Day 54:Shoulders

At the end of your diet, you’ll feel weaker, so I want you to adjust your weights accordingly. The goal is to work your muscles, not to lift as much weight as you can at the end of a fat-loss Trainer.

Continue to focus on your sets and reps rather than the amount of weight you’re lifting. Get in the volume, and don’t worry about the weight. At this point, you should be super strict with your diet. Now, you should be reducing sodium, as per my instructions from yesterday.

You should notice more detail as you reduce sodium intake. In addition, take up your water intake. This will keep you hydrated while you’re peeing out subcutaneous water (the fluid that you hold between your skin and your muscles). If you’re keeping track of your sodium intake, then you should be down to about 1,000 mg total for today, including supplements.

OPERATION AESTHETIC NOTES

*For compound shoulder moves such as standing military presses, you should focus much more on form than weight as you continue to strip body fat. Choose the weights that allow you to hit the reps. Notice that I dropped weight when I could only get 2 reps with good form.

*Remember that controlling the negative will help you develop more detail in your shoulder muscles. Really focus on that during isolation moves, where your goal is increasing detail, especially as you’re completing your last weight workouts on Operation Aesthetic.

Early morning cardio	1	25 minutes	Perform this session upon waking before consuming food.

EXERCISE	COMMENT
Standing military press Keep your lower body solid with a natural curve in your spine. Form needs to be tight, especially when you’re this dieted.	6 SETS / 12, 10, 7, 3, 15, 15 REPS
One-arm cable lateral raise This exercise really allows you to target one side, emphasizing the mind-muscle connection.	5 SETS / 12, 10, 7, 3, 15 REPS
Cable front raise SUPERSET: For this last shoulder superset, you should almost be focusing more on how you’re posing your target muscles as you perform each rep. Remember that you also move while you pose, as much as you remain still.	5 SETS / 12, 10, 7, 3, 15 REPS
Cable upright row	5 SETS / 12, 10, 7, 3, 15 REPS
Smith machine overhead press I keep the rhythm steady and smooth as I burnout at the end of this workout.	5 SETS / 12, 10, 7, 3, 15 REPS
Dumbbell shrug Emphasize what you need for traps development at this point. You can forget reps and just go for a burnout with every set if you prefer.	4 SETS / 12, 10, 8, 15 REPS

Post-Workout cardio

1

25 minutes

You’re almost at the end of this program. Perform the cardio you need after today’s weight-training workout.

TIP: As you well know at this point of Operation Aesthetic, fasted cardio performed first thing in the morning supports burning body fat. Still, you want to make sure you’re getting in aminos and a small amount of fast-digesting protein such as Micropure^® Whey Protein Isolate. The whey helps spare your muscle tissue. That’s really important when you’re this depleted.