Look your best for your next big date and show off your gains. You can thank us later.

If you’re single, chances are there’s a big date in your future. You want to be ready.

It’s time to get that last workout into look and feel your best. Whether you are adding to the love fire you already have going or looking to spark some tinder, you need to look your best. Make sure to follow this workout and these diet tips to have your body on point.

This Is What You Need To Look Your Best

What exactly do you need to do to make sure your entire body is at its peak? 

You’ll want to feel strong and have your testosterone at dangerously aromatic levels. This definitely does not mean skipping your post-workout shower. You need a workout that will make you sweat and pump boiling hot blood into your muscles. It needs to make you feel like you just released the Hulk and you’re going to bust through the brick walls of your gym.

At the same time you need a workout that is going to make your body not just feel the best it can, but also look it. With some science and nutritional enhancement, the perfect workout can be created. What follows is the workout that’s going to achieve all that.

Do Big Compound Movements

This workout is going to focus on using big compound movements. These are basically exercises that use multiple joints at once and don’t isolate one single small muscle. This means using the manliest lifts. These include deadlifts, bench presses, chin ups, squats and more.

The reasoning is that these are efficient full body exercises that engage huge amounts of muscle at once. This means the workout will waste no time or energy on the little stuff, making it easy to train the whole body.

Furthermore, you can lift heavy (five to eight reps) and safely on these exercises, which will boost testosterone levels and confidence by allowing you to move large amounts of weight. Think about it: If you squat 225 pounds five times, you just lifted over 1,000 pounds in seconds. How can you not feel awesomely powerful after that? This is only the start of breaking a sweat and looking your best.

Do Functional Movements

The big compound movements you’ll be doing are very functional in that they are movements you do on a daily basis. Your big date isn’t just any day though. This workout will have you doing exercises geared towards this very unique and special day.

The hip hinge or hip thrust is an essential movement to have you primed and ready.

Doing exercises such as the glute bridge or kettlebell swing will be fundamental to your preparation.

Pro tip: Elite athletes from powerlifters to golfers practice visualization. No one ever got a hole in one without visualizing it first. To master the functional movements incorporate some visualization to keep your energy and motivation up.

Give Them What They Want

It’s known that females find the arms, abs and even butts of men to be the body parts they’re most attracted too. That gives the kettlebell swings and glute bridges even more purpose in this workout.

This also means that the workout has to have some direct biceps, triceps and abs training to make those muscles pop.

You Want To Sweat

Sweating is really important in this workout since it will make sure your body is not carrying excess water. Carrying extra water or looking bloated are things that will take away from your muscle definition. A couple different techniques are used in this workout to make sure you sweat enough to look your best.

This whole workout is done using either supersets (completing two exercises back to back then resting) or circuits (completing a series of exercises back to back then resting once all exercises have been done). The lack of rest between exercises will keep your heart rate up and bring on the eye-stinging sweat.

The exercises are also paired in a specific manner so that different muscle groups will be worked together. For example, pairing squats and chin-ups utilizes the lower and upper body. This means that not only will your heart have to pump oxygen all the way to your legs, but it will also have to recirculate oxygen to the upper back.

Your body will have to work that much harder to recover between sets. On top of that it means virtually every muscle in your body will be engaged without rest.

Check Your Ego And Don’t Max Out

Do not train to failure!

Seriously, going to the point where you can no longer complete any more reps of an exercise will leave you bedridden. Your body will feel like a hunk of meat Rocky Balboa just worked over. Grinding out reps will increase your chance of injury. It will also cause extreme fatigue.

Every rep you perform happens because of your muscles contract. Your nervous system is what contracts these muscles. If you repeatedly push your muscles, and by default, your nervous system, to the limit on every set with these compound exercises you will be torched.

Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) will leave you crawling on the ground the next day. Even worse, your nervous system will be exhausted leading to a lack of mental clarity and even nausea.

How do you avoid this?

Simply pick a weight you know you can do more than the prescribed amount of reps with. For instance, when going for five reps, pick a weight you normally would do seven or eight reps with, but stop at five. This will stimulate the muscles sufficiently while letting you still enjoy your big date.

You Need To Be Varying Reps And Rest

Different amounts of reps and rest periods have different effects. To look your best you’re going to tap into these benefits. The benefits of lower reps were discussed earlier. Basically you’re going to feel like a testosterone pumped man that flips cars for fun.

Higher reps (10 to 15 reps) are imperative to how you’ll look your best. First and foremost, higher reps will fill your muscles with blood giving you the best feeling known to man: The pump.

Higher reps will also tap into your glycogen stores, essentially the stored energy or carbs in your muscles. By emptying the muscles of glycogen it will shuttle the carbs you eat post-workout into your muscles. This causes your muscles to temporarily take in extra glycogen, thus filling up to a larger than normal size. The nutritional tips to optimize this muscle bulging effect are detailed later on.

