Basic Workout Plan

4 DAY BASIC WORKOUT PLAN

This is a go-to 4 day workout plan we use on occasion. A few of these works require the necessary equipment, such as the Lat Pull Down and Leg Extensions, but those can be interchanged with other workouts.

I’d recommend that you do each group roughly every other day. Although this doesn’t quite fit into a 7 day week, so you can do it something like this instead: Monday Group 1, Tuesday Group 2, Thursday Group 3, and Saturday Group 4. Then pick a day or 2 with no group workout assigned and do some type of low intensity cardio, such as cycling or running with the intent of maintaining a fat burn heart rate, such as 125 bpm for a 40 year old male.

The calculation for fat burning zone heart rate is simple: (220 – {your age}) * 0.8 = {approximate fat burn heart rate}

WORKOUT GROUPS

Group 1:

Chest and Back		Sets	Reps
Flat Bench 4 10
Lat Pull Downs 4 10
Flat Flyes 4 10
Kneeled Rows 4 10
Incline Bench 4 10
Seated Rows 3 10
Incline Flyes 4 10
Pushups 3 20

Group 2:

Legs			Sets	Reps
Leg Extensions 4 14
Stiff Leg Deadlifts 3 12
Close Knee Squats 3 10
Weighted Lunges 3 10
Kick Backs 3 10
Leg Curls 4 12
Lunges 4 10

Group 3:

Bi and Tri		Sets	Reps
Alternating Curls 3 10
Tricep Pushdown 4 10
Bent Over Curls 3 10
Overhead Dumbbell 3 10
Ez Bar Curl 4 10
Overhead Ez Bar 3 10
Single Arm Tricep 3 10
Light weight Burn Out 3 *

Group 4:

Shoulders and Traps	Sets	Reps
Front Lateral Raises 3 10
Front Raises 3 10
Seated Dumbbell Press 3 10
Upper Back Rows 3 10
Standing Ez Bar Press 3 10
Shrugs 3 10

WORKOUT PLANS

IT STARTS WITH A PLAN.

Think about it this way. You have a group of friends showing up and you promised you’d make dinner for them at your place. Imagine that you are not the seasoned chef that you are. You show up the grocery store with no idea what you are going to make. As you scurry about the store hoping that a great idea will come down from the heavens and enlighten your mind, you can’t help but fill your cart with items that will not collectively produce any known meal to mankind. You begin to get worried. Then fear sets in; will others notice your lack of knowledge of meal preparation? Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. Who cares about that.

The point is that just like preparing a meal and grocery shopping, you need a WORKOUT PLAN prior to working out!

BASIC WORKOUT PLANS

I’ve got quite a few go-to plans that I use on a regular basis to fit in exercise whenever I can; let me share some of those plans with you:

NUTRITION

I cannot express enough how important appropriate nutrition is to all aspects of the fitness lifestyle. Whether or not you want to lose weight, maintain, or gain muscle you need to pay close attention to what you are eating. It’s no secret that abs are “made” in the kitchen!

RESULTS VIA CONTROL.

Let’s be real here. Self-control is going to be your biggest fight. When it comes to proper nutrition, its unfortunately VERY easy to screw it up. You need to visualize your goal and set the path to realize it!

Calorie graph showing 3000 a day

MAINTAIN A CONSISTENT CALORIC INTAKE.

Calculate a suggested calorie intake and use it as a STARTING point and not the absolute number. You need to pay close attention to the actual needs of your body. I use a simple calculator as the starting point and adjust calories accordingly. I consume 3100 a day, 6’3″, 205lbs.

Once you know your approximate caloric intake, tack your intake!

TRACK FOOD INTAKE DAILY!

If you grab 5 tortilla chips and eat them but don’t track that then you’re lying to yourself, that’s like 70-80 calories untracked. Do this type of sloppy tracking a few times a day and you’ll end up with sloppy results. If you drink a beer, track it. If you have a crappy food day and binge eat, track it. Check and use MyFitnessPal like you do Facebook.

40 30 30 macro pie graph

KEEP BALANCE BETWEEN MACRO NUTRIENTS.

If you can’t figure out what’s good for you, stick to the traditional 40/30/30 breakdown. If you want to gain muscle, pay close attention to your Protein intake, I ensure mine is 30% of my daily intake using foods like my HDF Meatloaf.

DRINK WATER AND DROP SODA.

I consume 1 gallon of water a day among everything else that I drink. I like cold brew coffee in the morning with coconut milk and occasionally I’ll drink a diet soda. I always stay away from unnecessary sugars.

half filled wine glass

BE REALISTIC.

You have to enjoy life, so unless you are in a body building competition, enjoy some restaurant foods or a glass of wine occasionally. Don’t confuse occasionally with daily and make sure you track what you ate, see point 2.

START RIGHT NOW.

ONE. Figuring Out Your Calories!

TWO. Meal Prep Ideas!

THREE. WORKOUT!

Joi

I can’t say I’m just now on my AI journey, but I’m certainly much more into it now than I was even 12 months ago. The amount of questions and image generations I’ve asked AI for in the last 3 months is incredible. Generative AI, which is what I believe ChatGPT and for images MidJourney, is quite amazing at creating content based off of my simple requests. Here is an example of me asking for Joi from Bladerunner wearing pink in a field of pink flowers with a volcano in the background.

Thats quite an impressive image based on that simple query. Now each AI tool is different in its own way, especially easy to notice with image generation. ChatGPT 4, DALL-E wasn’t able to create anything that realistic for the prompts I gave it, but Midjourney was quite capable as you can see.

Here is another example that I liked from similar requests…

I use ChatGPT 4 daily for assistance with a variety of things, and it does particularly well with suggesting solutions for the many technical issues that I encounter, including new development work on React Native that I just started. To be honest here, I haven’t used much traditional google searching for assistance with React Native because I’ve found ChatGPT to be more effective at producing quality solutions.

Does this mean the technical blog is dying?

GETTING STARTED

You might think this is the hardest part. But it isn’t. The hardest part is staying “started”. Keeping that momentum. Eating right over and over and over. Working out consistently and on a regular basis and with appropriate intensity. There are some TRICKS to keeping yourself active that have worked for me over the past few years.

Here is the quick list:

  1. PROGRESS: Take daily selfies and progress pictures. Log that information somewhere, such as Instagram.
  2. KNOWLEDGE: Get comfortable enough with your work out programs so that you are not lost.
  3. SCHEDULE: Schedule time to work out. Remind yourself that it is beneficial that you spend time at the gym, for you and everyone around you. Confidence will be amplified based on your appreciation of your own physique.
  4. NUTRITION: Prep meals to eat at the office. Don’t wait until last minute, you won’t do it. Find a few meals that you love, stick with them and go from there.
  5. RECOVERY: You have to allow your body to recover properly. Get quality sleep. Don’t expect great results if you’re living on 4 hours of sleep and stressing out from life.
  6. GEAR: Yes, this matters. Find gym clothes that you love. Find headphones that stay on and sound great. Find a long list of music that pumps you up.

Let’s get started with one of the three below:

WORKOUT

Need a plan that will GET you there in the next 90 days? Remember that a good plan, proper form, hard work, and consistency wins!

EAT RIGHT

Yes, you can out-work a poor diet, to a certain degree, and still look decent. But let’s be honest, do you want to be just decent and still unhealthy? No. Learn how to EAT well for physical GROWTH that is sustainable for months and years.