What’s the Perfect Workout for 2017? (Part II)
In this special two-part episode, I’m going to tell you exactly how I’ll be personally be exercising in 2017 to get the ultimate combination of full body sculpting, strength and power development, brain training, coordination, mobility, detoxification, and beyond! Here is Part 2.
Ben Greenfield
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What’s the Perfect Workout for 2017? (Part II)
In last week’s episode, you discovered how to intelligently and properly structure strength, speed, and power training into a perfect workout plan. But unless you’re a football lineman (for example), you’ll need to include additional training modalities to have a truly perfect training program that targets every component of your body, brain, and nervous system.
So let’s pick up where we left off and dive into the next component of training: cardio!
Cardio:
As you learned in my episode “Does Weight Training Count As Cardio?” many of the strength and power training methods you learned in last week’s episode will train your cardiovascular system. But if you are an athlete, you want to work on fitness parameters such as your VO2max or lactate threshold or mitochondrial density or fat burning efficiency (all terms I cover bengreenfieldfitness), or you training for some kind of an event like a triathlon, obstacle race, etc. then, using bicycle, running, elliptical, rowing, swimming, or any other cardio mode of choice, do the following, preferably on Mondays and Thursdays (the same day you do strength training):
Five 4 minute hard efforts with full recoveries (2-4 minute recoveries)
or
-1-2 Tabata sets (Four total minutes of 20 seconds extremely hard, 10 seconds easy) –
or
-4-6 thirty second sprints WITH FULL 2-4 minutes recovery after each
If possible, choose a different option from the options above when you do your Tuesday/Friday cardiovascular intervals, such as Tabatas on Tuesday and 30-second sprints on Friday. To save time is fine to do these cardio intervals as a starter or a finisher for your strength training on these days.
New Sports & Activities
Let’s review: you will be training strength on Mondays and Thursdays, and you’ll be training power, speed and cardio on Tuesdays and Fridays.
On a middle day of the week, preferably a Wednesday, you should give yourself a chance to challenge both your brain and body at the same time. If you’re sore or beat up, try something like an easy paddleboard, a new yoga class, hiking, frisbee golf, regular golf, etc. For more of a challenge, try tennis, basketball, ultimate frisbee, soccer, kickboxing, jiu-jitsu, etc.
This middle day is basically your “free day” to engage in a hobby of your choice. Just don’t beat yourself up too much: Thu and Fri are both relatively physically intensive.
Weekend Adventure
Use the weekend as an opportunity to choose an adventure of your choice, preferably outdoors. This can include hiking, skiing, snowboarding, road cycling, mountain biking, playing on an obstacle course, etc.
Since in the structured plan I’ve written out for this program, you should ideally be including a 24 hour fast over the weekend, don’t make this adventure too “epic” in terms of physical intensity, but instead use this as an opportunity for nature therapy, challenging your brain, doing something novel, etc.
This adventure can last anything from forty minutes to several hours, depending on your activity and choices! You can do this Saturday OR Sunday.
“Extras”
Below are the extras that I’d recommend you sprinkle throughout the week. I’ve included the days that I recommend you do these activities in the descriptions below:
Core Foundation training: You’re going to need the excellent book “TrueToForm” to do this properly. You can get it in Kindle or Hard Copy off Amazon. Read the whole book, and then do the M/W/F routine on Monday and Wednesday and Friday and the T/R/S routine on Tuesday and Thursdsay and Saturday every week, preferably in the morning. This will take about 5-10 minutes per day.
Hot & Cold: Using a dry sauna, steam sauna, or (preferably) an infrared sauna (read this article for infrared ideas), complete 10-30 minutes in a sauna, staying in at least long enough to begin sweating, and preferably long enough to where you begin to get uncomfortably hot.
It is OK to “kill two birds with one stone” and do any of the other day’s activies in the sauna (such as Core Foundation, mobility, etc.) or to do yoga or workout like this in the sauna. You can also simply read, breathe, etc. Just stay away from phone/WiFi/bluetooth and other forms of EMF. Listen to this podcast to learn why you need to be careful with this kind of electrical exposure, especially when combined with heat.
Another technique that is good to use in the sauna or in the pool (be careful and responsible!) is resisted breathwork, restricted breathwork, breathing exercises or breath holds. The best current resources on these tactics are available here.
Finish your sauna session with a 2-5 minute cold shower, cold soak in a bath, cold pool, or any other cold thermogenesis activity.
These hot and cold sessions will fit in nicely on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday in this program.
Rebounding: At any point during the day, jump on a rebounding trampoline for 5-15 minutes. It is OK to alternate single and double leg bouncing or to work on your “hypoxic” training below while jumping. Here is a complete episode and article on rebounding and why it’s so beneficial for your body.
Hypoxia: During any of the day’s activities for the week, choose 10-15 minutes to practice hypoxia. For example, during the rebounding session, you could hold your breath for the first 15 seconds out of every 60 seconds. Or during the sauna or yoga, you can hold your breath during certain movements. You can even practice breathholds during the last few reps of a weight training exercise.
