It’s going to blow your mind because I thought of everything

I’ll just make this quick and quote from the book.

Preface

The goal of this manual is ambitious.

Or, it’s not, and the notion that anyone can go outside and work, play, undertake for their own survival in demanding physical ways…fight, struggle, and compete isn’t a crazy idea. And, after all, we’re all humans.

The only thing separating us are various natural talents and abilities that depend on things like age, gender, stature, and genetic gifts vs. genetic raw deals. So, nobody is going to have the same outcomes as anyone else, given the same inputs.

What can be said is that all normal people can have good to excellent outcomes given the same inputs, plus a little good old fashion bust-ass hard work.

I’m no stranger to the gym, but also, I’m no “bro” or “gym rat,” or whatever they’re called.

Nope, I’m not a personal trainer either. I don’t own a gym or studio. I don’t do online consulting. I call myself a bro only with my tongue firmly locked in cheek. And, of course, this is what makes this autodidactic polymath perfect for the task, at least I think so. I’m open to it all. I don’t believe in any One. True. Workout. Catechism. I owe nobody nuthin, and I have no thing and no one in the whole wide world at all to maintain allegiances, loyalty, and fealty to.

Here’s what I believe about most of the workout and training programs and manuals available:

1. To the extent they are financially successful and stand some appropriate test of time, there’s value in them. Enough people have used them and produced expected outcomes and results that they stick.
2. To remain financially successful, purveyors of such programs must always be differentiating their offerings and coming up with new things or packaging old things in new and improved ways.
3. The best financial strategy is to have a product line of potentially many different manuals to account for different goals, styles, talents, and limitations.

That’s all fine. But I’m not in that business and don’t see myself in it. I’m a talented and practical layman who picks up on essentials very quickly and avoids time-wasting minutiae to every extent possible. I don’t jerk around or off with a bunch of stupid shit that’s not going to make big differences.

Most importantly, I believe that it’s possible to design a flexible, varied…and dare I say sucky-fun…program that anyone can just settle into for the gym portion of their overall fitness, from wherever and whenever they are now, to forevermore—without any imperative to fundamentally change anything.

Why?

Because I’ve thought of it all, and it’s all included in The Matrix.

It’s that ridiculous…

(Now onto the fundamentals and the rest of it. But that’s for members. And it’s for members because I’m seeking volunteers from among the membership for the privilege of actually doing the program for a month, providing feedback to alert me of anything I may have missed. Highly doubtful, but stranger things have happened [I jest]. So if you wish to participate, see you on the other side of THE PAYWALL!!! … It might pay to mention that when the finished manual is released in a month or two, it’s included in all levels of membership.)

The Fundamentals (the Big Stuff)

All Full Body

While there are surely goals that call for split routines (exercising different body parts or groups of body parts in different gym sessions), this should not be the general norm or essential requirement for achieving excellent levels of strength, fitness, or body composition from the gym component of your overall fitness lifestyle.

That’s because humans are complete organisms that use their whole bodies to accomplish most everything throughout every day.

Most work involving physical labor is like this and where it’s not, people get what are called “repetitive injuries,” or similar descriptions. Take a tradesman, plumber, painter, electrician, carpenter, whatever… Does he go to work and insist on split routines… ‘Ah, sir, I climbed up and down the ladder yesterday…I need a few days of leg recovery before doing that again.’ Or, ‘Hey, today is going to be all shoulders and arms, lifting all this stuff, holding it, and mounting it in place, please make sure that’s not on the work schedule again for a while.’

You’d be laughed off the job site.

Or, consider most competitive sports activities, especially team sports. They all involve exercise of the full body every game or match.

… And in play, we tend to employ a vast array and variety of full-body engagement in the overall fun.

We’re meant to be and are designed to use our whole bodies when we exert ourselves. Why should the gym be any different?

High Frequency

Life doesn’t give you much time off, so why should you let yourself off in the gym? But in this, we need a compromise because some people aren’t going to treat the gym like a full, 5-day work week.

That compromise is this: every workout is full body, but there are two core programs to accommodate those who require fewer trips to the gym.

There is a 5-day program which has a 4-day variation…which means that you still do all the same exercises and sets, you just spread day 5 over your other 4 working days.

There is a 3-day program which is lighter and less frequent than the 5/4 day program…so it’s less total exercise, less total volume in a given week. Similarly, there is a 2-day variation where, just as in the foregoing, you do everything you would do in 3 days, but you do it in 2 days.

But, whether you work out 7 days per week, or one day, each session is full body.

Legs, chest, back, shoulders, arms, and abs. Period.

Now, you may have noticed or realized something already, and you’ll see more of this as I outline The Matrix. You’re on a 5-day program, are starting to really drag ass, but don’t really want to sit on the bench for a recovery week off.

You have options because it’s all in The Matrix. You can mix things up as I reveal other variations or, you can do next week as 4-day (1 additional rest day), 3-day (less total exercise, 2 additional rest days), or a 2-day (less total exercise, 3 additional rest days).

High Variation

This is where it gets really complex, lending credence to why I call this The Matrix. Just as every physical job has really tough days and pretty easy days, and many that are in-between, we’ll synthesize the same thing.

And within those, intensity also varies.

Repetition varies.

Exercises, daily routines, and weekly combinations of daily routines of individual exercises variation:

1. Individual exercises themselves differ in toughness.
2. Daily exercise routines differ in toughness.
3. Weekly combinations of daily routines differ in toughness.
4. Individuals themselves differ in toughness.
5. Over time, it will be natural to switch things around. Essentially, keeping all the same exercises and the varied ways you do them, but perhaps switching which days in a week you perform them, and in conjunction with other exercises in the same day or week.

