Keep your surf boards for the beach dudes, I have a better wave for you that will build muscle and strength faster than you thought possible…

I started a new muscle building Dad Fitness workout routine yesterday.

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You probably read lots of articles by now on the BEST workout routines.

Heck, I am a fitness writer myself and after 15 years of studying health and fitness inside and outside the gym as well as earning lots of advanced certifications I am confident that the advice I give works and is also safe and helpful for a healthy person.

Unfortunately with the age of the internet everyone thinks that they are suddenly qualified in exercise science and advanced program design.

That’s why mechanics don’t do brain surgery and why your dentist don’t fix your plumbing, (although some of their tools do looks the same).

It’s because they SPECIALIZE in their field and when we want expert results we go to an expert.

But you still have to be careful who you consider an expert despite some fancy letters after their name.

After seeing a workout routine that was left in the gym the other day I am almost ASHAMED to be called a Personal Trainer in the same breath as the “personal trainer” who designed this exercise program below!

This has got to be the WORST weight training program I have EVER seen!

…and trust me I have seen it all and this even goes way beyond any of the over hyped bodybuilder routines found in the magazines.

I am sure my 2 year old daughter would come up with a better routine, as her squat technique is impeccable.

It’s no wonder guys at the gym are walking around with torn up shoulders and bad backs.  I would rather they stay home and did nothing, than follow stuff like this and breakdown their muscles and mobility with the overuse and redundant exercises found below.

95% of these exercises are not only a waste of anyone’s time for building muscle but the unnatural angles recommended for some of these movements make them go from bad to down right DANGEROUS!

So I hope the “trainer” who blindly slapped this workout routine together goes back to eating their Cracker Jacks and the personal trainer certification that came with it…

WARNING: Displaying this workout is for novelty purposes only and may cause a choking hazard if anyone with a brain reads it while eating or drinking.

The Worst Workout Routine EVER

3 sets of 10 for everything.
(wow, that’s creative)

Day 1

Wide Grip Bench Press
Wide Grip Incline Bench Press
Pullover
Decline DB Press
Bench Dip
Cable Flys
Cable Crossover
Pushup

Day 2

Lying Bicep Curl
Preacher Curl
EZ bar Concentration curl
Cable Bicep curl
Tricep Overhead DB Press
Skull Crusher
One arm Cable pushdown
Dip

Day 3

Pullup
Cable One Arm Pulldown
Lat Pulldown
Seated Cable Row
T Bar Row
Bent Over Db row
Reverse Fly
Back Ext.

As for lower body exercises I didn’t see any but was too disgusted to turn the page and waste my time reading any more of this garbage.

If you are a busy dad and is looking for professionally designed workout routines done for busy dads by a busy dad, check out www.DadFitness.com for safe and effective workouts and nutrition plans that give you maximum results in minimum time.

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I have been busy interviewing a lot of the top fitness experts lately for an upcoming Dad Fitness “secret” project that I am sure you guys are going to love!

Stay tuned for this in the coming months…

In the meantime, here is a quick Q & A I did with one of the top strength and conditioning coaches in the world, Jason Feruggia of Renegade Gym in New Jersey. Jason is also the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness magazine if he sounds familiar.

As an “old school lifter” myself who thinks basics are best when it comes to working out I relate to Jason’s no B.S. approach to getting maximum results in minimum time.

Interview with Jason Feruggia:

[Sean] Most guys are being told to follow bodybuilding splits, train multiple times a day, and other non-sense training tactics that don’t work. What tips do you have for people looking to build muscle as fast as possible?

[Jason] The key to making consistent size gains is making consistent strength gains (in a hypertrophy rep range) while eating enough food and allowing enough time for recovery. You need to constantly be doing more weight or more reps. The body will respond to any given stimulus one time and one time only. If you place the same demands on it a second time (like pressing the same weight for the same reps) nothing will happen. You must always be forcing it to adapt and thus you must always ask it do something it isn’t used to.

The easiest way to do this is add more weight or do more reps with the same weight.

Aside from making consistent strength gains the next most important thing to consider is training frequency. To improve anything in life you need to do it frequently. Building muscle is no different. So you want to train a muscle as frequently as possible, while it is in a fresh and recovered state. This means that you should be training each body part once every 2-5 days, and not once a week like a lot of the muscle mags recommend. That’s too little frequency. The more times you can stimulate growth throughout the year the better. Obviously 104 growth stimulating workouts per year for each body part would be a lot better than 52.

