Written by Blake Gauthier; photography by Lomer Photography
"You too can have abs in just seven minutes a day!!! You can only get results if you use this particular supplement brand! You want to get completely jacked follow my workout only!!! "
We are inundated with a constant barrage, an overflow of information and claims as to what works and what doesn’t work in regards to getting healthy and fit. I’m going to cut through all of the BS and make it really simple.
If you want something work for it! It’s not easy to get extremely fit and ready to step on a bodybuilding stage but living a healthy lifestyle is not difficult to do. It boils down to making smart choices. Eating right with proper portion control in a way that you can maintain. Crash diets only work in the short term and people usually end up gaining the weight back and sometimes more the moment they fall off the diet. Find a meal plan, a lifestyle that works for you that you can stick to.
Nutrition accounts for 90% of living a healthy lifestyle. No matter how hard you try you cannot out work a bad diet. The hour you spend in the gym is the easy part, it’s the other 23 hours in the day that can be difficult. I know for myself I work best on a routine. My alarm is set for 6 every morning, weekdays, weekends, holidays it doesn’t matter. I get up at 6 and I go out to the gym and do my fasted cardio session and every other day I do a core session, on the days I don’t train my core I train calves. Eat your heart out Arnold!!
When it comes to weight training the worse possible thing you can do is ego lift. I was horrible for ego lifting for many, many years. Looking back at it I absolutely cringe at what I thought was an awesome workout, loading up the bar with hundreds and hundreds of pounds and maybe doing a quarter squat and thinking I was doing all of this great work. Then I'd would wonder why I wasn’t seeing results and I was constantly trying to train through injuries.
The day I finally put my ego in check and left it outside of the gym and focused on proper technique, focused on full range of motion with the mind muscle connection and slowly squeezing out each and every single rep was when I started to see results. I WISH I would have started training that way right from the start instead of wasting all of those years, so please learn from the mistakes I’ve made and save yourself the aches and pains of a body that went through abuse from poor training techniques.
Nutrition
I currently eat 6-7 meals a day with a focus on lean proteins and good portion of complex carbs. I personally am not a fan of keto. Even as I prepped to step on stage at the Toronto Pro show the beginning of June I was still eating a fairly good quantity of carbohydrates. I drink roughly 6-8 liters of water a day as well. I get the majority of my nutrition from whole foods and utilize supplements to a minimum. Currently I take a multi vitamin and have a scoop of protein as a part of my first meal and post-workout training meal when not in prep. Supplements are exactly what they care called, supplements, they are meant to supplement your actual food not to replace it.
Proteins: For my proteins I stick with the usual culprits, Egg whites and whole eggs. Boneless skinless chicken breasts. White fish (tilapia, haddock, cod) as well as salmon (when not in prep) also flank steak and extra lean ground beef.
Carbohydrates: Again I keep it simple, jasmine rice, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, and white potatoes.
Fats: PEANUT BUTTER, also avocado and almond butter as well as extra virgin olive oil.
Training
Currently my training program is the following: Legs, Chest Triceps/ Back, Biceps HIIT/Rest/Shoulders and Hamstrings/Arms HIIT.
I don’t train heavy. You can make a 20 pound dumbbell feel like a 60 pound dumbbell by taking all momentum out of the movement and going good and slow and squeezing out those reps. If you’re going to take the time to workout and train make the time count!
When training to gain mass I follow a Push/Pull/Leg/Arm day. When training this split I listen to my body and take rest days when my body tells me I need one. When training for mass I follow the same principles as when I’m in prep. I focus on slow controlled movements. Time under tension and making the muscles do the work, no momentum and by far the most important thing… if you want something work for it.
Blake Gauthier can be found on Instagram (@thesilverbackviking) and his website, thesilverbackviking.com