This is day 1 of the Kingmaker program. Today is an upper-body day. You’ll see that I’m gonna be doing multiple body parts in each workout. We’re trying to train to be all-around athletes—impressive looking specimens that look good and can actually move well.
Warm Up
I always start my days off with a pre-exhaust, and today we’re gonna start out with max rep pull-ups and superset with max rep push-ups, and then you repeat this process two more times for a total of three rounds.
When I say max reps or going to failure, it doesn’t mean going till it burns and stop. It means go until you can’t do another rep. If you can only do three pull-ups, try to get that fourth one. If you can do 3 or 30, it doesn’t matter. Max effort is max effort—that’s what your body responds to. Your body doesn’t respond to what it does efficiently.
So if you zip through ten and you just hop down, you’re getting nothing out of that. You gotta get those trouble reps. That’s when your body starts to respond. You see, I couldn’t get the last rep, so I go back down and start doing push-ups.
So why would you pre exhaust?
It completely warms the body up, and it kind of fatigues you. You will learn a lot about your body when you train like this. The only way that your body will grow and respond is by getting to that phase of adaptation and trying to increase the intensity.
Take a 30-second break, and we’re right back at it. If 30 seconds is not enough and you’re a novice, you can take 45-60 seconds. But next week, when you do that exercise, try to take off 5-10 seconds. You can increase the intensity by reducing your resting time.
Alright, so you’re gonna do three rounds of that. If you’re a beginner, just do two, but if not, make sure you do three.
How To Bench Press Properly And Do These Sets
Ok, so the bench press is one of the primary movements for today’s workout, so we like to attack that first, so we can go all out on it despite being pre-exhausted, which is a good thing.
Now, you always wanna keep your ass flat on the bench. If you have an issue with this, spread your feet out as wide as possible so that you won’t be able to lift your butt off the bench. Now keep in mind your power will be generated from your feet and your glutes. So remember to keep your feet on the ground and your gluts on the bench.
I’m not gonna arch, but I’m gonna try to position my shoulders to where they are kind of pointing down, so give me a little bit of leverage. I do recommend you keep your elbows turned in. I destroyed my shoulders over the years for having my elbows flared out, so you don’t wanna do that.
Even when you’re warming up (with no weight on the bar), you wanna do the movement like weights are on the bar. Try to push it through the roof. You gotta learn and practice that kind of explosiveness and intensity because you will play the way you practice.
My first set is gonna be 135 pounds, which is approximately 60% of my body weight. I’m usually 220-225. You can try my percentages, and if it’s too heavy or if it’s too light, be honest with yourself and adjust. We’re not timing the reps, but you won’t want to go over a minute.
For set two, I go 100% of my bodyweight. I try to get 12-15 reps shooting for 15. For the third set, we go to 140% of body weight, and we’re gonna reduce the number of reps to 4-5. From 140%, we go up to 180% for 3-5 reps and then back down to 140%, and you’re gonna go all out, as many reps as possible. Then, after that, give yourself a short break and go right into warrior push-ups.
Mike Rashid’s Warrior Push-Ups Routine
Growing up, I had to be really creative when it came to working out because I didn’t have a bunch of equipment or fancy facilities to go to. So I had to come up with shit of my own. In doing so, I started doing a series of push-ups called Warrior Push-Ups.
You can do them as a warm-up, as a finisher, and even as a full workout by doing it multiple times. This series is great for building overall chest and arm strength, core strength, and endurance.
Warrior Push-Ups consist of 5 different types of push-ups:
Hindu Push-Ups x 5
Pretend there’s a bar and you’re going below it and forward with your head. Check out how I do it in the video. One of these push-ups is like 5 regular push-ups. This push-up will stimulate your upper chest and shoulders.
Touch Hand Push-Ups x 5
You wanna do these nice and slow. When one hand is off the ground, it will engage your stabilizers and your core. This is why you should do it nice and slow.
Knee-Ins x 5
These ones are perfect for your abs. Don’t go crazy with speed here. It’s better to take your knees as deep as you can as that’s what’s really going to engage your abs. As to the actual push-up, keep your hands to shoulder width.
Push-Up to a Side Plank x 5
Go down on a push-up and when you come back up, turn your body to face left and point to the sky with your left arm. Then, repeat the same thing with your right arm. If you’re feeling strong, raise your leg to form some sort of star-like shape. This will engage your core and challenge your stabilizers even more.
Diamond Push-Ups x 5
Place your hands close enough until you form a diamond-like shape. Go down and up on a push-up. Try to keep your hands close together. These push-ups will work on your middle chest area.
Plyometric or Hand Clap Push-Up
Depending on how I get to this final stage, I’ll continue with plyo push-ups or hand clap push-ups. Both of these are meant to be really explosive. In the first one, you lift yourself entirely off the floor, and in the second one, you clap. Once you do your five reps, go into regular push-ups until failure.
Lat Pull-Downs
So here we’re gonna do 4 sets of 15 reps. Lots of volume because this is density training. You wanna go to a moderately heavyweight. Not too heavy, but you wanna be able to barely get 15 reps. If you’re getting there quickly, adjust.
I got through my first set relatively easy so maybe increase the weight one click. But by the time I get to the fourth set Imma be struggling, and that’s what we want. I removed a little bit of weight, but it now felt too easy, so I had to be honest with myself and increased it again.
Some people might be leaning back, trying to get a little more leverage to pull it. I don’t see anything wrong with that as long as you’re increasing intensity. For significant compound movements like squats, bench press, deadlift, it’s essential for your form to be on point. But for stuff like this is not that crucial.
One pointer I do wanna give you is that when you’re pulling, you wanna pull violently. Coming up, you wanna do it nice, easy, and controlled. But coming down, you wanna be explosive. That’s what builds the right muscle. If you go up fast, you’re just letting gravity do its work.
Lateral Raises To Build Muscle
So I start from the sides of my legs to avoid getting additional momentum that makes this movement easier. The swing is a lot harder starting from this position, and we’re always trying to do the more challenging movement.
We’re gonna do 3 sets of 20. Not a heavyweight but also not a lightweight. Just enough to be able to get 20 reps and still get a burn. As you get near the end of your sets, go higher, and increase the intensity.
I’m telling you guys this program comes from the spirit of a boxer and a bodybuilder. And in boxing, both fighters get tired. But it is the one who shows it who is at a disadvantage.
So that’s why I tell people to turn that crazy on. That’s why when I start feeling fatigued, I put in more effort. Try to get locked into that mindset, and you’ll reap the benefits because, again, your body will start to respond and adapt by getting bigger and stronger.
Finisher: How To Get Ripped Shoulders
Get a couple dumbbells to shadow box. Listen, I’ve always been complimented for having nice shoulders. And a lot of boxers do have them really well defined. And this is from continually having your arms up and throwing punches.
So what we’re gonna do is activate some more shoulder work in functional capacity and also get some more cardio in. What we’re gonna do is throw punches nonstop for 60 seconds.
Note: For those who don’t know who to properly through punches, here’s episode 1 of my boxing for beginners explanation (watch this before embarrassing yourself):
Listen, 60 seconds doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is a long time, especially if you’re not used to doing it. So if you need to take a break, do so, but make it short. Maybe do a three count and go right back at it. I don’t care if you have to do it 10 times. Just keep moving.
Conclusion
There you have it y’all. This type of shit is what will get you looking and feeling like an animal. It’s hard, it’s taxing, it’s vicious. But this is the type of shit that will keep you out of your comfort zone and, therefore, will keep your body responding and adapting to get bigger and stronger. This is why this program is called the Kingmaker motherfuckers!
Go try this workout and let me know in the comments how it went!