Client Spot Light

Mandy Cusick has been a long-time client, I first started training her, early in my personal training career, and she has come back a few years back.

With the goal of building muscle and getting strong, as well as feeling better.

She has done an amazing job.

Super consistent, with her workouts and always pushing the weights.

She regularly squats and deadlifts her own body weight and more, which is very impressive.

She sees me 3x a week, and I design a custom strength program for her, to reach her goals.

Want to learn How To Eat More Protein . Sometimes, knowing something isn’t enough.

We might know that getting more protein will drive better outcomes, with almost any goal.

But, we actually try to do it in our life.

We drop the ball.

Here is 5 step process on How To Eat More Protein

#1 3 protein-based meals

#2 Track your protein-dense foods in a tracker to see, where you’re at

#3 Eat bigger portions

#4 Add 1-2 protein snacks between meals

#5 Remember you’ll get 10-30g of trace protein from the carb and fat based food you already eat.

Check out this video, where I break it down for you

Bobby here! Today I’m going to over a few Muscle & Strength building workout plan. That anyone can use to start seeing strength and muscle gains they want

Muscle & Strength Building Workout Plan

The foundation of a great workout

Today I’m going to teach you three of my favorite workout routines, to get strong, build lean muscle, and help support long-term fat loss.

You can swipe these and make some major upgrades to your body and health

But, before we get into the workouts. Let’s talk about what makes a great workout.

Strength training

The best Muscle & Strength building workout plan is going to be around a strength-based workout. That means trying to build strength week to week.

This is going to build lean muscle, which will drive better health, strength, and fat loss due to muscle, increasing the calories your body burns each day.

Remember, muscle is what gives our body the shape we want.

If you’re looking for toning or getting jacked.

These are just different levels of building muscle. To be honest, getting jacked tasks takes a lot of work and time.

So, ladies, this is not going to happen by accident.

Don’t be afraid of lifting or resistance training.

I am not talking about HIT classes or circuits that use strength exercises. That is not strength training.

Strength training is focused on great form, hard sets, and enough rest to repeat those hard sets.

With the intention of getting stronger each week by:

• Doing more weight
• Doing more reps 
• Improving your form

Fundamental movement patterns

The majority of the exercises in your workouts should be the fundamental movement patterns.

These are going to give you the best bang for your buck.

They are

• Squats
• Hip hinge aka deadlift or hip thrust
• Upper push aka push-ups or press
• Upper pull aka rows, chin ups, pulldowns
• Single leg exercises aka step-ups, split squats, lunges

We should all be training these each week, trying to hit each movement at a minimum, of 2x  each week with great form and control.

Now the variation, that we choose should depend on our fitness level and limitation

A beginner might be doing bodyweight squats and someone with 3 years under their belt might do a barbell front squat.

Warm up

The warm-up is part of the workout, that too many skip it.

Warm-up will allow you to move better, train harder, and get hurt less.

I find people either warm up too long or not at all.

I like to get a quick warm-up and then train hard.

This should take you 10-12 minutes

I follow the 6 phases warm-up sequence I got John Rusin from the PPSC certification.

It goes like this

• Foam rolling 60s per 
• Stretch 60s
• T-spine rotation or core exercises 1x 10-20 reps
• Upper back activation or glute activation drills 1x 15-30 reps
• Light movements we will do in the workout 3x 3
• Power 3×3 of jumps or throws or even KB swings

Here is a sample of one

1. Roll out your hamstring 60s
2. lying dynamic hamstring stretch 15 per side
3. ½ kneeling rotation 15/ side
4. Bridges 30 reps + banded pull aparts 30 reps
5. Air squat + push-ups 3x 3 10s rest
6. Box jumps 3x 3 60s rest (focus on max power for each reps)

At first, it might take like 15-20 minutes but once you get going, it should only take about 10 minutes.

Ramp up sets

Ramp-up sets are lighter sets before the working sets, which I will prescribe in the workouts.

The idea is to practice good form, with lighter weights before we go heavy and hard for our working sets. As well as help us select the right weight for our working sets.

Too often people don’t do warm-up sets, so they end up doing 3-4 sets, but only the last set is anywhere close to an actual hard and productive set.

Usually, the stronger you are the more ramp-up sets you’ll want to use.

