able to deadlift 600lbs doesn't mean you can negotiate a long flight of stairs, evade a threat by sprinting, or pick up and carry a heavy weight a considerable distance. Cardiovascular conditioning helps build healthy mitochondria; it makes you healthier and fitter. It enhances your ability to negotiate any obstacle and makes you feel better. Some of my best moments are when I'm lost in thought, rucking across the landscape. I couldn't imagine striving to be the best human I can be without incorporating some cardiovascular conditioning.
My favorite mode of cardio—you could probably guess this if you've been around a while—is rucking. It's amazing. You're bringing a strength element into your cardiovascular work; it's great for your core, legs, calves, total body strength, and increasing aerobic capacity. You burn more energy than just walking. When I'm going really hard and super consistent with a serious, dedicated goal, rucking is a major part of getting me there. Rucking is walking with weight on your back, walking with intention. The military has been doing it since the dawn of the military. Find a sturdy backpack, dust that son of a gun off, put some weight in it, and go walk. It could be 20lbs, 30lbs, 40lbs. If you're that kind of OCD person, think 20% of your body weight—that's a good rucking weight.
I ruck four to five days a week. One session is higher intensity, with intervals (30-40 second runs) two or three times. I strength train four days a week (one being my favorite workout), and ruck four to five days a week (35 minutes to an hour). One of those workouts includes interval work (HIIT). One day a week, I do a long ruck (1.5-2 hours; when training for an event, it was a minimum of 10 miles; my longest was 17-18 miles). I completed a 32-mile, 50k ruck challenge in the mountains, and I'm very proud of that.
I like to throw in a strength-capacity challenge workout once a week to see progress under serious load and aerobic capacity. My current favorite workout—we call it Taco Tuesday (I have no idea why)—starts with a deadlift carry challenge. A solid criteria for deadlifts is 1.5 times your body weight. On Tuesdays, we use a trap bar. We're not only doing deadlifts but also farmers carries (weighted carries, loaded carries). Week one: 300lbs on the trap bar (I weigh about 200lbs, my workout partner 270lbs). We decided to be dumb and not start with our body weight. One deadlift, then carry 300lbs 45ft, set it down, deadlift again, carry it back 45ft (90ft total).
Week one: 300lbs, two deadlifts, 90ft farmer carry. Week two: two reps each side. Week three: three reps (six total). Week four: four reps (eight total). We see the progression of strength and capacity. Currently, we're up to 350lbs. For an old guy like me, it's challenging, but I'm proud of that. Tomorrow, we're at three reps of 350lbs. We'll do three reps, carry 45ft, three more reps, carry back 45ft. The week after, we go to four reps, then add weight, start over at one rep each side. It's harder than it sounds, very challenging because you have to farmer carry the same weight you're deadlifting. We don't use straps; it drastically improves grip strength. The ability to lift and carry heavy weight makes a difference in building strength and capacity. I've noticed changes in the few weeks we've been doing this. It's a lot of fun, a fantastic challenge. I look forward to it, I'm a little afraid, but when it's over, I'm stoked and can't wait for next week.
Once we finish the deadlift-farmers carry challenge, we work on strength and capacity some more. We stack plyo boxes (5-6ft tall) and use a 100lb d-ball (big, heavy sand-filled rubber ball). We lift it, throw it over the plyo box wall, go around, pick it up, throw it over again (three sets of six reps). Next week, seven reps, then eight, working up to 10. I only have a 100lb ball, so I'm looking at ordering a heavier one. Then, we get on a Rogue Echo Bike (they suck, but are wildly effective). We finish with a couple of rounds of a 25-calorie sprint (35 seconds to a minute). You will absolutely hate your life afterward. You'll notice improvement over time. I notice the effectiveness on my rucks, especially in hilly terrain or with stair climbing intervals. Finally, we finish with very steep decline sit-ups (20-25 reps at a 45-degree incline). As we get stronger, we increase the incline. Very badass, very effective.
That workout combines strength, capacity, endurance, grit, fortitude, and effort. It's hard, and all the elements are there. You may find a different version of that style of workout, but that's currently the one we're digging. We're looking forward to doing it until summer to see what progress we can make. There might be a time when you're called upon, when someone needs you in an emergency. In a crisis, the people around you will likely not be that guy or that woman. We are on a steady health decline. Be the freak in the room in everything you do; the side effect is that you will be the best version of yourself. Unstoppable. Hope you enjoyed it! Check out the Apex Collective (apexcollective.online). Leave a comment, please subscribe, and reach out if you need anything. I look forward to chatting with you guys again on the next, and final, installment of the Unstoppable series. Have a great day!