[Sean] I have seen the phrase “stimulate, don’t annihilate” on your blog in reference to training. Can you explain what you mean by this and the relation to training volume?

[Jason] To elicit a training response you need to present the body with a stimulus that it isn’t used to. This stress will cause the body to adapt. The body adapts by building itself up bigger and stronger.

Where people go wrong is that they think they need to annihilate the muscle in order to elicit any type of response. This is completely counterproductive.

When you annihilate the muscle with tons of sets and reps and intensity techniques like drop sets you drastically increase your recovery time. And as I mentioned previously, frequency is very important. So when you increase your recovery time you have to decrease your training time. You’re shooting yourself in the foot.

The key is to do just enough to stimulate size and strength gains but not annihilate yourself so that it takes forever to recover, or worse- that you put yourself in a state of overtraining.

[Sean] Triple Threat Muscle is your new program. What separates this program from all the others and can you tell our readers why you created it?

[Jason] My Muscle Gaining Secrets program is specifically geared toward skinny guys, hardgainers and beginners. This is more of an intermediate/advanced program that is more athletically based. So while the main focus is still on building muscle there is also a shift toward a bit more speed work, mobility and conditioning in Triple Threat Muscle.
The new program was created for the typical weekend warrior or Average Joe who wants to look and train like an athlete but doesn’t actually have the time or recovery ability to spend more than a few hours per week in the gym.

I spent the last two years experimenting on a wide group of individuals to come up with the most effective and fastest way to do this. Triple Threat Muscle is the result of two years of hard work and is based on all of my findings.

[Sean] And finally, what general tips can you give to busy dads who want to transform their bodies?

1. Strength train 3-4 days per week.

2. Lift heavy and keep most of your sets in the range of 3-10 reps.

3. Don’t go to failure.

4. Train each body part 2-3 times per week.

5. Don’t do more than 12-16 total sets per workout.

6. Always strive to get stronger.

7. Eat natural, organic foods and avoid anything processed.

8. Sleep 8-10 hours per day.

9. Minimize stress.

10. Get out in the fresh air and sun more often.

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FACT:

A lot of gym rats might be able to load up the bar with hundreds of pounds for endless sets of the bench press but can’t even do 10 correct push ups…

I don’t think you have any business bench pressing if you can’t properly perform 20 perfect pushups.

If you can’t handle your own bodyweight, how functional is it to lie down on a bench and press additional weight?

Don’t get me wrong, the basic barbell bench press is a great upper body exercise for building muscle, but it’s depended on WAY too much to build a strong chest and shoulders.

Most people consider Pushups and Bench Presses both chest dominant exercises. But there is a big difference between the two…

The bench press is an open chain exercise and the pushup is a closed chain exercise.

The “chain” just refers to the kinetic chain of your body, which simply means that all of your body’s muscles are inter-connected in a “chain” and therefore the movements you make are also part of a that kinetic chain.

Open chain exercises allow your feet or hands to move freely like in a bench press, dumbbell curl or leg curl.

Closed chain exercises keep your feet or hands in a fixed position like on the ground during pushups or squats and even chinups.

Closed chain exercises are safer and more effective for real world functional strength because they allow your bodyweight to move through space in a full range of motion while distributing muscular stress through many muscles instead of isolating and stressing single muscles.

A big reason why so many bench press addicts develop shoulder problems is because of not the shoulders directly but due to the lack of movement in your upper back when pinned to a bench during bench presses.

The muscles in your upper back surrounding your shoulders blades and scapula play a crucial role in stabilizing and allowing movement of your shoulder girdle during pressing movements.

Pushups eliminates this problem by allowing your upper back to contract in a full range of motion when you lower yourself to the ground.

Plus for busy dads bodyweight exercises are great because they can be done anywhere without any equipment!

(here is my favorite pressing exercise)

So if you want to incorporate a simple but intense pushup workout into your workout routine give the 100 rep pushup workout a try.

Once or twice a week at the end of your regular workout aim for performing 100 pushups and time yourself to see how long it takes you.

Do as many reps as you can and do however many sets it takes you to reach 100.

For example if you can do 20 pushups at one time before failure start with 20 but as you fatigue you will probably drop down to sets of 10. You will obviously need more rest between sets as you get closer to 100.

Take as much rest as you need to get at least 10 reps for each set until you reach the 100 rep mark.

Most guys in pretty good shape will be able to complete 100 reps anywhere between 5-10 minutes.

Don’t worry how long it takes you. Just record your time and push hard to beat it the next time around.

