In the bonus dvd that comes with the movie there is a section where they give a short glimpse into what they did.

And around the same time the 300 workout surfaced straight from the guy that trained the crew.

Here is the original 300 workout
Pullups – 25 reps

Deadlifts with 135lbs – 50 reps

Pushups – 50 reps

24-inch Box jumps – 50 reps

Floor wipers – 50 reps

Single-arm Clean-and-Press with 36lbs Kettlebell – 50 reps

Pullups – 25 reps

And that is where the confusion started.

You see this workout is not what they did until they went from the before picture to the after. It is what they did as sort of a “graduation”. Gym Jones “the place where they all trained” periodically uses training sessions as challenges. Do that training session as fast as you can within the guidelines (ex. during the kettlebell clean and press the kettlebell has to touch the floor between reps). If you can do it quickly it means that you have great levels of fitness. The 300 workout was the destination, not the road.

Me being a guy with too much damn time on his hands and a burning desire to learn about what they did I dug deep into their training logs (which at the time was free) to find the areas where the actors trained. What I found was crossfit style workouts but geared towards individual goals (what makes them better imho). It however isn’t really something you are likely to be able to do in your home. I’ll give an example of what I mean by this. One training session may consist of alternating between deadlifts of 3 different bars. Do you have 3 different bars with the amount of weight necessary? Neither do I.

Just because you don’t have access to the equipment that they do doesn’t mean you can’t achieve the same types of results. The key is in the principles of what they did…not the details.

Here are the key principles.
1) Train hard. If they were wussing out Mark Twight (the trainer of the cast) would “smash them”.
2) Eat Right. One member was said something about grapes and cottage cheese and you can’t out train a bad diet.
3) Fitness over aesthetics. I am paraphrasing here but “the look of fitness will come with actual fitness”

As you may have seen in some of my before and after shots I used those same principles to get myself all ripped up. The thing is I had very limited equipment when I had left the gym. The kettlebell was my main tool (when I completed the 300 workout in a little over 16mins I had to borrow the deadlift equipment from a friend).

So try testing yourself with the 300 workout. If you can even get through it that’s pretty darn good but time yourself. Train by applying those 3 concepts and watch the bodyfat fall off of you and retest yourself to see if you scored higher. Madness? That’s the real secret.

4 minute exerciser

Now maybe this thing provides a heck of a workout but I will probably never know. Curiosity will not over power my stinginess to subtract 15 grand (yeah you heard me) from my bank account in order to try it out. This thing promises to provide a world class workout in as little as 4 minutes including the muscles that push pull and squat. Perhaps it does but like I said at a hefty price tag of 15 thousand big ones, I’ll never know.

But I do have some questions.

What about “core stability”?

What if your sport requires you to go longer then 4 minutes?

Is this 1 size fits all? If yes that means that an NFL player should leave Defranco’s gym will be able to use it and a sedentary woman will be able to leave Curves for this?

No supervision required? Idiot proof?

And here is a simple observation. One of the selling points is that it only takes 4 minutes which makes it easy to fit into a busy schedule. Well judging by the size of that thing that means you aren’t going to be taking it anywhere so that means you would have to go back to wherever it is to use it. Doesn’t seem so easy to fit into a schedule for a lot of people.

And if 4 minutes is all you have to spare for exercise…how valuable is your time that would justify the purchase of this thing over something else that takes a little bit longer? Does that mean that a 20 minute workout using an $80 piece of equipment isn’t worth your time? Are you Donald Trump? (If you are what are you doing reading my blog if your time is worth that much money?) To conclude, are you kidding me?

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Why?

4 turkish get ups alternating sides. Make sure to pay attention to proper form.

“Countdowns” (I stole “countdowns” from uber Strength Coach Alwyn Cosgrove…he told me to…)
Complete this as fast as you can with good form.

10 swings
10 goblet squats
9 swings
9 goblet squats
8 swings
8 goblet squats
till you get down to 1

Wait for your respiration to return to normal then do kettlebell arm bars to open up the chest. That one doesn’t have a specific rep count since I want you to just kind of explore your way through the exercise. Remember to keep your lats tight and keep your shoulder away from your ear.

Then do a couple halos and round the body pass just to loosen up your shoulders a bit more.

Prone cobra stretch at the end.

Enjoy.

Eric Moss RKC

I want you to notice that even though there is a lot going on in that workout I stress the basics. It’s turkish getups, swings and squats. Do more of the stuff that provides a high bang for your buck and you will get better results. Exercise selection is the last thing your body adapts to so don’t buy into that muscle confusion crap. Try that training session out and let me know how you do with it. I mean it, speak up.

For me pullups were intended to be a strength and endurance exercise rather then for conditioning. In hardstyle we have better tools for the job. For many pullups become a strength endurance exercise. “How many can you do?” is a question that used to be more common then “How much can you bench?”. If I had it my way (and I never do) more people would be doing pullups. When I was a high school wrestler I was the guy who had to taxi some of the younger guys home. Like a taxi they had to pay me…with pullups.

Since we try to keep our reps low and our sets high while remaining fresh and since I don’t normally get tired during pullups till right around rep 27 I have to add weight to keep the exercise useful. My goal being strength this is the appropriate way of doing things. If I had to go for endurance I would have to learn to kip. My personal best is 35 non kipping so endurance is no longer a goal of mine hence no reason for me to learn to kip.

So how can you improve your pullups? Well first as with any training program you have to figure out where you are, and where you want to go. There would be no point in trying for high reps when you can’t even do a single rep with bodyweight alone. So if you can’t do a single rep you could give yourself a bit of a jump to get some momentum working on your side. Try to yank yourself up and make sure you are fresh each time you do that. Once you are able to do a single dead hang pullup practice it often. A simple way to do this is to get one of those doorway pullup bars and do a single rep whenever you walk through that doorway. Just make sure you are always fresh when you do it. Give that a week or 2 and take a couple days off and try to see how many you can get. When you are able to get between 5 and 8 give those Russian ladders a try. If you are on the Enter the Kettlebell Rite of Passage program do the pull up option and follow Pavel’s directions (as you should).

Ladders and reverse ladders are a great way of getting a lot of quality pullups under your belt. Don’t listen to the people who read out of the typical fitness magazine when they say to do lat pull downs, bicep curls and straight arm pulldowns (would you believe I actually had to look that up just now? That is how long its been since I have used that exercise). Which do you think would be better for pullups; to try to isolate the muscles separately and engage them in movement patterns unrelated to pullups or to practice doing a lot of pullups while staying fresh the entire time? Musicians and athletes do that and you could learn a bit from their wisdom.

If you want to be able to do a lot of pullups try doing higher rep ladders. Say rungs that include the numbers 5, 10 and 15 if you are able to do 20 or more. If your goal is to do 16 and you can do 10 then 2, 4, 6 and 8 would be a better choice. You want to be strong add weight and keep the reps low.

Pullup power is upon you, kipping or otherwise. You are a big kid now.

Eric Moss RKC over and out

repeat with as little rest as possible for 5 rounds
I recommend using a 35lb kettlebell