Part 3 – Training

My training consists of mostly resistance training (lifting weights, or using body weight exercises) as well as some additional cardio. I will almost always perform my cardio fasted first thing in the morning, with my resistance training sessions always taking place later in the day, after I have eaten at least 2 meals.

At the moment, I am personally looking to steadily add lean muscle mass, and if possible, at the same time decrease my body fat. As a result I keep my cardio sessions short, but very high intensity and as frequent as my schedule will allow. In order to achieve my main goal of increasing muscle mass, I train with weights every day of every week, splitting the body into various muscle groups to allow me to hit each area extremely hard, but then to allow those muscle groups to recover effectively.

Monday: Chest & Biceps

For me, and most of the male gym population, Monday is Chest Day! I also train my biceps with my chest and really love the pump I get combining those two muscle groups.

Tuesday: Legs – Focus on quads

I really enjoy training legs. It seems to be either a love or hate thing with most people, but unless you are really willing to push yourself and really train your legs as hard as possible, your physique will always be lacking. I train my legs twice each week, with the main focus during Tuesday’s session being put on my quads.

Wednesday: Traps & Calves

Rather than taking rest days during mid-week or at weekends, I instead have removed some smaller and often neglected body parts from my day to day training plan. Quite often calves are trained in a very lack lustre fashion at the end of a gruelling heavy leg session. The same can be said of the traps, after either back or shoulders, depending on who you talk to. For me, I like to put a little more emphasis on these muscle groups and therefore dedicate my two rest days to training these two muscle groups.

Thursday: Shoulders & Triceps

Shoulders and triceps are both relatively small muscle groups and can therefore easily be trained together in the one session. In fact these muscles also work in conjunction with each other on several exercises and therefore make a great pairing when trained together.

Friday: Back

Back is probably my own favourite muscle group to train. Two of the best back exercises you can do are dead-lifts and pull-ups, and both are just so rewarding and satisfying when completed correctly. The feeling of lifting a new max weight on dead-lift, or banging out a set of weighted chin ups really pushes me through my workouts and motivates me to always strive for continued progress.

Saturday: Legs – Focus on hamstrings

The second leg day of the week, sees the emphasis change from quads to hamstrings. I usually tend to opt for less weight during my hamstring training, as I have a severe history of recurring hamstring strains from my days playing football. But, as with all muscle groups, any drop in weight, always means an increase in reps, with some of my sets containing over 60 reps of a single exercise resulting in a phenomenal pump in the hamstrings, and even at times the glutes.

Sunday: Traps & Calves (again)

As the saying goes “I’ll rest when I’m dead”. Again, no day off here for me. Wednesday and Sunday are essentially what I consider my two “rest” days, and if something out of my control forces me to take a day off from training then it will be one of these days that makes way. I do feel however, that even when training 7 days straight each week, I do still get sufficient recovery. Both Wednesday and Sunday are very quick sessions, which are nowhere near as intense or taxing on the body as the likes of a heavy leg day on Tuesday. I am usually in and out of the gym in 30 – 40 minutes max, competing a mixture of heavy weighted exercises with low reps, as well as multiple drop sets and lower weight high rep exercises. I perform at most 6 exercises, 3 for traps and 3 for calves and just get in, and get out to recovery again.

If you would like to know more about the specifics of my training, such as, what exercises I select? How many sets/reps I perform? And so on, please feel free to get in touch!! Or pop across and check out my Instagram account @coachsfitness for more info and insight into my training regime.

Thanks,
Coach