Also, the higher reps combined with the shorter rest will lead to an increase in growth hormone. Growth hormone aids your recovery and muscle growth through cell regeneration.

Another important variable in this workout is the rest between rounds.

Lower rep, heavier exercises have longer rest. Higher rep, lighter exercises have shorter rest. This is designed to optimize recovery between sets to maximize strength for the lower rep exercises and to increase the pump and heart rate for the higher rep exercises.

It’s important that you don’t rest too little or too much and use a stopwatch to time the rest periods.

This Is When To Do This Workout

Even though you’re already itching to get on this workout, timing is of the utmost importance. Too early and the muscle bulging effect will be gone. Too late and the big date will be spent recovering and not loving. Plus your muscles will actually flatten out and look soft as the day goes on.

The best time to do this workout is the day before the big date. Train whenever you normally train so your body is in rhythm. Note that this workout uses multiple pieces of equipment at one time so try to avoid peak times at the gym.

If you perform this workout the day of the date it will leave you yearning for a nap. You want to have your energy levels topped off for a long day and hopefully longer night. On top of that, it takes time for carbs to reach your muscles and stuff them full of glycogen. Perform this workout too early and this effect will be lost.

This Is How To Fuel Your Masterpiece

Looking your best is highly influenced by your workout, but nutrition will be the make or break factor. Don’t get too carried away with big date wisdom. Everyone’s heard the benefits of eating oysters, but aside from the protein they won’t be crucial to looking awesome. What follows is how to make your nutrition work for you.

Depletion

To achieve the maximal glycogen super compensation effect you’ll have to deplete carbs prior to completing the workout. A suggested range of carbohydrates to consume in the three days prior to completing the workout is at most 0.5 grams per pound of bodyweight.

For a 200-pound man this means a maximum of 100 grams of carbs. If you’re not used to counting calories, consciously eat less grains, starches and fruits to lower your carb intake. While carbs are manipulated, it is important to keep protein intake high to preserve muscle mass, so 1 gram per pound of bodyweight is ideal.

Pre-Workout

This is only a short-term carb depletion so carbs should not be consumed at will once the depletion ends. Prior to the workout consume 0.25 grams per pound of bodyweight of carbohydrates or a couple pieces of fruit. This will give you energy to push through the workout and keep intensity up.

Post-Workout

After the workout, consume 1 gram per pound of bodyweight of carbs from starchy sources such as rice, potatoes or pasta. After this eat as usual avoiding the temptation to overeat and bloat yourself. Once glycogen stores have been filled any extra carbs will likely be turned into fat.

Ensure you eat light and low-fat foods post-workout that you know your body can easily digest. Eating high-fat foods will slow down digestion and reduce the super compensation effect.

Before Bed

We all remember that time we went out drinking only to wake up and wonder how we could actually look leaner in the morning. It’s because alcohol is a natural diuretic causing us to dehydrate slightly, which can help bring out definition. Don’t get too excited though, because in this case more is not better. To add an extra dimension of leanness, stick to just one glass of red wine the night before the big date.

The Workout

It’s time to pull everything together and bring out the best body you can. Follow everything listed and rest assured you’ll wake up the next morning knowing you crushed a great workout and look the part.

The workout is broken down into mini rounds. Each round should be completed as supersets or in circuit fashion, completing the exercises back to back then resting before starting the next set. Remember to keep a few extra reps in the tank and avoid training to failure. Prior to starting your workout you should do a dynamic warm-up.

 

Round 1

Conventional deadlift 3×5 reps

Bench press 3×5

Rest for 3 minutes between rounds.

 

Round 2

Back squat 3×8

Chin-ups (add weight if needed) 3×8

Rest for 2 minutes between rounds.

 

Round 3 

Single arm dumbbell row 3×10

Military press (standing) 3×10

Rest for 90 seconds between rounds.

 

Round 4

Glute bridges (weighted if needed) 3×12

Triceps cable press downs 3×12

Alternating dumbbell curls 3×12

Rest for 60 seconds between rounds.

Round 5

Kettlebell swings 3×15

Hanging leg raises (alternatively perform knee raises or lying leg raises) 3×15

Lightweight overhead medicine ball slams 3×15

Rest for 60 seconds between rounds.

Perform five to 10 minutes of low-intensity cardio and stretching to optimize recovery and reduce soreness.

Conclusion

Who says you can only wear your birthday suit once a year?

Use this workout whenever you need to look your best. You’ll be ready for your big date in no time at all. Now all you’ll need to worry about is what to wear to showcase all your hard work.

By Raphael Konforti, MS CPT