2 Recent Training Logs

Garage Gym Chronicles: 05/03/2025 Training Log. Legs

Warm up: 2-3 mile dog walk with my wife; lots of yard work

Ex 1: Bulgarian split squats-3x6/6

Ex 2: 2 hand kettlebell swings-3x12

Ex 3: lateral squats-3x6/6

Ex 4: offset calf raise-3x10/10

Total Time = 28 minutes 

What a way to cap off the day...

At 8 pm, after a productive Saturday of training clients, hanging out with my family (dogs and wife), doing a bunch of yard work – and even eating dinner – I went out to the garage and completed a sub-30 minute leg session. The perks of training the way I do....

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Garage Gym Chronicles: 05/04/2025 Training Log. Pull

Ex 1: pullups-8,6,6

Ex 2: single arm rows-12/12, 10/10, 8/8

Ex 3: incline dumbbell curls-8,6,6

Ex 4: incline hammer curls-6,10,10

Total Time = 30 minutes 

I enjoy many different styles of training and I incorporate many different training splits throughout my training year. 

But when it comes to hypertrophy and training for aesthetics, I seem to respond best to these quick, Pull/Push/Leg programs – where I focus on doing 4 exercises, 3 sets per exercise, and train 5-6 days per week.

Training takes 30 minutes.

I train nearly daily, which, for me, is beneficial as it keeps me sane and adds beneficial structure that carries over to me being more structured and disciplined in all other areas of my life. I differ from some people in this way. I've learned, though, that I really benefit from consistent, low friction training sessions, which encourages consistent, low friction, high frequency habits in other areas of my life – such as reading, writing, working on my businesses, and staying motivated to train a wide range of very different clients. 

I recover well due to splitting the sessions across 3 different areas of the body.

It's mentally very easy because I'm basically doing 2-3 compound exercises and 1-2 isolation exercises per session, meaning fatigue accumulation per session is moderate. Sure, it's locally very stimulating and fatiguing. I get crazy pumps and get very sore. But systematically, fatigue is really mild because I'm working just 1/3rd of the body each session.

So while my back, biceps, and forearms will be quite sore for the next 2 days, that soreness won't affect my push and leg sessions that follow during the next 2-3 days.

I'm not saying PPL 4X (4 exercises per session) is the best program for everyone. It's not even always the best option for me. But, it works better than anything else for me when my goal is maximizing the way I look without spending more than 30-35 minutes lifting per session.

It's the reason I've spent more time (months) using PPL splits since 2020 than I have any other training split. And that's the reason because I'm a vain, time efficient-obsessed, son of a gun who wants to look as good as I possibly can. For what it's worth, I find the classic Silver Era physique (think Steve Reeves, Bill Pearl, Vince Gironda, Jim Haislip, Clancy Ross) to be my physique goal. Big, relatively lean (but not shredded, sub-10% body fat or anything nuts), and classically symmetrical. I seem to make progress towards that classic, Silver Era aesthetic when I commit to these time-efficient, frequent PPL sessions.

Anyway, have yourselves a phenomenal week!