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Beach Bum Program Overview

Wanna build some killer legs and get in shape for summer?

Then you’re in the right place, my friend!

Beach Bum has you hitting your lower body twice per week (ouch!) and tackling some challenging (but highly effective) cardio workouts to help you chisel your best body of your life so far.

Since it’s release in 2015, it has consistently ranked among the most popular programs on the whole website, and now it’s YOUR chance to use it!

Here’s a quick overview of the structure:

Program length: 8 weeks.
Frequency: 6 workouts per week.
Session breakdown: You will hit each muscle group twice per week, and you’ll use a combination of intermittent cardio and supersets in each workout.
Rep ranges used: Low, moderate, and high.
Muscle Buster techniques: Rest pause, dropsets, HIIT.

RUSS HOWE PTI - BEACH BUM PROGRAM

Workout Calendar

You’ll be hitting the gym six days per week for the next 8-weeks:

  • Monday: lower body
  • Tuesday: upper body
  • Wednesday: cardio
  • Thursday: lower body
  • Friday: upper body
  • Saturday: cardio
  • Sunday: off

If you cannot train six days per week or you just have one week which is a nightmare, don’t worry, this plan is flexible.

For example, if you can only train 3x per week I’d do the first three workouts of the week and then pick up where you left off next week. The program would take twice as long to finish, but it would still be effective. Alternatively, if you can only train 4x per week I’d hit the first four workouts of the week every week as this prioritises the main muscles the program is aimed at (and the program length would stay at 8-weeks). And finally, if you can only train 5x per week do the same but add a second cardio session.

Beach Bum

High Reps To Low Reps

The “secret” to the effectiveness of this program lies in it’s use of pendulum periodization.

This framework dictates how you rep ranges change from week to week, and it’s a periodization model which has been used to athletes for many decades.

It’s fantastic for improving strength and building muscle! (1, 2, 3)

It’ll see you gradually reduce your rep ranges (and increase your weights) over the the first few weeks of the program, and then reverse the process by gradually increasing the reps (and decreasing the weights) in the second half of the program. This structure enables you to unlock the benefits associated with both low rep training and high rep training simultaneously, and the constantly changing structure lets you grab those results before any negative adaptations occur.

It looks like this:

  • Week 1: 15-20 reps
  • Week 2: 12-15 reps
  • Week 3: 8-10 reps
  • Week 4: 6-8 reps
  • Week 5: 6-8 reps
  • Week 6: 8-10 reps
  • Week 7: 12-15 reps
  • Week 8: 15-20 reps
how to use periodization to build muscle
Russ Howe PTI

Squeeze Out Every Last Rep!

In order to look like a beauty, you must train like a beast.

That’s something I want you to remember when the going gets tough (which it will!), because if we want you to achieve a traffic-stopping transformation we must learn how to push ourselves beyond what most people consider “hard”.

We do this by learning how to train to failure.

Most people simply coast through their sets and reps and then bemoan a lack of results, but you’re not going to do that. Instead, you’re going to to take some of your sets “to failure”, which means to the point where you’re struggling to complete another good rep.

It takes a little playing around to find the right weight, but as a rough guide, we want the last 25% of the set to feel challenging and uncomfortable.

(With that in mind, if you’re trying to achieve 6-8 reps then everything from rep #5 should feel hard, and if you’re aiming for 15-20 reps everything after rep #16 should be hard.)

So why do we train this way?

Well, we do this because it quite literally forces the body to build muscle. Heck, a 2010 study showed that training “to failure” can boost the anabolic response to training by a whopping 40-60% (holy flaps!) so we don’t want want to let those results go to waste! (4)

Now, I don’t expect you to take every single set to failure, of course. That would cause you to fatigue way too early in your workout. Instead I recommend increasing the weights as you progress through your sets, and then peak on the final set with a view to achieving “failure”.

In order to make sure you left nothing in the tank, I’m going to have you deploy one of my famous “Muscle Buster” techniques immediately after completing your final set.

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