Your body is smart. It adapts and transforms to what you do routinely. After enough working out, exercises that were once challenging become almost easy—and that means results gradually fade.
The Quick-Switch Cycle, created by holistic personal trainer and fitness model Joe Rodonis (@JoeRodonis), is designed to keep your body in a constant state of growth, so it can never fully adapt to training.
We’re all familiar with bulking and cutting. Normal routines will program for one to three months of bulking, and the same for cutting. The Quick-Switch Cycle, however, will have your body in a constant state of flux—stimulating your body to grow in size while developing a lean physique with increased athletic ability.
Variation is what triggers your body to grow and improve. (Plus, you won’t find yourself getting bored following the same routine for a month or two.) You’ll be targeting specific muscle groups five days per week, but changing your routine every two weeks.
The first month, you’ll focus on building mass for weeks one and two. On your “mass” exercises, you’ll want to start with your heaviest weight for the exercise on your first set. This is a “reverse pyramid”—you’ll start heavy and drop weight as the reps increase. Then, you’ll increase your weight as your reps go back down. This will maximize your energy during these workouts to ensure you push heavy weight before you’re fatigued. Track the weight you use for each exercise, and aim to increase that amount between 2–5% each week.
During weeks three and four, the cutting phase, you’ll focus on endurance-based exercises. (To get the full cutting phase portion of the program, go tomensfitness.com/quickswitchcut.) During this particular phase, aim to use weights that are roughly 75% of your 10-rep max. Your rest periods decrease during this week—you’ll be constantly moving. Pay attention to form, and keep up the pace. You’ll notice the muscle groups targeted on each day also change (again, keeping with the theme of variety). To add an element of competition, Rodonis threw in a workout aptly named “The Athletic Gauntlet.” A test of endurance and strength, you’ll perform this routine at the end of the week when you’re cutting. Try to beat your time each week and watch yourself improve. The “Athletic Gauntlet” can be seen at mensfitness.com/thegauntlet
Directions
You can follow the structure of this plan for another 2–3 months, as long as you keep varying the points of focus each week.
Month 1:
Week 1 and 2: Mass workouts Week 3 and 4: Cutting workouts and the Gauntlet
Month 2:
Week 1: Mass Week 2: Cut Week 3: Mass Week 4: Cut
Within this link, the video demonstrations are only for the “Mass” phase of the plan. For the “Cutting” portion of the plan, go to mensfitness.com/quickswitchcut.
