The Complete MF Training Guide

Getting Started

Here’s what you need to know before diving in:

1. It should always be fun. Consistency will be the most important factor in attaining the results you want. The best program is the one you can stick to. If you’re having trouble staying consistent because of an exercise you hate or some other reason in this program, change it and change it early on. 2. Make a schedule for the 3 training days in this program. The odds of you completing every workout in the 30 days go WAY up when you have all 12 workouts scheduled for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 6:00 PM. 3. Keep it simple and don’t overthink things. The rest of the information in this guide may get a little technical or heavy on the science. Remember that this fitness stuff is not that serious and we’re exercising to enhance our lives, not add stress. 4. This program is just an outline. If you have to modify it in any way DO NOT feel like you have failed in any way. I designed it with making modifications in mind so that I could give it to anyone at any level of fitness. 5. If you’re going from the couch to this program be sure that you’re warming up properly and have the prerequisite mobility to complete every exercise. If you don’t, I would love for you to take one week to ease into things. The exercises in this program should be challenging but never painful. So if you are experiencing pain it’s likely a user error. 6. A support system is a HUGE help in any program or lifestyle change. Feel free to send this program to a friend or family member and have them complete it with you. 7. Remember, increasing your activity level doesn’t mean you get to eat more. Unless your goal is weight gain. In that case, eat more. 8. Never hesitate to email me about any questions/comments/concerns throughout this program. 9. The gym is not as judgmental of a place as you may think. Sure, it can be a little intimidating at first but relax and before long you’ll feel right at home. If you’re struggling with this, see #6.

STRONG 30 PAGE 1 MASONFIT.COM 10. You won’t need any fancy supplements here. Spend that money on better food choices, workout clothes, and maybe your potential support systems gym membership fee or something like that. 11. Don’t stop at 30 days. I’ve laid out how to proceed after the first month at the very end of this so no excuses. 12. Everything from this point forward may not be as riveting as Fifty Shades of Grey, but it is almost necessary reading. Within the next 10 minutes you’ll be a well educated, ready to exercise, ass kicking machine.

Two Programs in One

You will see two different programs in the Excel file - the Strong 30 (left image below) as well as an exercise database and 3 months of training templates (right image below). You will learn more about the templates toward the end of this guide. If you are a beginner, read this guide in its entirety and work primarily off the Strong 30 program before progressing to the templates.

The Basics of Exercise Science and Programming

Factors of Muscle Growth

There are three main factors for stimulating muscle growth. They are, mechanical tension (the intensity or weight you are lifting), muscle damage (breaking down your muscles during training to rebuild muscle fibers stronger for next time), and metabolic stress (buildup of metabolic waste due to anaerobic training AKA the “burn”). All three play separate roles and are independent of one another for the most part. Meaning that just because you aren’t sore after a training session doesn’t mean you aren’t building muscle.

I would say the most important of the three is mechanical tension, or the weight lifted and total training volume. This is why this program will focus on progressing week in and week out. (Progressive Overload) As we progress total work volume there is no doubt we are getting stronger, building muscle, and improving body composition.

Remember, total volume is king.

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Exercise Variation

You won’t find much variation in the exercises in this program. Even if the program was extended beyond 30 days, there wouldn’t be a ton of variation. The reasoning is once again, science. Exercise and strength training is a skill. You have to master a movement to really begin to reap the benefits. Most of any strength gain when beginning a new exercise is just neural adaptation, and although some muscle growth is occurring, it is minimal compared to after an exercise is mastered by the nervous system.

Learning new exercises all the time is inefficient, and you should really aim to master every exercise in the program. Focus on the muscles you are aiming to work in each exercise. The only exception here would be if an exercise becomes too easy, and you have to scale up on an exercise. Try to see the bigger picture.

Now, I’m a big believer in having fun with your training. After all, if you don’t enjoy it you’ll never stick with it. So play around with the accessory exercises at the end of workouts and activities outside of the gym. But improving your skills at the compound movements like pulling, pressing, and squatting will inevitably lead to less total time spent in the gym and greater results.

