•Train five days a week—Monday through Friday—if you can.
Weight training ramps up your metabolism, so the more you
can get to the gym, the quicker you will get lean. If you
don’t have the time or inclination to train five days a week,
f ollo w the pro gra m fou r d ays— Mon da y, Tu esda y,
Thursday, Friday, for example. If you’d rather train three
days a week, check out Becky Holman’s routine in chapter
6 or create your own program.
•Do one to two warmup sets with 50 and/or 70 percent of
your work weight on the first exercise for each bodypart.
•Push the majority of your work sets to positive failure—until
you can’t manage another rep in good form. Then do X
Reps if that’s indicated for that exercise.
•The ideal rep speed is two seconds up and two seconds
down for most exercises; always keep your form strict.
•Rest one to two minutes between sets.
•For exercises designated as “1-2” sets, you can do two sets
f o r wea k bod y pa rt s or mu scle gr oup s y ou w a nt to
specialize on. For exercises designated as “15-20” reps,
pick a weight with which you can get 15; add weight when
you can get 20 repetition.
•For exercises designated as drop sets you reduce the
poundage on each successive set: Do one set to failure,
reduce the weight, and then immediately do another set to
failure.
•Try to increase your execise poundages whenever possible.
For example, if you get 10 reps on rows, increase the
weight at your next workout by five pounds (and write down
the increase).
•Don’t miss workouts. Each session is short, so it shouldn’t be
too difficult to adhere to. Remember, weight training keeps
your metabolism in the fat-to-muscle mode all day long. If
you do miss a workout, don’t obsess over it or let it
snowball into missing more. Just do the next workout as
scheduled and continue being as persistent as you can.
X-treme Lean High-Definition Workout Tips