Emergency Shred is a five-days-a-week plan consisting of two broad methodologies intertwined throughout: hypertrophy training (HT) and metabolic conditioning (MC). With HT, you’ll be doing staple mass-builders for all major muscle groups with moderate rep counts (sets from 5 to 14 reps). You’ll also be following a bodybuilding-style training split, focusing on 2 to 3 muscle groups per hypertrophy workout on four of the five days. MC workouts will be performed in all sessions, similar to CrossFit “metcons,” utilizing compound, functional movements at high intensities.
“The combination of hypertrophy and metabolic training is the best of all worlds,” says Bill Shiffler, owner of CrossFit Renaissance. “You get the muscles that ‘show’ and the muscles that ‘go.’ Building muscle and maintaining a higher level of lean body mass helps increase your basal metabolic rate (the rate at which your body burns calories). The metabolic conditioning workouts further stoke the fat-burning fire, providing the best return on your time investment in terms of cardio.”
The length of the Emergency Shred program depends on your sense of urgency. If you’re lacking long-term bandwidth and/or patience, hit it hard for two weeks (Weeks 1 and 2) before settling back into your regular, perhaps less frequent, training routine. But if you can swing it, complete all four weeks, as Weeks 3 and 4 are slightly more advanced than the first two. This’ll help you successfully avert your New Year’s crisis.