Rep Ranges

How high or low should you go with repetitions? Here’s a good rule of thumb. • 8-12 – primarily for muscle hypertrophy (building) – allows weight to be moderate enough to minimize injury while stimulating new muscle growth. This should be your sweet spot. • 15+ - primarily muscular endurance – though some accessory exercises like bicep curls or glute bridges may require higher rep schemes to properly stimulate hypertrophy • 4-8 – a blend between strength/power training and muscle hypertrophy – as you become more advanced it is ok to lower rep schemes and experiment with heavier weights. • <4 – primarily strength/power development – a majority of the adaptation in this range will be nervous system related and less muscle hypertrophy.

STRONG 30 PAGE 3 MASONFIT.COM Lifting Tempo

I’m not much of a stickler on super specific tempos, as long as you’re under control. You do the majority of muscle damage (essential for building muscle) on the eccentric portion of a lift, or the lowering of a weight. For this reason, a slow and controlled lowering of a weight should be your focus on each exercise. If it helps, count to two in your head during each eccentric phase.

Your concentric phase, or the actual “lifting” portion should be as explosive as possible on each rep.

Here are a few examples of the concentric and eccentric on a lift. • Squat o Eccentric – squatting down o Concentric – standing back up • Push Up o Eccentric – lowering to the floor o Concentric – pushing yourself back up • Bicep Curl o Eccentric – lowering the weight to your side o Concentric – curling the weight up

Rest Periods

Similar to lifting tempo, I’m a bit laissez-faire when it comes to rest periods. Depending on where you’re at in terms of cardiovascular fitness, this could range anywhere between 30 seconds to 3 minutes on exercises like squats. In general, your bigger compound movements like squats, presses, and pulls should require between 30-90 seconds rest between sets if you’re working in the 8-12 rep range. As long as you’re not on your phone for 5 minutes between sets you should be fine – catch your breath, shake ‘em out, and get back to work. On accessory exercises like curls, lateral raises, hamstring curls, etc. you may only need 30-60 seconds between sets. This could be a good opportunity to elicit more metabolic stress, which is good!

Shorter rest periods as a whole are more effective at burning fat, getting stronger hormonal responses after training (better recovery), and improving cardiovascular health. So like I said, get off your phone.

STRONG 30 PAGE 4 MASONFIT.COM Scaling Exercises

The exercises included in this program are relatively basic and picked primarily for their scalability and low barrier of entry. You can take the basic outline of the program and by simply tweaking the exercise difficulty, have an awesome progressive strength training program. Let’s run through a few examples.

Lat Pulldown – Increase the difficulty by swapping these out for Pull Ups.

Goblet Squat – Increase the difficulty by going with a barbell back squat or front squat. Decrease the difficulty by going to a bodyweight squat or bench squat.

Dumbbell Chest or Shoulder Press – Decrease the difficulty by moving to a machine press. Increase the difficulty by going to a barbell bench press to move more weight.

Bench Dips – Increase the difficulty by moving to a traditional chest or tricep dip on parallel bars. You could also elevate your feet on a bench for more of a challenge.

Sumo Dumbbell Squat – Increase the difficulty by moving to a sumo barbell deadlift or elevating your feet on two steps or bumper plates for greater range of motion.

Rows – Read this.

You can also jump the gun and pull exercises from the attached exercise database. The database is for the advanced 3/week program, which you will learn about at the end of this guide. But feel free to use it now for exercise ideas. If you have any questions about exercise modification do not hesitate to ask me a question.

Progressive Overload

It’s not as complicated as it may sound. Progressive overload can be as simple as increasing the weight lifted from your previous session or even increasing the repetitions performed with the same weight. Total volume is a very important factor to progressive strength training.

Example 1: A goblet squat performed with a 50lb dumbbell for 3 sets of 10 reps (30 total reps) = 1500 lbs total lifted for that exercise.

Example 2: A goblet squat performed with a 50lb dumbbell for 2 sets of 15 reps (30 total reps) = 1500 lbs total lifted for that exercise.