This is because if you are weak it takes fewer bumps in weight, to get to a weight that is hard for you.

Ramp-up sets will take you from lighter weight to your first hard set

Here is an example

Say today you have squats for 4x 6

A heavy weight for 6 reps for you is 200lbs

You may do 2-4 ramp-up sets before you do those 4 sets of 6.

You might do it like this

• Ramp up set 1 50lbs
• Ramp up set 2 135lbs
• Ramp up set 3 185 lbs
• 1st working set 200lbs
• 2nd working set 210lbs
• 3rd working set 225 lbs
• 4th working set 230lbs

Note -When you get to your working sets, you might add weight a little as you go or keep the same weight through all the sets. 

Hard sets

There is a recent study that says rep ranges are less important as long as your sets are intense.

Intense sets, are sets that you go to 1-3 reps shy of failure.

Failure is the point when you can’t do another good rep, without altering your form

This is what is called a hard set.

You want 6-10 hard sets per body part per week to see gains.

At first hard sets can be tough for newbies, because they really don’t know what that level of intensity feels like.

Often when they think they have 2-3 reps in the tank, it is really 6-10.

Over time, you’ll get better after this.

As much as it is important to do hard sets if you’re a complete beginner. You may need to spend some time learning how to move well before we add those hard sets. 

For beginners focus on form for the first 2-6 weeks.

Some common ways to gauge hard sets in your workouts are:

RPE and RIR

RPE stands for the rate of perceived effort. How hard a set felt to you.

You want your working set to feel like 7-9 on a scale 1-10.

RIR stands for reps in reserve. Which is how many more reps, you could have done, if you kept going at that weight.

This you want to be at 1-3.

Use these to record your workouts with the weights and reps you did.

This will help you gauge how hard you went and will allow you to make better decisions the following workout.

One of the major principles of seeing gains is trying to push more weight or reps each week, these scales will help with that.

Fat loss workouts

Fat loss workouts are a bit of a myth.

Fat loss happens when you take in fewer calories than you burn.

You can do this through diet and exercise or a combination of both. But, often it is best to do it through diet.

As long as you’re in a deficit, that is really what’s going to drive fat loss.

But, if we look at strength training and building muscle. We know that people who have more lean tissue or more muscle. 

Will have an easier time getting lean and staying lean. This is due to lean tissue driving a faster metabolism, meaning you’ll burn more calories at rest.

As far as exercise goes and long-term fat loss, strength training might be the best option.

But, with that said cardio workouts will burn more calories, thus making it a better option for fat loss in the short term. But a few things to think about with this

• Workouts usually burn a very little amount of calories, the difference you may see might be very small.
• Doing cardio for health benefits is better a idea.
• Too much cardio, especially high intensity, can actually make you hungrier, so if you are thinking you can out cardio a bad diet. This usually always backfires 🙁

For fat loss I prefer 

• Strength training
• Get more steps
• Do cardio for the heart health benefits, if you have time

Focus on these diet tips to shed fat

• Eat fewer calories than you burn
• Eat 1 g of protein per pound of body weight
• Eat 3-5 servings of fruit and veggies a day
• Drink 60-100 oz water
• Don’t forget to sleep, that aids in fat loss too

Walking or steps

I just reference steps.

For most people trying to get more steps through the day, is a better option than doing hours of cardio in the gym for fat loss.

The reason is walking is a low-intensity form of cardio, that has great health benefits but does not stress the body like cardio.

You get the extra calorie burn without the increased hunger of doing a bunch of cardio.

A good starting point is 7500 steps per day

The workouts

Here are my favorite Muscle & Strength building workout plan to program for my clients and I.

One is not better than the others.

Whatever you choose to do,  don’t neglect the basics or you won’t see results

• Stick with each program for 9-12 weeks
• Use great form 
• Do hard sets
• Rest properly, usually 60-120s after each hard set or circuit.
• Allows 1-2 days in between workouts if you can
• Make sure you fuel and eat enough calories and get your protein

Workout 1

Let’s get started. This one is pretty common in the fitness industry.

For good reason, it is simple, time efficient, and covers all the bases.

We are going to do two supersets, which is when we go back and forth between two exercises.

