Men’s Health – The 21-Day MetaShred (Full Workout)

Men’s Health – The 21-Day MetaShred (Full Workout)

I’ve been training clients and working on my own body for the past 15 years. I once was a pudgy 275 pounds and wore 44-inch pants. Today I’m a ripped 225 and slip into 32-inch jeans.

I tried every fat-loss method imaginable, from highly researched fitness advice to underground bodybuilding methods. I’ve helped men with zero training lose triple-digit fat, and seasoned lifters drop that last stubborn 10 pounds.

METASHRED—my all-new body-shredding plan—represents the culmination of every hard truth I’ve learned on the front lines of fat loss. It combines cutting-edge science with tried-and-true training advice to attack your flab with no mercy. One guy lost 25 pounds in 6 weeks!

I share five of the program’s most potent techniques below.

Technique 1: Tabata Torchers

Tabatas—brief, high-intensity interval workouts named after Japanese researcher Izumi Tabata—can burn about 14 calories a minute, say scientists at the University of Wisconsin.

But instead of doing them with just one exercise, choose two—an upper-body exercise and a lower-body move—and alternate between them. That way you can keep the intensity high throughout the session and push for longer than just 4 minutes.

How to do it: Select a pair below. Do the first move for 20 seconds and rest 10 seconds. Now do the second move for 20 seconds and rest 10. Repeat the pattern for 4 minutes. Pick another pair and repeat; do as many as you want.

Dead-stop pushup + goblet squat
Dead-stop pushup + dumbbell swing
Dumbbell row + skater hop
Bulgarian split squat (alternate legs every rep)

*See how to do each of these exercises at the end of this article.

Technique 2: Metabolic Burnouts

Taking longer rests earlier in a workout lets you warm up with an intense first circuit, helping you reach your “oxygen threshold.”

Then, for each subsequent circuit, you have to work even harder, with less rest, progressively digging yourself deeper into “oxygen debt.” So your metabolism will still be cranking to replace your oxygen stores long after you’ve hit the showers—up to 39 hours later.

The bigger your debt, the more calories your body burns during and after your session.

How to do it: Do each exercise below in order for 30 seconds, resting 30 seconds between moves. That’s round 1. Once you finish all 6 exercises, you’ve completed 1 round. Do 8 rounds total, but decrease your rest period by 5 seconds each time.

So in round 1, do 30 seconds of work, followed by 30 seconds of rest for 6 exercises straight. In round 2, do 30 seconds of work followed by 25 seconds of rest. Round 3: 30 seconds of work, 20 seconds of rest.

1. Dead-stop pushup
2. Goblet squat
3. Dumbbell row
4. Skater hop
5. Dumbbell swing