Example 3: A goblet squat performed with a 100lb dumbbell for 1 sets of 15 reps (15 total reps) = 1500 lbs total lifted for that exercise.

As you can see, the weight, sets, and reps changed in each example but the total volume remained the same. What I really want you to take note of is the difference between total working time. The first example used 3 sets of 10, which likely included rest periods in between and probably took somewhere between 4-5 minutes to complete the exercise. Example 3 had a single set that likely took 30-60 seconds from start to finish. You can see over the course of an entire workout, if total volume is your goal, where you can save some serious time by progressing to a heavier weight. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather work out for 30 minutes than 60 minutes.

STRONG 30 PAGE 5 MASONFIT.COM Progressing This Program

Strong 30 has built in progressions in rep schemes each week. However, you will need to know how to modify the weight for each change in rep scheme. If an exercise calls for 12 reps in Week 1 and 10 reps in Week 2 – you will need to increase the weight used from Week 1 in Week 2.

You will see above where 50 lbs was used in Week 1 and progressed to 65 in Week 2. **Remember: Less Reps = Increase Weight**

What about the other way around? Increased Reps = Decreased Weight? Not necessarily – take a look at this example.

You will notice in Weeks 1-3 below that the reps decreased from 12 to 8 before changing directions and ramping back up from 8 to 10. Your training should always have some fluctuation in rep schemes. **Maybe not every week like in this program (I wanted to introduce you to progressive strength training), but every 2-4 weeks would be a safe bet. **

STRONG 30 PAGE 6 MASONFIT.COM Take a look at Week 2 and Week 4 above. You will notice in Week 2 65 lbs was used for 4 sets of 10 reps. In Week 4 70 lbs was used for the same sets and reps. This would be a huge win! 2600 total lbs lifted in Week 2 vs 2800 total lbs in Week 4. These small changes REALLY add up over time.

You should aim to at LEAST maintain the weight used in previous weeks when revisiting the same rep schemes. This is why keeping some sort of training log is important – unless you have a really good memory.

Remember, at the end of the day, we are after total volume. Small increases over time make a HUGE difference in the long run. You could continue to manipulate your weight and reps like in the program above for an extended period of time without ever plateauing.

One last thing, if you take a look at Week 3 below you will notice that weight used was progressed through the workout. This should always be the goal if you complete a set with ease - even if you get to a point like on the final set where you come up a rep short. It’s important to test your limits.

Core Training

Although your core does quite a bit of work during strength training, I can understand the desire to work it a bit more. It’s really hard to beat the classic plank as far as working the core and for functionality. But in case you get bored easily- below you will find some of my favorite exercises (clickable links). Decline sit ups Captain's chair leg raise Lying leg raises Hanging leg raises Dip station leg raises Straight leg sit ups Plank walk ups Scissor Kicks Russian Twist Jack Knife Sit-Up

Instead of reps and sets on core exercises I typically advise using time intervals. For instance, 40 seconds working to 20 seconds rest for 3-5 minutes should be plenty of work at the end of a training session.

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The Strong 30 Program has no cardio requirements because I’d love you to be active enough throughout the day that cardio becomes an afterthought. Make your cardio fun, try to avoid going to the gym to just walk on a treadmill – you can do that outdoors with your dogs or family. Get involved with activities and stay off the couch and away from the TV and you should be just fine. Strength training is plenty as long as you’re staying active I promise.

Should you find yourself wanting more of a challenge, look at things like supersets, density circuits, and interval training.

Supersets – Where two exercises are performed back to back with no rest between sets. Example: 20 push ups followed by 20 bodyweight squats, rest for 30 seconds and repeat. I also like super setting accessory exercises like bicep curls, tricep extensions, or something along those lines. It saves time and gets your heart rate up.

Density Circuits – Pick a group of 4 exercises and set a timer for 10-15 minutes. Perform 5 reps of each exercise circuit style and complete as many rounds as possible in the time limit a la CrossFit (no Olympic lifts here). Example: 5 goblet squats, 5 pull ups, 5 stiff leg deadlifts, 5 barbell curls = 1 round. This becomes a bit of a challenge with yourself in the next workout to complete more rounds than last time.

