The biggest reason people don’t make it to the gym is that they say they don’t have the time. And even if they can carve out the time to get to the gym, the decision of what to do when you get there can be daunting. Most people get their information about training from social media these days, and that can be very confusing.
Health and Fitness influencers on social media tend to really overcomplicate things. The near-infinite variations of exercises they promote are really only relevant to advanced bodybuilders at best—or no one at all at their worst. So we greatly simplified things, to offer you a bare bones workout that will absolutely get the job done.
Let us introduce you to The Caveman (or Cavewoman) Training Program—a workout plan that involves just two 30-minute sessions, two days a week, doing only six exercises that train the entire body. These will be mostly done on machines, which are safer and easier to change weights on than free-weight exercises, which make them faster to work through. The exercises are the following:
Leg Press
Chest Press Machine
Deadlift or Kettlebell Swing
Shoulder Press Machine
Cable Lat Pulldowns
Dip Machine
2x per week, 3 days rest in between
To increase efficiency and save time, you will only be doing one set of each exercise. The next exercise in the list will use a different set of muscles, so you can work your way through the list of movements with very little rest in between.
You will not need a warm-up set for each exercise, because you will choose a fairly light weight for each exercise—but the way you do each rep will make even light weights very effective. For each rep, you will do a four-second concentric phase and a four-second eccentric phase of the movement. Basically you will be moving the weights very slowly. This greatly increases the time under tension, and quickly makes even a lighter weight very challenging.
For instance, even a big strong guy that can benchpress 225 pounds, will use a weight that is about half of that. He will use four seconds to lower the weight to his chest, and four seconds to press it up—for each rep he does. This will make anywhere from 10 to 15 reps possible, and the last rep will be extremely challenging.
As mentioned above, you will do this program only two days a week, with at least three days rest in between each session. This will allow your muscles to recover completely between sessions. As we’ve talked about a lot on this blog, it is during the recovery periods that muscles grow and get stronger. You never want to work a muscle that is still sore. That is just hampering your progress.
This program is plenty enough to build strength and muscle. There are many so-called experts that will want to make you believe differently, insisting that longer and more complicated workouts are necessary. We urge you to give The Caveman (or Cavewoman) Training Program a try, and judge its effectiveness for yourself.
In training, as in life, the simplest solution is often the best.
Until next time
Scott and Lennart