Total Body Sabotage: Blast Plateaus, Get Big & Strong, Fast!

Brad Borland is a strength & conditioning specialist, cancer survivor and the founder of WorkoutLab.

This April the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Joe Manganiello and Sam Worthington will star in the action-thriller Sabotage playing elite DEA task force agents. This collection of actors makes a convincing case of looking the part of a specialized team charged with kicking butt and taking names.

Strong, muscular and athletic are the prerequisites for a job (the actual job) like that. What good is it to just look big, lean and strong if you can’t do anything with it? Tailoring a workout program around more functional goals and techniques will not only improve performance and practical applications but is also guaranteed to build some serious muscle and strength as a nice immense side effect.

Do not fret; the program below is not all utilitarian in nature. Some moves are for strength, some are for function and others are for packing on good ole fashioned muscle to balance out your physique for one awesome finished product.

Total Body Sabotage: Ten Directives for Getting Big and Strong

1. Lift big. You will use mainly multi-joint, compound moves to lift big weight. The more joints used the more weight lifted – pure and simple. You will be doing some old favorites such as bench presses and squats with some more full body stuff like deadlifts and clean and presses.
2. Nix the small stuff. Little, isolated moves such as a lot of cable work and “look at me” exercises won’t be found in this program. However, some single-joint stuff is a must such as curls, Romanian deadlifts and lateral raises.
3. Hybrid reps. Rep ranges will fluctuate from power to strength to mass. Having such variety will ensure that all areas are covered for total body annihilation without the high risk of injury. This will also serve to keep the body off guard and interest levels high throughout the program.
4. Get functional. Not to be outdone utilizing all strength and muscle mass moves, functionality won’t get the backseat in this program. It is nicely inserted to work synergistically with the rest of the moves to add some much needed performance-based challenges.
5. Personal alternatives. Of course not everyone can follow this program to a T. Some will have specific issues with certain moves due to past injuries, body structure and imbalances among many others. Installing alternative (but comparable) moves may be necessary for some individuals.
6. Get dynamic with your warm-up. Forget the long, slow treadmill warm-up – this is Sabotage! You need to get your whole body charged up. You will be performing a more dynamic warm-up such as burpees, push-ups and body weight squats.
7. HIIT. Riding the coattails of the above point, you will also be avoiding the long, drawn out cardio sessions that brought TVs to treadmills. There will be no time to catch up Survivor during high intensity interval training.
8. Stretch. The importance of stretching cannot be stressed enough. This often little practiced habit can help your body reap great rewards regarding recovery, injury prevention and subsequently increased performance.
9. Keep pace. The pace of this program is another factor that must be closely followed. It will utilize supersets (sets done back-to-back without rest) and specified rest periods between straight sets.
10. As with all plans, we all tend to go all out risking dreaded burnout. That is why you should go full tilt on this program for no longer than six weeks – preferably four. After that either take a few days completely off or conduct a very low intensity maintenance type workout for a week or two to give the body time to repair and regroup.

***Perform each training day once per week on any combination of days.

***Before each workout begin with a dynamic warm-up of 3 rounds of 10 reps of burpees, 10 reps of prisoner squats and 10 reps of push-ups done back-to-back without rest.