Winter's winding down, and everyone's favorite seasonal superpower—the ability to hide excess pounds under a warm sweater—is fading fast. In fact, the summer sun will be high in the sky sooner than you might think, which means shirtless weather is coming in hot.
Don't get caught unprepared! If you want to reveal a shredded six-pack come summer, now's the time to plan and prioritize your weight-loss goals.
Here are six of my tried-and-true get-lean strategies to help you prepare to bare all when the sun comes out to stay.
1. Combine Cardio Styles
Most people default exclusively to high-intensity interval training, or HIIT cardio, when it comes to getting lean. After all, the intense metabolic demand HIIT places on your body is like nothing else, and when done correctly, can take several days to recover from. What that means for you is a heightened calorie-burn both during the workout and as you recover.
I like to do my HIIT in short, sharp bursts, performing 30-second sprints on the treadmill or rowing machine, followed by 30 seconds of rest, for 10-15 rounds. But I don't stop there. I actually follow my HIIT with 15-20 minutes of low-intensity cardio to help remove metabolic byproducts that accumulate during high-intensity exercise, which allows my muscles to recover quicker and gets me ready to train all over again.
I like to do my HIIT in short, sharp bursts, followed by 30 seconds of rest, for 10-15 rounds.
This approach combines HIIT's fat-burning ability with the recuperative benefits of low-intensity cardio, basically giving you the best of both worlds. I even like to add a little extra steady-state (because it doesn't demand much in terms of recovery) when I want to burn even more calories.
Jamie's Quick Cardio Tip
When walking on a treadmill, try setting it to a one percent incline. This better simulates running on an actual road surface, making your body work that much harder to keep pace.
I live about ten minutes from the beach, so I love to go out for an early-morning, pre-breakfast power walk. This helps me start my day on a positive note while allowing me to save the energy I acquire later in the day for weight-based workouts.
Plus, that morning jaunt allows me to do more than just soak up the sun. It also burns around 300-400 extra calories, meaning that I can eat more food during the day—and who doesn't love that?
2. Balance Your Reps And Volume
A lot of people assume that in order to get shredded, you need to lift more reps per set and really "feel the burn," but this isn't necessarily true. Your nutrition and cardio should do the shredding for you, and your lifts should work to maintain your muscle mass and strength. To that end, I stay in the range of 6-8 reps for all my lifts when getting lean. This allows me to keep my muscles full and strong, potentially add a bit of new size, and hit an ideal short-term hormone release.
But just because I use relatively low reps does not mean I skimp on volume! I do 4-5 sets of each exercise rather than the standard 3-4, which increases the overall time under tension for each body part, burns more calories, and contributes to overall fat loss. I also front-load my workouts with at least two compound movements, which require a lot of energy. Once I'm depleted, I finish up with a few isolation movements.
3. Advance Your Training
When it comes to shredding, I love implementing giant sets—basically circuits for one body part, or multiple exercises performed back to back—especially for my legs, which respond well to high-rep, high-volume work.
I usually hit two compound exercises in a row, such as squats and leg press, then hit my legs immediately afterwards with isolation exercises like leg extensions and curls. This forces my muscles to work 3-4 times as hard and 3-4 times as long per set compared with a straight-set format.
The increased time under tension caused by giant sets leads to more muscular exhaustion, a greater energy demand, and more fat burned post-workout as those muscles try to recover.
Jamie's Shred-It-Up Training Split
- Monday: HIIT (a.m.)
- Tuesday: Power walk (a.m.); midmorning push workout (p.m.)
- Wednesday: Rest
- Thursday: Power walk (a.m.); midmorning legs (p.m.)
- Friday: HIIT (a.m.); Pull workout (p.m.)
- Saturday: Pull workout (a.m.)
- Sunday: Legs (a.m.)
I'm also a huge fan of forced reps—when your partner helps you lift beyond what you could lift alone—for leaning out. Forced reps push you further than you would normally go on your own, driving adaptation and producing an additional calorie burn that a straight set does not provide.
I recommend choosing a weight where you fail after about 6-8 reps. Once you feel like you can't push out even one more rep, have a partner help you squeeze out 3-5 forced reps with the same weight. I guarantee you'll push yourself to limits you never thought possible!
If you're training solo, try using the double-rep method (DRM) for cutting. Set yourself up with a weight at which you fail at 8 reps. Do a set of 8 with that weight, rest for 5-8 seconds, and then do another 16 reps broken down into several "mini sets."
Use the rest-pause technique—performing as many reps as you can, and then taking short, 15-second rests—to get through that second double set.
DRM training really pushes the envelope of both your pain threshold and your muscular endurance. Oh, and if you haven't noticed the theme yet, it also helps you torch more calories!
4. Manipulate Your Macros
One of my favorite quotes is "what gets measured, gets managed." Carefully planned nutrition is everything when trying to cut, and knowing how to manipulate your macronutrients—protein, carbs, and fat—is essential when building your get-lean plan.
Most people choose to cut carbs in order to get lean, but this is where I differ. I like to keep my carb intake relatively steady year-round to keep my energy high, which allows me to work out harder. To trim some fat from my body, I simply trim some fat from my diet.
Usually, my fat intake is about a half a gram per pound of body weight, which comes out to about 90 grams of fat daily for me. As I get closer to my goal date, or the date on which I want to look my best, I taper this number until it reaches about 40 grams a day.
This simple change gives me just enough of a caloric deficit to burn fat while still leaving me with enough calories from dietary fat to power my essential bodily functions. To compensate for this deficit, I also typically bump my protein up from 1.3-1.5 grams per pound of body weight, which keeps my hunger and cravings at bay and prevents catabolism, or muscle breakdown.
5. Keep Records
If you don't know where you've been, how do you know where you're going? I'm a bit of a data geek, so I love to keep detailed records of my calories and macronutrients from every diet and show prep I've ever done. This gives me plenty of information to compare, and allows me to assess the best plan of action to meet my next goal based on my current condition.
When mapping out your plan, give yourself plenty of time to make adaptations. For example, I am usually not more than three weeks out from photo-shoot conditioning, but if I want to step it up and really get stage-ready peeled, I give myself 10-14 weeks. Nothing good comes from rushing the process.
No matter what your timeline, write down everything as you go through that process: what you ate, how it affected your physique, even if it did anything to your body's level of detail or your overall mood. This way, next time you want to lean out, you'll have an accurate and exact accounting of what worked and what didn't.
6. Supplement Smart
Getting lean is no easy task, and supplementing your nutrition can help with cravings as well as energy levels. I love to have a Hydra 6 Strawberry Siege protein shake with my oats after every tough workout to kick-start recovery, spur muscle growth, satisfy my sweet tooth, and help me stay full.
I also take a Grenade Ration Pack daily to ensure I get all my essential fatty acids and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) that could be missing from my whole-food diet. And, when it comes to traveling, I always carry a Carb Killa protein bar to make it easy to sneak in meals, even when things get busy.
If you're looking for ways to shake up your morning protein routine, check out the flavor-packed, protein-rich options in this smoothie recipe roundup!