Before you know it you will join the pushup century club and have the perfect pecs to prove it!

Perfect Pushups Tips

*Keep your abs braced tight and your hips in line with your body.

*Tuck your chin in like a “double chin” and look straight down at the floor to form a straight line from your head to your toes.

*Push your elbows and upper arms back in a 45 degree direction opposed to straight out to your sides.

PS. Be sure to check out my training article in the April/May issue of Inside Fitness magazine!

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One of the most common questions I get asked about working out is

“What do YOUR workout routine look like?

Well ever since I created The Dad Fitness System I would just point them to www.DadFitness.com where they can get their own copy of The Ultimate Fitness Plan For Busy Dads downloaded instantly to their computer.

It works for me and it’s working for other busy dads all around the world.

But this year I have been improving the Dad Fitness workouts to better fit MY busy lifestyle and for all of YOU living the Dad Fitness lifestyle as well.

You see, being a busy dad and husband working a full-time job and running a business on the side doesn’t allow me to spend 5-6 days a week working out at the gym to stay fit.

I will be honest though, I LOVE working out at the gym, especially our little dungeon of a gym here in town. No lineups, no machines, just torn up benches with some rusty barbells and dumbbells. I guess you can call me “old school”.

But as much as I would like to I can’t always get there as often as I wish as I spend most of my days off from working shift work staying home with my 19 month old daughter while my wife is at work.

Some weeks I find it hard to get to the gym even 3 days a week so I had to adapt and tweak the Dad Fitness workouts.

So I designed a workout routine that focuses on 2 gym workouts a week and one bodyweight workout a week, totaling 3 short but intense workouts a week. …Which is all most of us really need to get in great shape anyway.

I have been loving this routine as I can get in 2 intense gym workouts a week and have no problem getting in the 3rd bodyweight workout as it can be done at home with minimal equipment, at the gym or even at my local playground when the weather permits.

Now that’s the way workouts should be, they should fit around YOUR lifestyle, not the other way around like most programs you might find in the magazines.

I am building muscle, gaining strength and staying lean like never before and it’s all because of the intricate design of these workouts.

Every exercise, Every rep and Every set is specifically selected and has a scientific reason for being in the program.

This gives you the complete “Training Triangle” to build muscle, gain strength and burn fat all in minimum time and in one simple 3 day a week workout routine.

So here is the breakdown of what I like to call Dad Fitness 2.0

• 3 workouts a week consisting of 2 gym workouts and 1 bodyweight workout.

• The workouts rotate on a 2 week cycle meaning there is a Week 1 of workouts and a Week 2, before you repeat the same workouts.
• Each routine is followed for 8 weeks allowing each weekly workout to be completed 4 times.

This keeps my motivation high and prevents the dreaded training plateau by rotating exercises every 2 weeks instead of every week like most programs.

So here is an example of just of ONE of the weekly workout routines in the upcoming yet to be released Dad Fitness 2.0 Fitness Plan.

Day 1, Week 1, Gym

Chest, Shoulders and Triceps

Decline Barbell Bench Press, 2 sets of 4-6 reps.

Incline Dumbbell Bench Press, 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Standing Barbell Shoulder Press, 2 sets of 4-6 reps

Standing Triple Threat Dumbbell Lateral Raise Superset, (side, front and rear) 2 sets of 6-8 reps each

Lying Flat Ez Bar Tricep Extensions, 2 sets of 4-6 reps

Tricep Cable Pushdowns, 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Cable Crunch, 2 sets of 8-10 reps

Day 2, Week 1, Gym

Legs, Back and Biceps

Barbell Squats, 2 sets of 4-6 reps

Dumbbell Lunges, 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Weighted Pullups, 2 sets of 4-6 reps

Bent Over Barbell Rows, 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Standing Barbell Curls, 2 sets of 4-6 reps

Standing Dumbbell Curls, 2 sets of 6-8 reps

Standing Calf Raise, 2 set of 8-10 reps

Day 3, Week 1, Bodyweight

One Leg Squats, 3 sets of max reps

Medicine Ball Pushups, 3 sets of max reps

Inverted Pullups, 3 sets of max reps

Dips, 3 sets of max reps

Parallel Grip Pullups, 3 sets of max reps

Front Plank, 2 set of 60 secs

Side Plank, 2 sets of 45 secs

I don’t have an exact date yet for the release of Dad Fitness 2.0 but I am working hard to get it complete so it can be YOUR favorite workout of 2010!

and let me know your favorite workout of 2009 by posting a comment below…

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