Then we are going to finish with what you want to develop, this is a perfect time to work on areas, that you want to develop, doing specific exercises for those areas like

• Abs
• Glutes
• Calves
• Shoulders
• Even doing interval finisher for 2-5 minutes

Superset 1

• Quad dominant lower body exercises like squat or lunge etc
• Upper pull exercises like row, chin up or lat pulldown
• 2-4 working sets of 6-12 reps and rest 2 minutes after you do both or another option is 1 minute between each exercise.

Superset 2

• Hip or hamstring dominant exercise like a deadlift, hip thruster, back extension or leg curl
• Upper body push like chest press, push up or shoulder press
• 2-4 working sets of 6-12 reps and rest 2 minutes after you do both or another option is 1 minute between each exercise.

Now, pick 1-2 exercises to work on the area, you want to develop , do 10-20 reps with 30-60s rest

Here is an arm example

12 bicep curl

20 tricep pushdowns

You would do this workout 2-3x a week, each day of the week picking different exercises variation.

Then repeat those for 3-4 weeks before you change them

Need exercise ideas, check out my exercise library

Workout 2

This is one of my favorite programs to run, you get a mix of it all.

I think it is a blast.

You start by lifting heavy for low reps and long rest to build strength.

Then you do higher reps with less rest in a circuit to focus more on building muscle and training capacity.

Finally, you finish with a couple of exercises, of what you want to grow like glutes, abs arms etc

Heavy lift

Do 2-5 reps of 6-7 sets with 90s- 3 minutes of res

I like heavy deadlifts, squats, split squats, pressing, and even chin ups here.

We are focused on lifting heavy but with good form, so we can really push the intensity, that is why the rest is long

Strength circuit

I like 3 exercises here. If my heavy lift was a lower exercise, I will do an upper body-focused circuit like

Upper body push like push up or press

Lower body working opposite movements I did with heavy lift, so if I deadlift heavy I might do high reps squat

Upper body pull like row, pulldown or chin up

Do reps 8-15 with 90 sec rest after you do all 3, for 2-4 rounds

Now, pick 1-2 exercises to work on , that you want to develop , do 10-20 reps with 30-60s rest

Here is an arm example

Banded hip thruster 20

Side to sideband walk 20 in each direction

2 sets

You would do this workout 2-3x a week, each day of the week picking different exercises variation.

Then repeat those 3-4 weeks before you change them

Need exercise ideas, check out my exercise library

Workout 3

This one is really great for time efficiency and although it is fast-paced, it is still great for building strength and muscle.

Your gonna do 4 exercises in a circuit

• Quad dominant exercise, remember that is a squat or some type of lunge/split squat
• Upper push like push up or press
• Hamstring hip dominant exercises like leg curl, deadlift or hip thruster
• Upper pull like row or chin ups

The first exercise one is for strength, so we want to do 3-5 reps

The rest should be hypertrophy rep range which is 6-12

Rest for 30-60s between each exercise.

This allows us to get through a lot of work quickly but we are still getting 2-4 minutes of rest before we hit the same move again, this allows better strength and muscle-building gains

Here is an example

Trap deadlift for 5 reps rest 60s

Incline DB Press 8 reps rest 60s

1 arm cable row 12 reps per side rest 60s

KB Goblet squat 10 rest for 60s

4-5 rounds

I like to use the first 1-2 rounds to go lighter and warm up and then go pretty heavy the last 2-3 sets.

After you are done if you have time, you can add some extra work on areas you like arms, shoulders, glutes or abs

You would do this workout 2-3x a week, each day of the week picking different exercises variation.

Then repeat those 3-4 weeks before you change them

Need exercise ideas, check out my exercise library

Wrapping It up

I wanted to give you the basics of training for massive results, plus give 3 options for organizing your training.

Here are training examples of those 3 workouts splits :

If you have any questions let me know, I got your back

My client Robin

One of the hardest workers and one of my consistent clients.

I’ve been training her for about 10 years, she has always shows up and rarely misses sessions.

Works very hard, even if she acts like she doesn’t like to

She has been able to build muscle and strength

As well as get leaner and feel healthier.

If you’re interested, she talked about her time training with me here

We usually lift 3 days a week and do cardio 1 time a week.

It has worked well for her.

Keith’s story is a good one.

We had mutual friends and we are a bar and he told me he was going to come to see me on Monday.

Since a lot of people would say this to me, I forget all about it, until you showed up Monday.

