If you took different athletes from different sports and put them in a room together most of them will look different. Even if you take athletes from the same sport but different positions, most will look pretty different. For the sake of this article (and our sanity) when I say ‘look like an athlete,’ I am referring looking jacked. This means when you are walking down the street, normal people stop and say “damn, that person is in good shape.”
Now that we got that out of the way, to look like a jacked athlete, not all training methods are equal and if you want an athletic looking body you have to follow a few important rules. There are sport-specific drills that you’ll see athletes doing that get them better at their sport — you do not have to do this. In fact, you shouldn’t do this. Athletes have to do this to improve the skills that make them the big bucks. For you, it’s about ‘looking like an athlete.’ The workout that I laid out for you covers a few very important parts that I’ll touch on quickly before giving you the goods.
Get Warm And Ready
The warm-up’s main goal? Get that heart rate up, prep your body for the workout ahead, minimize injury risk, and boost performance. This isn’t the time to turn yourself into a human pretzel or foam roll every square inch of your body.
Sure, that might make for some cool Instagram snaps, but it won’t help you look or perform like an athlete.
The real focus here should be on joint stability and mobility, so you can nail your workout exercises with proper form. No more, no less.
Kick things off with something that elevates your body temp, like a quick bike ride or some jumping jacks. Follow it up with 5-10 reps of exercises that mimic your first couple of main moves, and then unleash that explosive energy.
Get Fired Up
Faster than a speeding bullet, quicker than a snap of the finger, jumps that put a kangaroo to shame, an arm that would make Mike Tyson jealous…
These are just a few qualities that athletes possess. Now, you should be already warmed up and had some practice with this first power exercise. The goal of this exercise is not only to increase overall power production — which is high in most athletes — but to get your central nervous system and body woken up so you unlock the ability to create more power throughout the rest of your workout. This means more strength, more muscle, and more gains. With power exercises, you want to take full recovery between your sets, which can be anywhere from 90 seconds to 3 minutes depending on difficulty and load of the exercise but you should NOT be fatigued when doing power exercises — Yes, this includes box jumps! If you’re keen like a detective, you’ll notice in the article ‘Exercises to Increase Your Athleticism,’ I put power exercises after strength work. I did this because you MUST have a solid base of strength to get the most out of your power exercises.
In this article, I am making the assumption that you are already powerful and will get good use out of it. Now that you’re body is fast and powered up, it’s time to lift some heavy weights.
Lift Heavy Stuff
This is where you can start to have some fun.
Lifting heavy weights creates something called mechanical tension and is the main driver for getting you strong as hell. Do this with the compound lifts and perform them in the 1-6 rep range, with full recovery in between sets. Examples:
Bench press
Chin-up
Row
Military press
Deadlift
Squat
Variations of each
Create Damage And Pump Up
Now it’s time to pump those muscles up and feed them with blood and nutrients.
Geeky folk will call this part of the workout metabolic stress and muscle damage — this is a muscle-building cocktail. You’re going to want to pick an exercise that put lots of tension on your muscle when it’s in a shortened position AND exercises that put a lot of tension on the muscle in the longest position. The exercises you are going to use are going to focus on the muscle groups you want to improve and you really want to stand out in your physique. Use single joint or compound exercises with moderate to high reps, anywhere from 8-15+ reps for both of these. Shortened position examples:
Leg extensions
Seated leg curls
Barbell curls
Triceps pushdowns
Lateral raises
Lengthened position examples:
Incline dumbbells curls
Overhead tricep extensions
Lunges
RDL’s
In some cases, you can get crazy and do 20+ rep sets or even 100 rep rest-pause sets. These will make you curse whoever wrote your program and if you’re doing the program in this article — you get the pleasure of cursing me.
Be warned…I respect creativity with your cursing, so make me proud.
Make It HardCORE
I’m not talking about grunts, chains, yelling, throwing chalk or smacking the back of your training partner before a lift. You want your abs, obliques, spinal erectors, and butt so freaking strong you can plan your two feet firm into the ground and let the tornado from the movie Twister swirl by and aren’t even phased. No moving, no shaking. Having a strong core not only looks sweet but it keeps you safe and it will make all your exercises stronger because your body works as one big chain. If you have a weak core you’re missing out on crucial energy that could be going into your lifts and into your physique.
Here is a sample upper body workoutthat will leave you walking around looking like Thor… Warmup: General upper body foam rolling 3-5 min, bodyweight squats x 10, walking lunges x10/side, scap pushups x 10, underhand band pull-aparts x 15, over and backs x 10, lying handcuffs x 10, pushup x 15 1) Vertical jump with overhead medicine ball throws 3 x 5 reps Rest 90 seconds
2) Barbell bench press 4 x 5 reps **lower under control, and try to push the bar away from you as fast as possible every rep** Rest 2-3 minutes 3a) Steep incline dumbbells presses 4 x 8-12 3b) Hanging leg raise 4 x 8-10 Rest <30 seconds between exercises and 60-90 seconds between sets 4a) Bent over row3 x 10-12 4b) Rear delt fly 3 x 12-15 4c) Farmers carry 3 x 30 yards Rest <30 seconds between exercises and 60-90 seconds between sets 5a) GHR sit ups 3 x 10-12 5b) Barbell curls 3 x 10-12 5c) Russian twists 3 x 10-12 Rest <30 seconds between exercises and 60-90 seconds between sets I hope you enjoyed the article and comment below if you have any questions.
Joey Percia is a coach at a training studio in New York City and also runs a successful online training business. He is a competitive powerlifter in the 181 division and has totaled 1400lbs. Joey has a Masters degree in Exercise Science, is a CPPS coach, Westside Barbell Coach and CSCS. Follow him on Facebook, you will be glad you did.
