The Leangains Method: The Art of Getting Ripped. Researched, Practiced, Perfected.

by Martin Berkhan

if your goal is really about getting shredded while keeping your muscle, I highly suggest limiting moderate to high intensity cardio on a diet – or ditch it completely. Save it for some other time when your recovery is good and not limited by your diet. A calorie deficit is a recovery deficit. Avoid deficit spending.

Women, you need to put down those pink dumbbells, throw that Shape Magazine in the trash can and stop with this nonsense. You seem to believe that the modest amount of strain will cause you to wake up looking like a bodybuilder in the morning. Horseshit. You’re not using enough drugs to ever come close to looking muscle bound.

The Tyler Durden look, brought to you by squats, deadlifts, bench, chin-ups and a good diet.

A warm-up is a warm-up. Treat it as such. It should be light, just enough to get the blood flowing and prepare the nervous system for the real stuff. It should never cause fatigue or interfere with your performance in the work sets.

one to three sets of four to six reps of 40 percent to 80 percent of target weight for the first work set.

Personally, I only warm up for squats, deadlift, bench press, and chins.

If you were actually in there training hard, most people wouldn’t be coming back for more, five to six days a week.

No need to be a form nazi either. People who “practice” form in all eternity are sometimes just afraid to train hard. Striving for picture-perfect form on your final reps can be counterproductive when taken to the extreme.

only if you are about to fail on the very last rep in the set.

I am your trainer, the guy who follows you around and is only there to make sure your form is not completely retarded. His function right now should be redundant.

You have to discipline yourself, and through this discipline will come some level of achievement, and from this achievement will come your pride. —David Lee Roth

Listen carefully. Squats and deadlifts are indisputably the two best full-body movements in the goddamn universe, and that’s reason enough to be doing them.

But that’s not the whole story. Their true greatness lies in the mental fortitude they foster if you train them hard and consistently. This will benefit your training as a whole and leave echoes in your life outside the gym.