He processed to be one of my hardest working clients ever

Never missed session
Trained hard AF
His nutrition was on point, but he just did basics stuff very well

I think he ended up dropping 60lbs and then told me he wanted to work on filling out his shirts.

We shifted to build muscles and strength, which we were able to do.

Another cool thing, how much he pushed him self in other ways

He got really into 5ks and kept beating his time.

If your going to take anything from Keith is

Make up your mind and go all in

Don’t try change everything at once, often, a phase approach is best fat loss, than muscle gain.

Keep eating basic
more protein
more fruit and veggies
less of everything else, but without elimination

Want to learn what are the 3 of The Best Strength Exercises For BJJ that will allow you to perform at a high level on the mat and avoid common injuries?

I made a video on this. Check it out here

3 of The Best Strength Exercises For BJJ

If you have any questions let me know

How to build a strong and resilient body, so you can train for life. BJJ Strength & Conditioning Guide 101

Hi, My name is Bobby Collins. I’ve been a trainer for 15 years but I’m also a BJJ lover. I train 5-6 days a week.

As much as it is cool, to get promoted, get subs, and win medals.

The mental and physical benefits of BJJ are so profound and important for my life.

I want to be on the mat for life

I’m on a mission to help others do the same.

There is so much information for younger and competitive grapplers to perform at a high level.

But, not nearly enough for older guys 35+, who want to do everything they can to get strong, so they can stay on the mat for life

If this sounds like you. keep reading as I share, some of my basic thoughts on BJJ Strength & Conditioning

BJJ Strength & Conditioning

Strength training

The # 1 thing anyone should do to improve their performance on the mats from a fitness standpoint is to get strong. There are so many reasons why. I’m going to go over 3.

Staying on the mat and avoiding injuries

The first one is having more strength and muscular tissue around our most vulnerable joints, which will help us get injured less and even make us harder to submit.

Here are a few examples

• Strong core over ribs, to avoid popping your ribs
• Muscles around the knees make it harder to twist your knee the wrong way.
• Muscles around the shoulders, so your arms are not so easily ripped into vulnerable positions.
• A muscular body can handle impact better, which is why in football everyone lifts. Because they know it is protective.

Getting strong for better conditioning and gassing out less

This might not make sense at first, but let’s think about it.

If you’re a weak dude, when you use good technique, you are going to use a high percentage of your max strength.

Take a strong dude, he is using similar techniques but he is using a small percentage of his strength due to how strong he is.

Which one is going to fatigue and get tired faster?

The weaker one, his muscles are going to be full of lactic acid, his heart rate is going to go through the roof, and he is going to have a hard time recovering in between rounds.

Stronger is usually better

I know everyone in jiu-jitsu is all about, the weaker guys beating the bigger guys.

But, is that really true?

Isn’t it more about technical guys beating guys without any or little technical skill?

If you are stronger, you can have more strength behind your technique.

Now, this won’t be applicable to every move. But, for certain moves, it’s a big advantage.

This will make up the foundation of your BJJ Strength & Conditioning.

Aerobic-based and walking

Aerobic-based and walking

When it comes to building our cardio. Everyone is so quick to do HIT or other intense forms of cardio.

But, this is a big mistake

Adding more stress on top of strength training and BJJ is usually not a good idea

Plus, building an aerobic base is going to help you more than any HIT routine will.

This form of training is easy to recover from, so it won’t interfere with your BJJ.

Building the aerobic base and what this means.

Having a strong aerobic base is going to allow your heart, muscles, and the rest of the aerobic system to produce power for longer.

This system also enables better recovery, so a better base means.

Better recovery and we can train more, without beating ourselves into the ground.

One of the ways we do this, is to do cardio at moderate intensity, so our heart can fully stretch as it pumps.

This will allow your heart chamber to grow in size and allow more oxygenated blood to be pumped per stroke.

• This means we get tired less.
• We recover better
• We have a lower heart rate overall, upon waking, and while we train
• Even living longer

• 1-2 x a week we want to do zone 2 work or aerobic training.

We want to use cyclical-type exercises like 

• Airbike,
• Walking
• Elliptical
• rower
• Sled dragging
• Jogging etc

Make sure to keep your heart rate in the 120-150 BPM or 60-70% of your max heart rate

These workouts should be around 30-60 minutes.

