Hey nation. I wanted to share an insane workout routine my friend showed to me. One of the reasons I started working out was to look like my good friend’s brother called Alexander. He’s ridiculously huge, and he claims that he’s natural.
I recently asked for his workout routine, and he gave it to me, though he didn’t specify sets, reps or other things, only the exercises in the correct order. He trains six times a week. He’s trained a few clients with it, and he calls it “Physis Maximum Arcanum”. Anyway, here’s the routine:
Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday:
Barbell front squat
Barbell glute bridges
Decline barbell bench press
Incline barbell bench press
Overhead barbell press
Close-grip bench press
Behind-the-head barbell skullcrushers
Dumbbell kickbacks
Dumbbell side lateral raise
Heel raises
Toe raises
Monday, Wednesday and Friday:
Barbell romanian deadlift
Barbell good morning
Nautilus pullover
Weighted narrow-grip pull-up
One-arm dumbbell row
Wide-grip cable row
Face pulls
Dumbbell shrugs
Barbell curls
Incline dumbbell curls
Barbell wrist curls
What do you guys think of this routine? I think it’s insane… I’m not sure whether he really is natural or not, but he claims he is (really, he’s enormous). He’s really intelligent, too, so I guess his knowledge of nutrition should be somewhat in order.
If I alternated front squat/glute bridge days with RDL/good-mornings days 6x/week, my lower back would be totally shredded. As in, lying in little pieces all over the gym floor.
And here’s the rub. Is it 1 set of 5 reps with 40% of your 1 RM max for each exercise, or is it calling for 5 sets of 10 with 80% of your 1 RM max?
Need more information to say anything for sure about it, but at a first glance that looks like a ridiculous amount of volume, especially with that frequency.
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
It’s a great routine, your buddy is natural, and you should do it.[/quote]
Lol You really hate my posts, don’t you? Anyway, even if this was a great routine, I don’t think I’d have the capacity or time to stick to it.
The amount of volume, plus the taxing nature of exercises chosen are serious concerns. Sure, Arnold used to do ridiculous amounts of work twice a day, almost every day and he made gains; and sure the ‘old timers’ would complete similarly multi-muscle group routines, but in order for anyone to actual make possible gains with such an approach, you’re talking about:
-Having excellent recovery abilities
-Locked down your diet, sleep, and stress/work related issues
-Only completing a couple of working sets of each exercise
And even then, it’s still going to be questionable.
Certainly wouldn’t be the first time someone MIGHT have exaggerated just how difficult and intense their training is in attempt to prove how tough they are and how there’s no way anyone could even hope to compare.
[quote]fncj wrote:
I think you are more impressed with the esoteric name of the “routine” and the size of the person who gave it to you than anything else.
What would you honestly think if some anonymous person PM’ed you this list of days and exercises?
And the question isn’t rhetorical. I am interested in what your impression would be in that situation.
[/quote]
Those are really good points… you’re probably correct. If an anonymous person PM’ed me this, I’d probably think “Wow”, but still be indifferent, I guess.
^^ lol, hang around here long enough and you’ll realize that WHO is telling you something is way more important than WHAT they’re telling you.
Jim Wendler could tell you the best way to get better arms is to stick a dildo up your butt and you’d all do it. Martin Rooney has said: “if it’s over 6 reps, it’s cardio” (no, seriously, he said exactly that) - and no-one calls him out on it.
[quote]alternate wrote:
^^ lol, hang around here long enough and you’ll realize that WHO is telling you something is way more important than WHAT they’re telling you.
Jim Wendler could tell you the best way to get better arms is to stick a dildo up your butt and you’d all do it. Martin Rooney has said: “if it’s over 6 reps, it’s cardio” (no, seriously, he said exactly that) - and no-one calls him out on it.[/quote]
Yes, Martin Rooney did write “If you’re doing more than six reps, you’re doing cardio.” It was in the Train Like A Man series as part of The Terrible 275, a metabolic circuit where presumably the point was to work above six reps. It has been a while since I’ve read the series, but I do not recall him stating a trainee should not go above six reps in other routines, or that there are no other benefits aside from cardiovascular when the threshold is exceeded in an exercise.
Unless there’s something I am missing, I’m not sure what there is to call out.
[quote]fncj wrote:
I think you are more impressed with the esoteric name of the “routine” and the size of the person who gave it to you than anything else.
What would you honestly think if some anonymous person PM’ed you this list of days and exercises?
And the question isn’t rhetorical. I am interested in what your impression would be in that situation.
[/quote]
Those are really good points… you’re probably correct. If an anonymous person PM’ed me this, I’d probably think “Wow”, but still be indifferent, I guess.[/quote]
It is often useful to strip a program/routine of it’s name and developer’s personality so you can look at the work to be done. As far this routine goes you haven’t been presented with much, so it only raises questions. If you are really curious about incorporating this into a program, I believe you should go to Alexander with the questions brought up by members on this thread.
Since the guy has trained a few clients with Physis Maximum Arcanum, he should be able to answer those basic questions, as well as help you adapt it to meet your specific needs.
If you took out like half of the exercises and turned it into a 4 day split, it could work since its basically a push/pull split. If you really wanted to do it, then rename it to Physius Sparticus Maximus.
How 100% sure are you that the person your talking about is natural? And there is no way he is giving this to multiple clients and seeing results… most people would NOT have the nutrition and sleep down to do this… Unless your friend and his client has the genetics of an olympia then stick to something more simple and basic.
I’ve been thinking about that lately: maybe a good [scam]routine for some skinnyfat beginners would constitue medium volume, low intensity and high frequency?
Let’s say he has his clients do basically…
-one warmup set with 20% a 15 reps
-one set with 50%, 10 reps
-the workset then uses 80%, 5 reps
To be clear: the big benefit would primarily entail providing former non-athletes with all benefits of high frequency- he’d definitely lose some fat and gain a bit of muscle at the same time.
For performance, serious gains in strength and mass etc this won’t work at all, but the advantages are great for a business oriented gym:
-the client quickly loses interest due to the high frequency. He quits training, but pays his gym fee.
-he still thinks it’s the best routine evar (“back then I was so in shape bro”) and he can get as big and as cut as he wants to be, anytime, in no time.
If you’re a beginner, which from the post suggests you are, then no. Start with SS or Stronglifts. Arnold used the 5x5 method in his early days. If you go to the gym everyday with a workout like this, you’ll get demotivated easily. Keep it simple.
Even if you’re willing to do all the exercises with God knows how many reps/volume, I don’t think you’ll recover in time for the next workout.
Read Pavel’s Power to The People. One of the chapters state why training for too long brings negative effects to the muscles. Or simply Google why.
This program is too long to be training with high volume. You won’t get past the 4th or 5th exercise if you train with high volume. If you’re going to train with low volume, it’s practically cardio.
I don’t see any back squats, conventional deads or bench presses. My guess is either :
a) Alex got huge by doing the 3 exercises I stated above and is now focusing on definition by doing this routine
b) Alex is a genetic freak
c) Alex takes steroids
You really hate my posts, don’t you? Anyway, even if this was a great routine, I don’t think I’d have the capacity or time to stick to it.