Q: I’ve been bulking the past few months, and now I need to start cutting since the new year is upon us. I want to get an early start so I have sharp abs by spring. Should I change my workout? I’ve been training mostly heavy but with some 4X added in.
A: Well, the first thing we suggest is cleaning up your diet. No more junk food—if you’ve been scarfing up too much of that, you’ve got too much body fat.
Also, if you haven’t been doing cardio, add 20 to 30 minutes AFTER two of your upper-body workouts each week. That will stimulate your metabolism and fat-burning mechanism.
Notice that those are subtle changes. You want to gradually move toward leanness—nothing drastic. That way you retain and even build muscle as you drop that ugly body fat…
As for your workouts, now is the time to introduce an X-centric set for each bodypart. And we suggest you do that on the last set of each big midrange exercise—squats, pulldowns, rows, bench presses, etc.
X-centric is using a slightly lighter weight than your normal 10-rep weight and raising it in one second and lowering in six on every rep. And it’s an almost magical fat-to-muscle method. Why?
Research shows that lowering slowly throughout the negative stroke causes more micro-trauma in muscle fibers. To repair those microtears, your body uses stored fat for energy.
So you burn off more fat 24/7 as you regenerate and pack on muscle. Nice…
Also, doing a set of seven or eight X-centric reps, at 7 seconds each, gives you a muscle-tension time of almost a minute. That helps expand the sarcoplasm in muscle tissue for new size and fullness, AND it produces intense muscle burn for growth hormone release…
GH is a very potent fat burner. So X-centric training is major acceleration for your body transformation.
NOTE: For more on using X-centric training as well as other methods and tactics to transform your physique from lean to mean, get The Ultimate Fat-to-Muscle Workout, HERE.
If you already have the Fat-to-Muscle Workout, get The X-centric Mass Workout for more ways to use this amazing method for dropping fat and packing on serious muscle mass fast HERE.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
Build MASS with bodyweight training
One way you’re guaranteed to pack on stacks of muscle is through a process called muscle protein synthesis (MPS), which more than doubles 24 hours after an intense workout…
Until recently, MPS was only elevated when trainees would lift 70-90% of their one-rep max…
That’s not only dangerous for your joints, but it also sets you up for high injury risk every time you exercise…
It used to be believed that training with your own bodyweight couldn’t get you the same results as training with your 70-90% one rep max… Until NOW.