Walking

Getting outside and walking more, and hitting about 7500 steps can be huge for recovery.

Something many people don’t know, is we actually recover better, while we move.

A big reason for this is blood flow. If we can get more blood flow in a stressed or injured area, that is most likely going to be very beneficial from a recovery standpoint.

Try to add some walks daily and see if you can do 1-2 aerobic sessions per week.

With the aerobic session make sure you’re using exercises that don’t beat up your joints.

For example, an air bike might be easier on the knee than running.

If gassing out is an issue, don’t neglect this stuff for better BJJ Strength & Conditioning

Eating healthy and fueling jiu jitsu

We all know that eating healthy is going to give us better performance and health. We cannot neglect our nutrition if, we superior BJJ Strength & Conditioning,

But, if you’re serious about being your best self and keeping your body injury-free, nutrition is going to play a big role.

How and what you eat will drive better recovery or can worsen your recovery.

Let’s go over a few big ideas when it comes to what you eat.

Hydration

Hydration is huge. Showing up to train, just a little dehydrated and your performance is going to plummet.

You’ll cramp, you’ll get gassed out quickly and your chances of getting hurt goes through the roof.

Try drinking half your body weight in ounces and then add 16 oz for every hour you train.

In the summer months, it may be a good idea to bump up your electrolytes by supplementing with magnesium and sodium

My favorite supplement for sodium is LMNT

Ancient minerals for a magnesium supplement.

Protein

Protein isn’t just a bodybuilding thing. But, the building block of all tissue in our body, and if we aren’t giving our body the resources to rebuild, we will get hurt.

Plus, from a weight management point of view eating more protein is gonna be huge.

Try to .7-1 g of protein per body weight

The best protein choices are going to be from animal products like

• Chicken
• Fish
• Pork
• Greek yogurt
• Cottage cheese
• Whey protein
• Lean beef

Fruit and veggies

You have been hearing this since you were little but fruit and veggies are going to give you a variety of vitamins and minerals we need to thrive. 

Plus, fruit is a great way to give your body quick fuel.

All the fruit and veggies will help you get more water and fiber in as well, for better health.

Carbs

BJJ is an intense sport, and carbs are the best fuel source for quick explosive movements. 

Carbs are gonna be your friend for performance and recovery.

Healthy carbs will always be better, think of things like

• Rice
• Pasta
• Bean
• Potataos
• Fruit

It usually makes sense to eat your heavy carbs meals around training and at night to improve sleep quality.

Remember guys sleep = better recovery

Maintenance Calories

I know people, don’t like to track their calories, but making sure you’re not undereating, will definitely affect how you feel on the mat.

When people eat less to lose weight, they are choosing to under recover.

When you have fewer calories to play with, it makes your recovery go down, kills your gas tank, and even makes it easier to get banged up.

Most of the year try to eat at maintenance calories

To get a ballpark number multiply your body weight by 13-15 and try to hit that number.

Hope this article started to give you the blueprint, on how to train to stay on the mat for life.

Get strong

Improve your conditioning 

Eat well and enough

Any questions comment below and if you want daily BJJ Strength & Conditioning check out my IG

If you want to work with me, you can apply for coaching here

I’ve always hated working out.

It’s boring and drags out.

It always seemed too much like a hamster running on a wheel.

When I got into training, that all changed.

Working out and training might seem like the same to most people. and the difference I’m going to explain might seem like a stretch.

But, for me, it made training fun, interesting and motivating.

To me, a workout, is where you go in to just to sweat, burn calories and go through the motions.

But, training is when you train intentionally with purpose.

Training is about trying improve your performance each week by

Doing more reps

Doing More Weight

Beating your times from the previous week.

It is this intention, that not only makes it more engaging.

But, really effective as well.

By getting into improving performance, you get to build some wins. while you’re trying to change your body.

Fat loss takes time and it can be like watching paint dry at times.

This can be why people can’t stick to a plan for long.

If your , only feeling of winning is, when the scales move down, it can be a tough process.

But, if you feel a win because you’re doing more weight or reps each week.

You can create more wins and that makes the plan easier.

You might even, eventually be one of the crazy people, who says working out is fun 🙂

Train for performance and eat for health and your body fat/muscle goal goal