Sets and rep ranges variation:

1. All exercises are two sets, the 1st being a prescribed recommended 8-rep minimum, to whatever number. In other words, don’t typically lift heavier than what you can get 8 reps in on the 1st set. This is just sensible safety, but ultimately, it’s up to you.
2. The second set is to failure or last rep before failure (within safety parameters depending on the particular exercise).
3. I recommend the 2nd set be additionally varied by dropping ~20% from the 1st set weight, adding ~20% to the 1st set weight, or keeping it the same, as fun elates or fatigue crushes. This is how you self-manage your program. These little on-the-spot variations add up to progress, gains, and satisfaction in the end. Be patient, avoid injury, and have some sucky-fun.
4. Vary your rep ranges on the first set. For example, you estimated 8 on the incline bench last week and put in 10 reps with gas left, so you added 20% and did 12 reps on the 2nd set. This week, you lighten it up for 12 easy reps on the 1st, you drop 20%, and you go to town for 25 reps on the 2nd. Like that. Play with it.

We’re not done yet. Explosiveness, steady, and slow variation:

1. Just as with everything above, you can vary how explosively you perform the reps, how steady and deliberate, or how slow, in order to capture more time under tension.
2. Increasing time under tension or load is one way to make the same weight “heavier,” rather than going to a far higher weight. Say, for safety reasons, you don’t want to deal in weight you can get in at least 8 reps in on, 1st set. Well, then do that weight and do it super slow. It’ll feel heavier, for sure.
3. The tempo variation can be performed week to week overall, day to day, exercise to exercise, or even set to set. You could do the 1st or 2nd set explosively while doing the other set super slow.

Three additional variations:

1. just as in your work, you never know what you’re going to be doing first, or what the sequence of tasks is going to be on any particular day. So, there is no need to hold to any specific order, like: 1. Legs, 2. Chest, 3.  Back, 4. Shoulders, 5. Arms, and 6. Abs. You can mix up the order, and each day, you can pick where in the order you wish to begin.
2. Gyms in themselves vary. It’s a rare gym where you have every single piece of training equipment you prefer and often enough, they have three variations of equipment you like least, and not the one you like best. So this too can be varied. Maybe you can’t effectively do clean or weighted pull-ups, but you can use a weight assist machine. But maybe they don’t have one. So you can do cable pull downs. Or, they don’t have an incline leg press, but they have a vertical one. But you don’t like that, so use the sitting leg press machine. There may be a lot of different sorts of chest-supported row machines; use them. Like that. … And/or, just vary the machines you use serendipitously. Become a master at all of them.
3. Rest time between sets and between exercises. This normally gets varied anyway, and day to day, depending on who else is present at the gym to shoot a little of the shit with.

The above variations offer you infinite combinations within the same training manual. So, it’s one manual; or, is it a million manuals?

Up to you.

Specific Makeup of The Matrix

1. Library of all exercises used in the program. You are welcome to add or subtract exercises. As mentioned, they’re classified according to the muscle group being exercised.
2. 20 Unique Full-Body Workouts. This is designed around the flagship 4-week cycle, 5 days per week. So, you’ll do 20 distinct routines in a month, and you have a number of variations you can employ exercise by exercise, set by set, workout day by day, or week by week. You can switch up philosophy month-to-month, such that you do it generally one way for 4 weeks, then repeat it and do it a different way. For example, explosive and normal sets for a month. Repeat, but everything super-slow.
3. 16 Unique Full-Body Workouts, 4 weeks, 4 days per week. This is the same in total as #2, but one of the 5 routines in each week is broken down and spread among the remaining 4 routines.
4. 12 Unique Full-Body Workouts, 4 weeks, 3 days per week. This is less total exercise than in #2 or #3, but not linearly. It will tend to focus more on the tougher or more exhausting days.
5. 8 Unique Full-Body Workouts, 4 weeks, 2 days per week. This is the same total exercise as #4, but one of the 3 routines each week is broken down and spread among the remaining 2 routines.
6. The routines will be a random mix of what seems harder and what seems easier than average. It’s “random,” because there’s no way of knowing that assessment for you individually. So, you are welcome to adjust your routines as you go by adding or subtracting exercises, switching day and order of occurrence, and managing your week and your month. It’s generally intended that a 5-day program have 2 harder days, 2 medium days, and a day you find to be pretty easy. A 4-week program might go medium week, hard week, light week, hard week. Like that. It’ll be up to you to adapt to, learn, and adjust Your Matrix as you go along.

All variations covered in the previous section, High Variation, are always in play. Get used to employing variation to both ease up on yourself when you know you need it a bit (like rest between sets and exercises) and to go at it a little more fiercely for an exercise or even a workout day. You know when it feels right for this, firing on all cylinders. Take these opportunities as they come because sometimes they’re fleeting.

Alright, so that’s it, all the theory stuff. The rest if the practice. The workout libray and the actual matrices of workouts…5 day, 4 day, 3 day, and 2 day…even single one a unique, full-body one off over the space of an entire month. No two workouts the same.

If you wish to give it a trial run with me over the next month, beginning within the next few days, then hit me up at rn@freetheanimal.com or via the contact form in the footer area or Menu —> About —> Contact. I’ll probably limit it to 4 or 5 volunteers so if you aren’t one of them, don’t fret and anyway, all members get a copy of the finished work anyway.