Big & Lean: 10 Workouts in 5 Days

Getting big and lean isn’t rocket science. Trust me, I would know.

Designing a program to do this in five days is an art. Do things correctly, and you will simultaneously strip fat, and build muscle. Do things wrong, and you will be sore, tired, and unsuccessful. The choice is yours.

Big and Lean in 5 Days

You’re probably wondering what the secret is to building muscle and losing fat in only five days. Let me tell you, it’s not a magic pill, powder, or potion. It’s all about hard work and strategic eating. In fact, you’ll be training 10 times in five days, while eating junk food. I’ve seen guys gain up to four pounds of muscle using this method. 

If you have done the math correctly, you may have guessed that 10 workouts in five days translates into training twice a day. This may seem like a recipe for overtraining, but judging by the results I’ve seen, I beg to differ.  Being an Aerospace Engineering graduate, I have always questioned the current rules of the weight room, and am not afraid to experiment with new methods.  

Not only have I seen insanely impressive results with clients, but I’ve seen it happen time and time again with football teams.  Back when I was in high school football, we’d have a two hour practice, and then in the evening, I would head to the gym for a heavy lifting session involving lots of squats, presses, and pulls. Within a month, I had put 15 lbs. onto my frame, and actually got leaner.  

There is a proper way to train twice a day in order to build muscle, and it involves four guidelines:

1. Train one or two body parts twice in the same day.
2. Train with low reps and heavy weight in the morning.
3. Train to get a pump in the evening.
4. Save at least 4 hours between the morning and evening workout.
5. The most important ingredient (you’ll find out more about this soon, don’t worry).

The 3 Mechanisms of Muscle Growth

Research shows that muscles grow from three mechanisms: mechanical tension, metabolic stress, and muscle damage. The morning workouts provide high amounts of mechanical tension (hard contractions) to the muscles. On top of this, the heavy weights prime the central nervous system so that you can lift heavier weights in the evening workouts. 

In the evening, focusing on getting a pump in the muscle will cause metabolic stress. In the end, training the same body part in the same day will lead to a higher amount of muscle damage. This forces your muscles to grow very quickly.

The Most Important Ingredient

You can’t grow unless you let your body recover.  With that being said, you need to sleep at least 8 hours per day and you need five days of rest after completing 10 workouts in five days. While training twice a day, you force your body to come close to overtraining. This is known as overreaching. If you let your body rest afterwards, it will rebound due to supercompensation; ultimately building as much as four pounds of muscle in five days. This means that you will literally build muscle and lose fat by sitting on your couch and watching TV for five days straight.

Deciphering Tempo

In the tempo column, you will notice 4 numbers.  

Let’s use 40X0 as an example.

First Number (4) 

This dictates how many seconds to lower the weight (the eccentric). For example, if you are bench pressing, you will lower the weight 4 seconds to your chest.

Second Number (0)

This is how long you will hold the weight before raising it (before the concentric). If you are bench pressing, this would be how long you are holding the bar on your chest.

Third Number (X)

This is how long it takes you to raise the weight (concentric).  In this example, if you are bench pressing, the X means to explode.

Fourth Number (0)

This is how long you will hold the weight at the extended position. In the bench press, this means arms at full length.