Hard Body Training for Women - What Next

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
1

Hi Christian,

I have been doing the hard body training for women for 7 weeks now. I am finishing up the next 3 weeks and love how it is changing my body. I was wondering if you had any suggestions on what to do next and more specifically if you have any good recommendations for other training programs that I could do for 3 weeks. Also, do you have any recommendations on how to lift while on vacation if the hotels don’t provide the necessary equipment? Thanks for the help and thanks for all the great trainings you post!

Shannon

2

Regarding hotels, since it’s something I often encounter there can be several solutions.

First most decent hotels do provide with some free-weights (normally dumbbells up to 40-50lbs, a short barbell and some plates). While rarely will you have enough weights to go heavy on deadlifts and squats, normally you can do the following exercises:

  1. WITH DUMBBELLS
    DB clean and press
    DB thrusters
    DB lunges/split squats
    1-arm DB snatch
    Bent over DB row
    DB Arnold press
    Most biceps exercises
    Lying DB triceps extensions
    Renegade rows (look it up, somewhat complex to explain)
    Man-maker (also look it up)
    DB lateral and front raise

  2. WITH A BARBELL
    Hang power clean (you can’t drop the bar and the bar doesn’t spin super well but it will work)
    Hang power clean + press
    Hang power clean + front squat
    Hang power clean + lunges
    Military press
    Barbell curl
    Bent over barbell row
    Thrusters
    Split squats
    Bear complex (hang power clean, front squat, press overhead, back squat, press overhead behind the neck)

  3. WITH A BARBELL MODIFIED
    *It is possible that there is not enough weight for some big movements to be challenging, you can still use them but make the reps harder by doing the eccentric slowly (5 seconds) or including pauses/holds during the execution of the movement).

Front squat
Back squat
Bench press
Romanian deadlift

  1. BODYWEIGHT
    Air squat
    Bodyweight lunges
    Push ups
    Pull ups
    Bench/box jumps
    Burpees
    Mountain clmbers

And most decent hotel gyms do have some machine (chest press, shoulder press, lat pulldown) which can also be added to the training. So really you can easily design a decent workout in an hotel.

You could do yoiur workouts like this:

  1. Strength like/Olympic lift
  2. 2-3 muscle building exercises
  3. metabolic circuit of bodyweight and lifting exercises… for example:
    15 DB thrusters + 10 push ups + 30 air squats + 10 renegade row

As for the next 3 weeks I would suggest reducing the volume but doing a bit more heavy lifting. Yiu could do the “Look like a bodybuilder, perform like an athlete” for 3-4 weeks, It’s much less demanding and will allow you to recover.