In addition, during every activity you do in this program, unless 100% necessary (e.g. you are gasping for breath or getting lightheaded), attempt to *only* breathe through your nose using abdominal/belly breathing.
It is highly recommended that you read the book Breathe and the book The Oxygen Advantage to learn how to “biohack” your oxygen levels for better fat loss, more nitric oxide, improved performance, enhanced sleep and more. You can learn more about that book and about proper breathwork 30 ways to breathe better.
Mobility Work: Choose one day of the week, preferably Saturday or Sunday, to do a full body foam roller workout using exercises shown roller workout using exercises or workout using exercises other link (do approximately 10-15 rolls per body section), or, for a more advanced foam rolling routine, do the routine below. Alternatively, for a bit more rest and relaxation, book yourself in for a 60-90 minute full body massage.
For this, for your massage or for the more advanced foam rolling routine below, if it is possible to do then “blast” your body with healing frequencies the entire time. Do this with the WholeTones CD’s as a form of sound and music therapy (full details in the podcast here), which pairs well with more relaxing mobility work.
For a more advanced mobility routine, do the routine below.
I highly, highly recommend the “Rumble Roller” for this routine or the ones above. You’ll also need an elevation training mask to get full hypoxic benefits during the routine below. You can read more about that mask here. If you need videos or demonstrations of any foam roller exercise, then you can click here for a video in which I walk you through the entire routine below.
This mobility routine combines cardio exercise, breath restriction and foam rolling. Wear elevation training mask for entire routine. For every area that you foam roll, do 20-30 “passes” with the foam roller on the muscle group. One “pass” means you go up the muscle group and back down the muscle group.
Station 1: 10 burpees. Foam roll achilles and calf R side.
Station 2: 10 burpees. Foam roll achilles and calf L side.
Station 3: Foam roll hamstring R side. 20 high leg swings R leg forward to backwards.
Station 4: Foam roll hamstring L side. 20 high leg swings L leg forward to backwards.
Station 5: 10 burpees. Foam roll R outside of hip.
Station 6: 10 burpees. Foam roll L outside of hip.
Station 7: Foam roll IT band R side. 20 side-to-side leg swings R leg.
Station 8: Foam roll IT band L side. 20 side-to-side leg swings L leg.
Station 9: 10 burpees. Foam roll R adductors/inside of thighs.
Station 10: 10 burpees. Foam roll L adductors/inside of thighs.
Station 11: 50 jumping jacks. Foam roll back bottom-to-top.
Station 12: 50 jumping jacks. Foam roll entire right shoulder complex.
Station 13: 50 jumping jacks. Foam roll entire left shoulder complex.
Station 14: 10 burpees. Foam roll neck (back, L side, R side)
Station 15: 10 burpees. Foam roll entire front of quads.
And yes, you get bonus points if you do this routine in a dry or infrared sauna.
Gymnastics: For the first four weeks of this program, I’d recommend you choose three days of the week (I recommend Monday, Wednesday and Friday) to work on handstands and other gymnastics movemenets as a crucial component of your “perfect workout” plan. You can click here to listen to or read my episode on why gymnastics training is so effective. You can do this on three days of the week, as an alternative to your hot and cold session or as an addition (depending on your time limitations) hot and cold session. For the first four weeks, I’d recommend startingwith this free handstand program (if you are already relatively fit, do the “Rx’d work”. Otherwise do the “Scaled work”). After those first four weeks, I’d recommend you shift into the complete full free year of gymnastics training here at the BreakingMuscle.com website, or simply follow the daily Gymnastics “WOD” (Workout Of The Day) at GymnasticsWOD.com. If you’d like, you can use this Gymnastics work as a “warmup” or as a “finisher” to your sauna session (e.g. 15 minutes gymnastics work, 15 minutes sauna finisher, or vice versa).
Whew! That’s it.
In this two-part series, you learned how to string together strength, power, speed, cardio, mobility, gymnastics, hypoxia, hot, cold, rebounding, brain training, and new sports and adventures to create the perfect workout plan for 2017. I guarantee that you will achieve a level of full body fitness that you’ve never before experienced, along with getting a very, very nice body if you follow this routine.
If you would like to access everything in a “done-for-you” calendar format, along with some other training, body care and detoxification tips such as coconut oil pulling, fasting, dry skin brushing and beyond, then you can click here to see a training plan I’ve written that lays everything out for you in a daily plan with no guesswork.
In the meantime, doyou have questions, comments or feedback about the perfect workout for 2017? Join the conversation at Facebook getfitguy.
About the Author
Ben Greenfield received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from University of Idaho in sports science and exercise physiology; personal training and strength and conditioning certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA); a sports nutrition certification from the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), an advanced bicycle fitting certification from Serotta. He has over 11 years’ experience in coaching professional, collegiate, and recreational athletes from all sports, and as helped hundreds of clients achieve weight loss and fitness success.