There is a giant misconception that I want to clear up when it comes to working out to get lean.

Doing CARDIO does NOT mean you will get shredded!

Remember in Guideline #1? Calories in vs. calories out?

Consider this for example:

If I run repeat 3-miles, repeat 110-meter sprints, or repeat 300-yard shuttles, etc.

Even if I burn 1,000 calories doing all of that and ‘blowing my lungs out’ if afterwards, I consume 1,000 calories...

Even if that 1,000 calories consists of lean chicken breast and extremely healthy vegetables...

If that is on top of what my daily caloric expenditure is...NOTHING at all is going to happen for me! I’m not going to lose any weight!

I might have a healthier heart; I might have more endorphins released and all that “health” stuff you get from working out, but in terms of actual fat-loss or weight loss, etc.

NOTHING is happening if I consume that 1,000 calories I just burned through cardio; even if that 1,000 calories came from extremely healthy, organic, lean meat and vegetables, etc.

Okay good!

Now that we have that crap out of the way, it’s time we get to the true facts about working out and getting leaner, and what actually matters.

The main focus here is on RELATIVE BODY STRENGTH.

Relative body strength is exactly as it sounds, your strength in relation to your body size or body weight.

Ask yourself this:

What’s more impressive, the guy who benches 300 pounds but weighs 225 pounds? Or, the guy who benches 300 pounds but weighs 165 pounds?

Who do you think has a leaner physique?

It’s a bit of a rhetorical question, but the answer hopefully illustrates the importance of relative body strength and how lean you will be.

The primary focus of working out to get leaner, is to increase your relative body strength. Long-term, improving this is what is going to lead to drastic changes in our physique.

This being said, you can very easily get stronger, and or retain lean mass by strength training only twice a week for only 45 minutes each. That’s only an HOUR AND A HALF (90 minutes) a WEEK of your time.

One solid push day and one solid pull day can work in this case.

You can even do a leg & core day one day, and an upper body day on the other day.

Virtually any 2-day split will work
Now you don’t have to only work out for 90 minutes a week.

In my opinion 2-3, 1-hour strength sessions that are lower volume, but focus on intensity are perfect for building or maintaining strength.

You see, you don’t even have to get STRONGER to get LEANER.
If you maintain strength while trimming down, you will get leaner.
In this case...EVEN push-ups are fine, you must focus on STRENGTH though. Even if it’s 20 minutes, twice a week, you focus on pull ups, push-ups, or bodyweight squats. Just get stronger with the bodyweight movements and you will be fine.

In the end, the skeletal muscle system adapts and responds to, the demands placed on it. Meaning, that if I already bench press 300 pounds, and am striving to lose weight but continue to maintain that 300 bench press; my body still has to maintain muscle in order to handle the stress placed on it and overcome that resistance of that 300 pounds during the bench press. Additionally, if I was to get stronger my muscle would have to grow in order to adapt and be able to handle that increased amount of stress.

Getting sciency here, the contractile filaments of the muscle fibers will have to fill out more and adapt in order to overcome that increased resistance.

So let’s say I get stronger and now all of the sudden I start benching 315, my muscles may recruit more neurons and fibers to fire and blast past that resistance, but they’re also going to say to themselves “holy

shit, that was really heavy, we better grow and expand incase Matt try’s bench pressing 315 again”.

Ultimately, this process it what lead us to retaining muscle or building muscle.

You can absolutely lose weight without working out (calories in vs. calories out, duh).

However, there are a lot of people today that might be big, moderately strong, and a little pudgy; they decide to go on diets, but neglect strength training during the whole phase. In reality, if they had just stuck to that weight lifting routine, or even just did the push-ups a couple times a week at home, they would drastically change the end result of their diet.

Consider this: let’s say we have two guys, Guy A and Guy B. Both weigh 225 pounds and are about 20% bodyfat

Guy A: works his 9-5 job, and maybe does some jogging here and there or cardio. NEVER though, does he monitor where his strength levels are at (how many push-ups can I do now? vs. how many push-ups can I do three months from now?). Nor, does he lift weights or do bodyweight strength exercises.

Guy B: works his 9-5 job, but, goes home and does push-ups. He is currently at a point where he can do 15 push-ups with good form. Occasionally during the week, he monitors and assesses where he is at. He does not ALWAYS do his push-ups, but he still does them occasionally to monitor how strong he is at that given time; this way, he can ask himself “am I getting stronger, am I getting weaker, or am I staying the same?”. By doing this, he is able to keep track of his strength levels as he is dropping weight on the scale.

Over time Guy B strives to increase the number of push-ups he can do, which he rightfully does. Though this may not mean he is increasing his maximal strength (max bench press, etc.), what this does tell us, is that he may be maintaining his maximal strength while he is dropping weight on the scale. Coincidentally, maintaining strength while getting to a lighter bodyweight will increase your ability to do push-ups. Or in other words, your relative body strength. Guy B also, does not do cardio very often, he just focuses on his strength for the most part.

At the end of the dieting phase, both Guy A & Guy B weight 190 pounds, they each lost 35 pounds.

Guy A: Can do just about as many push-ups as he could before dieting, with the exception of maybe 1-5 more...which isn’t much. Though he may be in a little better cardio shape, his relative body strength is roughly the same as it was. In other words, losing 35 pounds means he also lost a significant amount of muscle too.

Guy B: Can do about 60 more push-ups with good form than he could do before starting his diet. His push-ups have gone from 15 to around 75 or so now with good form. Though he is not in as good of cardio shape as Guy A, his relative body strength is significantly better at the same bodyweight.

Now ask yourself—who looks leaner at the end of the diet phase?

It still blows my mind however, how some people still go on diets and don’t understand why they lose muscle, or why they might not look “better”.

Strength train! And it will be a magical difference.

Beyond being lean, Strength training is also critically important for overall bone health and helps protect against things like osteoporosis, etc. In other words, weight lifting actually helps increase our bone density as well as help us maintain long term bone health.

Strength training, will also help with our strength endurance and helping to support our posture as well. This being it takes strength and stability to have good posture to begin with. Many free weight exercises such as the bench, the squat, pull-ups, and the overhead press are natural movement patterns used in daily lifting endeavors. These movements help activate the stabilizer muscles and the prime movers as well. This helps us have functional strength in life and helps support our posture, all while even helping increase our actual bone density, not just muscle mass and tone alone.

If you want to easily maintain strength while dieting, this makes everything much easier.