Author: Nick Hawkins

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Working The Abs

Your abdominals consist of 4 main muscles. All 4 of these muscles work together to stabilize your trunk but they all have specific functions, as well.
Rectus Abdominis: This is your “6 Pack” – It brings your ribs to your pelvis. Sit ups, knee/leg raises, crunches etc all target this muscle.

External Obliques: These ones twist your trunk (or stop it from twisting) If your right side is contracting then you twist to your left and vice versa. Sit ups with rotations, wood chops, side planks etc. all work this.

Internal Obliques: Basically the same as the external obliques but they twist in the same direction as the side that is contacting.

Transversus Abdominis: This muscle really does a ton of stabilization. If you’re weak here, your Squats and Deadlifts are going to suffer. Planks and hollow body holds/rocks are great for keeping this muscle strong.These are just a few of the MANY exercises you can choose from for working your abs

Let me know if you have any questions
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How To Gain Muscle

How To Gain Muscle ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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First, we must be in a net positive energy balance to ensure we’re providing our body the necessary nutrients for growth. This simply means that we should be consuming more calories than we’re burning.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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We must ensure we’re consuming enough protein (0.8-1g/ pound will suffice). If doesn’t matter how many workers are present, if we don’t have enough bricks available, we can never build the house.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Progressive Overload: When we introduce a stress to our muscle, our body is forced to adapt by building new muscle in the hopes that it will handle the same stress again in the future. If we fail to increase that stress, however, our body will find no need to repair and grow. It’s really that cut and dry.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Rest & Recovery: No matter how on point your diet and training are, if you’re not able to recover from the work, you’ll never maximize your performance in the gym.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Eat. Train. Sleep. Repeat.
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Pre Workout Meals

Pre-Workout Meals
What should you eat before a workout?

Well that depends on your goal, when you train and how organized you are. If you’re doing intermittent fasting, then you might just have some water and coffee and go lift. Your performance might not be fantastic, just make sure you eat afterwards

Ps. I don’t condone intermittent fasting. I digress …


If you’re not fasting, and you’re able to eat 2-3 hours before the workout, you can get in some protein, complex carbs and fats. This can be a fairly large meal as you’ll have time to digest it

If you’re eating 1-2 hours before then the meal should be a bit simpler. Not much fat, simpler carbs and some protein

If you’re eating right before your workout then the meal has to be very simple. Quickly digestible carbs, protein and no fat

Keep in mind that you are NOT eating at all 3 of these times – you can have a larger meal early and a quick snack before but not all 3 of these (unless you’re really trying to gain weight)

Other add ons for pre-workout intake can and should include water, caffeine and creatine with the water being 100% necessary and the other 2 optional (although they will help your performance )

Key takeaway is that when you’re exercising, your body needs blood for your muscles. You don’t want to be digesting a big meal at the same time because your body will want that food out ASAP – and you won’t feel great

So make sure the size of your meal lines up properly with the timing of your workout

Your body (especially your stomach) will thank you…

If you’re sick of yo-yo dieting and want to learn how to lose the weight once and for all, msg me the word “FREEDOM” and we can speak about whether you’d be a good fit for my new Fat Loss program.

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Staying Within Your Calories

🔹 So everyone knows by now that the real way to lose weight is to eat less than you burn – Right?
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🔹 KNOWING this is only half the battle (actually much less than half). Actually executing on it and burning more than you eat is hard. That’s why so many people struggle with weight loss.
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🔹 Above are a few little tricks that you can try to employ in order to eat a bit less everyday. Remember that even if this saves you 100 cals per day, that’s 36,500 per year!!!
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🔹 Don’t get carried away with these and insist on doing them EVERY meal. They are just small tactics to help out a bit – not strict guidelines of what you HAVE to do. The 2 that I would stick to the most would be prioritizing protein/vegetables and never eating from the package. Just those 2 will make a big difference
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🔹 Remember to stay as active as you can and don’t just eat because you’re hungry
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🔹 Let me know if you have any questions or know other tricks that have helped you.

