The Best Way to Stay in Shape

As I was writing How to Get a Beach Body in 2 Months or Less, I got around to thinking about the best way to stay in shape.  Below is a 3 step, fool-proof way to stay in shape.

1. Exercise

A simple 3 day split.  Day 1: Pushups, Day 2: Pull Ups, Day 3: Sprints; repeat for the next 3 days and give yourself a day off.  For pushups and pull ups, complete one max set.  For sprints, you’ll run 400 meters (1 lap around the track).  Here’s the trick.  Each workout you have to increase the number of pushups and pull ups you perform by at least 1 rep.  If you can’t beat your personal record in one set, you have to do 5 more sets, stopping one rep short of failure on each set and allowing yourself 2 minutes rest between sets.  For sprints, if you can’t run faster than your personal record, you have to do 5 more laps with 2 minutes rest between laps.

2. Diet

You get to eat whatever you want.  Go to McDonald’s every day if you feel like it.  Here’s the trick.  If you didn’t beat your personal record in any exercise, you only get to eat 10x your target weight until you beat it.  For example, if you miss your personal record on pushups, you’ll have to eat low calorie for at least 3 days until you attempt to beat your record again.  This will continue until you break your record in each exercise.

And finally, the third and most important step is:

3. Happy April Fools Day!

Some of you probably saw this coming, but this is obviously an April Fool’s joke.  This post was actually very challenging to write since I wanted it to seem realistic.  However, is this approach really so out there?  While it started as a joke, I’m now curious if this might work.  Let’s take a look at some of the components.

Bodyweight Exercises

Here’s the nice thing about bodyweight exercises.  Generally, the less fat you carry, the easier they are.  Think about it, wouldn’t it be easier to do 20 pull ups if you only weighed 170lbs vs. 180lbs?  By designing a program that requires you to continue to perform a higher number of bodyweight exercises, you force your body to either get stronger while remaining at the same weight or maintain strength while losing weight.  I find that with weight training, your bench press may continue to increase despite gaining fat because fat provides added leverage.  Bodyweight training doesn’t really work like this.  Pushups and pull ups are ideal since they’re compound exercises that work multiple muscles while focusing on two functional movements: pushing and pulling.

Sprints

Sprints are another great way to lose fat.  You might not be able to sprint at an all out effort for a full 400 meters, but I’m sure you’d find yourself sprinting at the end if you knew you didn’t have to complete an extra 5 laps.  If you’re eating excessively and putting on weight, it’s likely that you wouldn’t be able to run as fast and beat your personal record.  Sprints will also help you maintain leg strength.

Eating

I don’t like calorie restrictive diets or diets that force you to avoid certain foods.  The key is that your diet is going to partially dictate if you will be able to beat your personal records for bodyweight exercises and sprints.  If you do decide to eat McDonald’s every day, be prepared to come up short in your exercise program.  Then you’d immediately have to go into fat burning mode by limiting your calories to a pretty low number.  That should be enough motivation to eat moderately.

All Jokes Aside

So I originally wrote this post as a complete joke but the more I thought about it, the more reasonable some of the principles may be.  Do I think this approach is the best way to stay in shape?  Not really, but it got me thinking about how your diet and exercise program are intricately linked.  Could staying in shape be as simple as what I’ve laid out above with a few tweaks?  I’m not sure, but I’d love to get some feedback on this wacky approach.