Basic Fat Loss Programming: Part Three

Alright. Time to get to the grass fed meat and sweet potatoes of the program, the strength portion. When setting up a program towards fat loss, I usually design the workouts around the following basic principles:

1. Total Body Workouts
2. Multi-joint or compound exercises make up most of the movements
3. Use supersets, alternating sets, tri-sets or something similar
4. Keeping rest periods fairly short (30-60 seconds)

The above principles have been shown to induce the largest amount of blood lactate. Increased levels of blood lactate correspond with increased levels of growth hormone, which happens to be the body's number #1 natural fat burner. But no, you are not going to produce the amount of growth hormone that is going to leave you with a head the size of Barry Bonds.

Besides the fat burning purposes of the above principles, these principles also work from a productivity standpoint. Can you burn body fat on other programs that have upper body and lower body days or split into body part days? Sure. But the number one complainant I get from people who are struggling with body fat loss is that they just do not have the time to get their workouts in. They have it built into their head that they need 7-10 hours of exercise a week to shed those love handles. For someone who who could be classified as advanced, yeah, that may be the case. But I know very few advanced people. Standing on a Bosu ball trying to throw a medicine ball through your legs does not classify you as advanced by the way. It classifies you as lost. I would throw a good portion of these people into the basic category. Remember this is a program for fat loss. With a basic program and a basic individual yet can get results with as little as 3-5 hours of exercise per week...if it's programmed right.

As mentioned in a previous post the program will have two different workouts: Workout "A" and Workout "B". The first week you will do Workout "A" twice and "B" once. The following week you will do Workout "B" twice and "A" once. So it looks like:


Week One: Day 1 -A, Day 2 - B, Day 3 - A
Week Two: Day 1 - B, Day 2 - A, Day 3 - B


Then week three looks like week one and week four looks like week two.


Within each workout you will see a couple things:

1. Movement patterns rather than exercises. This gives you the option of plugging in your own exercises depending upon what you have available and enables you to basically switch up your program every 3-4 weeks. This does not mean to do a different exercise with each workout. This is not P90x. This is not Insanity. Stick with the exercises you selected for 3-4 weeks and then plug in another exercise that fits that movement pattern.
2. You will see each exercise will have a designation of a number and a letter before it. This designation sets up your alternating sets. For instance if you see 1A) and 1B), you will alternate between these exercises with the suggested rest periods until all sets are completed. Then you will move onto the next pairing
3. A rest period will be suggested. Again, the rest periods should be kept fairly short to get the largest fat burning effect. With the larger compound movements in the beginning the rest periods will be a bit longer. With the exercises at the end that are not quite as demanding, the rest periods will be a bit shorter. Shorter rest periods doesn't mean to go light on the weights though. I still want you to push the intensity with each set. You should select a weight that would not take you beyond 2-3 reps of the suggested rep range.

So here we go. I suggest performing 1-2 warm up sets of the first two exercises in each workout. The heavier your starting weight the more warm up sets you will need. Just do not gas your self with the warm up sets. Keep the reps around the five rep range, giving or taking a few reps.

Workout A
1A) Squat: 4 sets, 8-10 reps, 60s rest
1B) Horizontal Pull: 4 sets, 8-10 reps, 60s rest

2A) Single Leg Quad Dominant: 3 sets, 10-12 reps, 60s rest
2B) Horizontal Push: 3 sets, 8-10 reps, 60s rest

3A) Push Up Exercise: 3 sets, 15-20 reps, 30s rest
3B) Scapular Retraction: 3 sets, 12-15 reps, 30s rest


Workout B
1A) Deadlift: 4 sets, 8-10 reps, 60s rest
1B) Vertical Pull: 4 sets, 8-10 reps, 60s rest

2A) Posterior Chain: 3 sets, 10-12 reps, 60s rest
2B) Vertical Push: 3 sets, 8-10 reps, 60s rest

3A) Anti Rotation or Anti-Flexion Core: 3 set 8-10 reps or 30-45s for planks, 30s rest
3B) Shoulder External Rotation, Triceps, or Biceps: 3 sets, 12-15 reps, 30s rest

Examples of exercises you could use for each category are:

• Squat: BB back squat, BB front squat, BB Bulgarian squat, single leg squat
• Horizontal Pull: seated cable row, inverted row, DB Row, bent over BB Row
• Single Leg Quad Dominant: split squat, forward lunge, Bulgarian squat
• Horizontal Push: bench press, close grip bench press, DB Bench Press, BB floor press
• Push Up: weighted push ups, band resisted push ups, feet elevated push ups
• Scapular Retraction: prone Y or T raise, band pull aparts, face pulls
• Deadlift: BB deadlift, sumo deadlift, suitcase deadlift, trap bar deadlift, rack pulls
• Vertical Pulls: chin or pull ups, band assisted chin or pull ups, X pulldowns
• Posterior Chain: Val Slide leg curl, glute/ham raise, Swiss ball leg curl, pull thru's
• Vertical Push: DB incline press, BB overhead press, DB push press, BB push press
• Core: kneeling cable lift, side plank, side plank w/row, belly press, landmines
• Shoulder Ext. Rotation: side lying, cable, 90/90 cable, elbow on knee
• Triceps: rope pressdowns, X pressdowns, lying DB extensions, EZ bar extensions
• Biceps: DB hammer curls, EZ bar curls, BB curls, cable curls, TRX curls

In the last part of this series I'll suggest some conditioning work or finishers to perform at the end of each session in order to get that fat burning engine running not only during the workout, but also for a good period of time after your workout. Until then, get training.