Interval Training – Similar to how I laid out cardio above. Pick a working time (30-60 seconds usually works) and a rest time of around ½ of your working time. If you worked for 60 seconds, rest for 30 seconds, repeat. You could apply this to any exercise to get a great cardio workout at the end of a session. Things like jump ropes, battle ropes, sleds and prowlers, and other fun equipment can make training even more enjoyable.

**Don’t forget you could do these types of things at home with bodyweight exercises or objects around the house.

STRONG 30 PAGE 8 MASONFIT.COM After 30 Days

Like I said above in the section about progressive overload, you could extend this program well beyond 30 days if you’re enjoying it. The first step would be to make each rep scheme stagnant for 2 week periods. So, instead of 12 reps in Week 1 and 10 reps in Week 2 – it would look like 12 reps in Weeks 1 & 2, 10 reps in Weeks 3 & 4, and so on. That will really give you a chance to improve in each rep range.

One thing you won’t find in Strong 30 is variation in total sets and only because it’s only 4 weeks long and I can’t squeeze everything in! This is another training variable that can be easily manipulated to increase total volume. If you were to decrease your reps to let’s say, below 8, you could increase your working sets to add volume. Examples: • 3 sets of 10 = 30 reps • 4 sets of 8 = 32 reps • 6 sets of 5 = 30 reps All of these would be acceptable set and rep schemes. The major difference would be weight used – you’re a lot more likely to use a heavier weight on a set of 5 reps than a set of 10 reps, yet you’re completing the same total reps. This amounts to a huge increase in total volume.

If you are loving the exercises, rep ranges, sets, and don’t feel like you’re ready to make a lot of changes to the structure, adding another training day is always an option. Be careful when doing this to not overdo it or take on too much, too fast. Remember, slow and steady wins the race. I know it’s exciting to take on all these new challenges but do your best to avoid burning out a few months down the road.

Lastly, ask yourself these questions: • Are you ready to progress to a more difficult exercise? • Are you growing bored with any exercises? If so, it may be time to make a switch even at the sake of mastering an exercise. Like I said previously, you should enjoy your training. 9 • Are there any exercises missing that you would like to incorporate? • Are you improving at each exercise? Can you feel the exercise working the targeted muscle groups? If not, continue working on that particular exercise. Creating the mind-muscle connection may take a while, especially if you are inexperienced with strength training.

STRONG 30 PAGE 9 MASONFIT.COM The Next Step

If you are satisfied with your progress thus far and would like to tackle a more advanced program or increase the level of difficulty, check out the second half of this program. It is a three month training template for a 3/week movement-based strength training program. You will have the freedom to choose your own exercises from the database and plug them in based on movement categories. For more information on how to use this template, watch this video.

How to Say Thank You

I hope you are in a healthier place after this program or if nothing else, more educated, motivated, or inspired. Thank you for your interest in my work. It really means the world. I thoroughly enjoy providing free information like this program. In return all I would like to ask is that you share this with friends on social media, email, text or any medium. Send anyone you’d like to share it with a link to the programs page: http://masonfit.com/programs/

Ok I lied. I’d like one more thing from you. If you got results from this program, I would love to hear about it. In addition, if you have any feedback, positive or negative, I would love to hear that as well. Send results or feedback to my email.

Disclaimer

The ideas, concepts and opinions expressed in this training program are intended to be used for educational purposes only. The program was created with the understanding that the author is not rendering medical advice of any kind, nor is this program intended to replace medical advice, nor to diagnose, prescribe or treat any disease, condition, illness or injury.

It is imperative that before beginning any diet or exercise program, including any aspect of this program from Mason Woodruff of MasonFit, you receive full medical clearance from a licensed physician.

Author claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application or interpretation of the material in this meal plan.

The Food and Drug Administration has not evaluated the statements contained on MasonFit.com, in any Mason Woodruff of MasonFit products or in this program.

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