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Glute Builders

🔹 Here are a bunch of exercises that are great for adding mass to your glutes.Most of them revolve around hip extension, which targets the gluteus maximus (the biggest glute muscle)
🔹 Some of them don’t isolate your glutes as much as pure extension, external rotation or even hip abduction but the goal here is to focus on exercises you can really add weight to.
🔹 The split squats and leg press can target your quads quite a bit too. To aim for more glute activation on the leg press, put your feet higher and a bit wider than normal. For the split squats, put your front foot a bit further away and drive up through your heel. I’m sure you’ve seen a ton of videos of body weight and elastic exercises and these are all great for sculpting this area too. To add real MASS though, lifting heavy really helps!

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How Long Should You Sleep?⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀


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Your training is catabolic, due to the breakdown of your muscle tissue. Your recovery is the anabolic part of the process. This is where your muscles grow and repair. The goal should be to have 7-9 hours of quality, uninterrupted sleep each night.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Getting things prepped for the next day is one of the best ways of getting your mind at ease and prepared for rest. Planning out your next day gives you clarity and purpose for your following day.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Apart from this, avoid caffeine within 8 hours of sleeping and try not to have a large meal within 3 hours of bed as this can also interact with your sleep quality.
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Portion Size

🔹 Eyeballing serving sizes can work if you’re not really trying to lose or gain weight
🔹 If you DO want to drop some weight, measuring and actually knowing how much food is going in is pretty important. Especially at first so that you can learn more about portion sizes. Once you’re where you want to be you can relax on the precision. Plus you’ll know more about what to look for and what mistakes to avoid.

🔹 I’m not saying that you need to measure each banana you eat. Just be aware that different amounts of something will have a different calorie content, that’s all.

🔹 Things like peanut butter, oils and nuts are very calorie dense and can add up quickly so they are the things you want to be careful with. Small amounts add up and if you’re eating 500-1000 cals more than you thought in a week you’ll be confused why the progress isn’t there. Let me know if you have any questions, I can help.


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Bulgarian Split Squat

🔹 Try this workout to target your glutes, quads, adductors and calves.
🔹 You can do this workout at home, using a couch or a chair.
🔹 Make sure that you are keeping your weight in your heel, while your head, hip and back knee is aligned. Try to keep your front knee aligned with the middle of your front foot.
🔹 Your front foot further away will target your glutes, but bringing your foot closer will target your quads.
🔹 Make sure that you maintain perfect form and aim for 8-15 reps.
🔹 Take your workout to the next level and add weights.
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Shoulders Workout

🔹 The shoulders are one of my favorite body parts to workout on because it helps create an aesthetic physique.
🔹 Here is a simple breakdown of compound and isolated exercises for each delt.
🔹 Shoulder presses in the form of the Arnold press and overhead press target the entire shoulder, mostly the front and side delts. I recommend these exercises at the beginning of your workout.
🔹 After you can proceed to target each individual delt to correct any imbalances or areas where you want to achieve more gains.

🔹 Don’t forget your Rear Delts! This muscle is often ignored since they cant be seen in the mirror.
🔹 Neglecting your rear delts will cause you to end up with “rounded shoulders,” imagine a lump pointed forward. This appearance is due to the lack of rear delts which results in the image of an awkward lump.
🔹 You definitely don’t want that. So be sure to always include your rear delts so you can develop those 3D Boulder Shoulders!
Inbox me if you have any questions.

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Sprints

🔹 When sprinting, your heart rate speeds up to its maximum limits, while increasing the demand of blood flow to your legs.
🔹 Over time, sprinting can boost your heart, which allows you to workout more efficiently. This is because you are able to take in more oxygen as your cardiovascular system develops.
🔹 Sprinting is also known as an anaerobic exercise, which means that it requires a short burst of energy to produce lactic acid. This type of training increases your anaerobic threshold and the rate at which your body can produce lactic acid, allowing you to work harder for a longer period of time.
🔹 Sprinting also helps with making gains the same way that weight training does, because of the short burst of energy your body produces while targeting the fast twitch muscle fibers.
🔹 Sprinting increases your metabolism and burns more calories in a short period of time. It also burns calories after your workout; some call this the after burn effect.
🔹 So don’t waste your time jogging. Try hitting those sprints to optimize your gains and fat burn.