Slowly and incrementally increasing the duration of the cardiovascular training. Same goes with planks and wall sits, plus bodyweight exercise repetitions. Embrace the small challenges. They all add up.
Go directly from alternating dumbbell curls (supinated) into hammer curls by merely switching your hand position. When you near failure on the DB curls you’ll still have the juice left to hammer out some hammers.
The last shoulder exercise on Tuesday is a burnout using “small change” plates. Choose a weight that will allow you to get 50 reps with good form, maintaining tension on the medial head of the deltoids. If you need to use a 5 or 2.5 lb plate, so be it. The burn is the desired outcome, fully fatiguing that portion of the shoulder anatomy, don’t worry about the poundage.
Barbell rows and deadlifts finish off #WideWednesday Week 3. The idea here is to emphasize form and contraction across the whole of your back, from your glutes to your neck, without over-taxing the lower back. You’ll be squatting twice this week, so you’ll need to manage the load and train smart.
The superset of leg extensions and Bulgarian split squats is especially intense because it combines an extreme stretching movement and an extreme contraction movement back-to-back. Possibly one of the most efficient and effective methods of blasting the legs quickly. Remember it anytime you’re tight on time. Following these with wall sits is brutal.
The incline dumbbell flyes/parallel bar dips superset follows the same line of thinking as the above superset for legs. Each following a core, fundamental power movement with a combination of two movements emphasizing stretching and contracting the muscle in emphatic fashion. Followed by pushups and you’ll have nothing left in the tank.
Dedicating an entire training day to hams, calves and abs seems to lack the sizzle and sex appeal of the more “fun” workouts on your split. However it drives home one of the precepts of The Program—take nothing lightly. Do the hard work consistently. Overlook nothing. “Sweat” the small stuff. And you will surpass those without the same work ethic and meticulous attention to detail. Workouts like Saturday’s literally hammer this ethos into your DNA the old-fashioned way.
#SundayService is back in session. This should be the briefest and most abbreviated workout of the week. Get in, get it done, get out and get on with your life. The greatness of the Sunday Service squat session is not just merely in the extra emphasis on the “king of all exercises” but on the religious ritual of extra effort. Spend the rest of your day eating, resting and recovering to the best of your ability, because Week 4 of The Program is running up on ya.
